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."

beniah: international superstar

obviously i am completely unbiased, but it seems the korean people really know a cute baby when they see one.

i often get asked if i'm like a "superstar" in kora because i'm tall, i'm american, have red hair and pretty much stick out. "do a lot of people stare at you?" i have been asked a number of times. the truth is no, especially not in the city. although i have had my share of moments, those just mostly took place in central and south america.

this trip to south korea was quite a bit different in this regard, we seemed to get lots of attention, lots of eyes and lots of comments. and of course when i say "we" i mean beniah. it was actually a little crazy, on no less than five separate occasions did random strangers, often two or three at a time, pull out their camera phones and take pictures of him. christe's mom would then very sweetly ask for 10,000 won or about 8 dollars.

on one evening christe was really craving a waffle, which is a dessert not a breakfast in korea. so we found a little cafe were three college girls happened to be working and ordered our waffle, which seemed to take a little longer than usual because the workers were very distracted. we sit down and almost immediately the manager rushes over with a cookie for b. after his first bite we turn to thank them again and all three girls were hunched over the counter, propped up on their elbows just staring at b with these big smiles, it was then the manager quickly realized she had forgotten to bring beniah some milk.

i guess beautiful people really do get free stuff.

happy anniversary

more to come on our korea trip, but first...

feed my sheep

while visiting my mom in korea we headed to kangnun to see my extended family. dave had met most of my mom's side on our last trip to korea, but because we were not yet engaged he did not meet my grandmother. i thought this was a little silly, i mean he had traveled half way around the world to meet my mom..we had discussed marriage..but my mom insisted. so this trip became the "meet grandma" trip for both dave and beniah. and thanks to everyone around him saying make sure you do this, but don't do that.. dave was a little concerned, to which my mom replied, "you are already married and have a baby, she can't do anything now". it was great to sit around the table with tons of my family-something i had done when i was younger-but this time with my family in attendance. the lunch went well, dave and i bowed to my grandmother and grandfather's brother and everyone got to love on beniah. overall it was a great afternoon.
then my uncle took us up to a sheep farm and beniah had a blast feeding the sheep! at first beniah was a little hesitant..and then he went through 4 baskets of straw all on his own. next to us was a couple with a very scared young woman who couldn't bring herself to hand the straw to the sheep on her own. he boyfriend pointed at beniah and said "look, the BABY is doing it!"