thoughts on leadership

The people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. All you have to do is tell them that they are in danger of being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Hermann Goering (1893 - 1946)

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

Colin Powell (1937 - )

testimony time

a buddy of mine is serving in india, we get regular updates from him and i always look forward to the section he titles "testimony time". the following is his most recent testimony.

“Yah, yah!”
“No.”
I look at her straight in the eyes, trying to convince.
Please let it stop.
“Yah, yah!”
She follows me with her words as I walk away.
I feel her tug my arm with one dusty hand as she holds out the other.
“No.” I wave my hand up in a stop sign, continuing to walk away.
“Yah, yah!”

To my untrained ear, this sounds really arrogant.
I told her plainly no.
I had my reasons.
Hundreds of millions of poor. Will I stop for everyone?
Corruption and greed infiltrate normal, need-based begging.
There are better ways to help.

Yet she follows me and shouts, “Yah, yah!”
I feel like we are arguing.
No-Yeah-No-Yeah
“She is not saying ‘Yeah,’” my friend explains.
“She is saying ‘Ayya.’
“It is a term of high respect, like ‘Sir.’”
Oh.

The theology of poverty in India is similar as in the states.

The thought is, "How can I help the poor?"

We forget...we ARE the poor.

To see needy people is no longer difficult for me.
It doesn’t pain anymore to walk by the poor, the crippled, the malformed.
I adjusted to that a while ago.
The challenge is to keep them close.
To feel that they are not a number, but that they are your brother, the very image of God.

A man may give his son an apple because he knows it’s good for him.
But he also gives him candy, because he knows it’s good for both of them.
Undeserved, unhealthy, unhelpful candy.
And should I constrain my giving only to what is helpful?
But what will that do to help my soul?

a.s.who?

had this sent to me by a fellow alum.

no. 1 reason to attend u of a over asu: we already know how to read!

thanks jamie!

if you eat it, they will like you

in the summer of 2000 i spent three weeks in sao paulo, brazil on a short-term missions trip. i stayed with a host family along with one other guy in our group. maybe four or five days into your trip my roommate tom said to me about our hosts, "i think they like your more than they like me." not really believing him i responded, "why do you think that?"

"because you eat everything they put in front of you".

i teach geography and i tell my students repeatedly, "just because its different doesn't mean its deficient." this goes for food as well, except the kicker is food is tied to who we are as a people. have you ever heard someone from wisconsin talk about sausages, someone from maryland talk about crab cakes, someone from phili talk about cheese steaks, chicago talk about deep dish, colorado talk about beer, cali talk about sprouts, the south talk about...anything that will clog your arteries?

the same is true about those in different countries...truer, because there is a longer history of food, there is a deeper community surrounding food and frankly more likely a chance that food wasn't alway readily available like it typically is here in the states. in a lot of countries people eat all parts of animals because they didn't have the luxury of throwing excess away.

my last experience in korea was no different, i sat cross-legged, with achy knees at 18" tables with a million tiny dishes in front of me. "whats this?" i ask my mother-in-law. most of the time she would tell me, sometimes she would say, "just try it" and then she would tell me.

i would eat using chop-sticks, because thats what people use and it would take me longer to eat and i would continue eating long after everyone else was done and watch them clear dishes out of the way to move more food in front of me.

christe would look at me adoringly, "they like you".

"why?"

"because most americans don't eat this stuff."