Foundational Missions

April 23, 2024April 23, 2024

Self-Life vs Life of Service

The greatest among you shall be your servant … What's He talking about? Is He saying that the servants, literally those who serve us, are the greatest from His point of view? This is counterintuitive, and the mind of man will almost not have it. It has to mean something other than that. He must have something else in mind if we are to defend our personal superiority.

I think it can be safely said that no one is trying to be the most servile, or at least not many. Love God and serve people. We get into trouble when we get this backwards. Yes, we do serve God, but by and through our service to people.

March 1, 2024February 29, 2024

Leaders Hurt Us

I remember reading, many years ago, that few who are called to leadership successfully navigate the obstacles on the way so as to realize the calling in full. I believe this is true. Much of the time these obstacles are put down by our leaders themselves–the very ones who are trying to help us reach our potential. Often, this happens through the leader's weakness, our personal weakness, or a collision of the two. Here are some things I'm learning about this, some of them the hard way, that I believe will help you avoid the stumbling blocks.

January 11, 2024January 12, 2024

Personal Hurt

A sense of betrayal–very hard to get over–may be a sign that we made more of something than we should have, and along with that, perhaps more still of those people who were visible/central in the making of the betrayal. This can keep us from being able to recover as we should, having been deceived and left believing we were “misled” by what appears to be calculating individuals. Perhaps they too were deceived and the mistake, though destructive, was otherwise more honest than we want to believe?

October 17, 2023December 22, 2023

Foundations of Power

Many years ago I heard a brief discussion on the subject of bases of power, and it has intrigued me off and on since then. I am not sure if this is interesting to many people, but, for me, it helps to put things into a general context–both for understanding where we have been and for where things are going–as it relates to power and mankind. This sketch is a generalization that will hopefully frame up a perspective, helping to inform our view of the world–past, present, and future.