Hate is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Have you seen this? What do you think about it?

http://www.businessinsider.com/gay-businessman-deeply-sorry-for-hosting-ted-cruz-event-2015-4

It seems to me that more dialogue is beneficial, gracious, and humanizing. When "conservatives" do not engage people of differing ideologies they are labeled as bigots, narrow-minded, and hateful.

Here we have two homosexual men, Reisner and Weiderpass, having a dialogue with a Republican, anti-gay marriage senator, Ted Cruz. Yet the response from the LGBTQ community is a hateful condemnation of the event and a call to boycott the couples' businesses.

It seems to me this is the same sort of bigoted, hateful, narrow-minded thinking the LGBTQ community rails against in "conservatives."

Would it not be more productive to praise both parties for their desire to engage in civil dialogue in search of mutual understanding and common ground? As long as dialogue is seen as "consorting with the enemy" progress across any gulf that separates two ideologies will be hard won. As for me, I will write an email to Reisner and Weiderpass and thank them for hosting the event, encourage them to host more such events, and embolden them to call out the hypocrisy of their friends.

Here are the best shots from my next trip through Pilanesberg Game Park, truly one of my favorite places in the world. Like my other favorite place in the world, Yellowstone National Park, Pilanesberg is a caldera; a volcano crater from an ancient super-eruption. I am not sure if there is something about calderas that appeal to me but it seems there is something special aabout them.

Here are my best shots seen in the order they were taken. In a way it is a virtual safari. What you don't see is all the time spent driving around and seeing nothing! You get to see a couple minutes of highlights from 10 hours in a car in a safari park!

animals:
Yellow Horn Bill
my favorite watering hole
Impala
Guinea Fowl
Wildebeest
Lion
Rhino
in the park there are observation blinds but getting to them can be exciting
Red Hartebeest
Dung Beetle
Egret
Cormerant
Weaver nests
Warthog
Hamerkop
Wrestling Elephants
Waterbuck
Lions covered in the blood of the wildebeest they just killed
The impala is walking a few hundred yards from the lions/wildebeest kill where the cars are
Ditto the Elephant, notice in the next two elephant shots the rhino and wildebeest on the opposite shore of the lake. I didn't even see them until I looked at my pictures back here in the states!
Kingfisher
Baby crocodile
Hippo
baby Kudu

Back to the "Cradle of Humankind"

Friends, in 1996 my wife and I moved to South Africa with our 3 year old and 10 month old. It was the best 6 months of my life. For us, a highlight was a safari at Pilanesberg Park about 1.5 hrs from our home in Johannesburg. One of my pictures from Africa was my first entry to the Indiana State Fair photography competition. I got an honorable mention! During the critique the judges felt my "choice of matte color could have been better but the image was superb." I made great friends and memories while in South Africa.

After 19 years of pining and praying I finally returned to South Africa and Pilanesberg. The country has changed significantly. The infrastructure is more fragile. Jo'burg is swollen with people and now forms the lower part of a megalopolis that engulfs Pretoria to SoWeTo (South West Township). Yet the beauty of South Africa remains.

I rented a car and drove out to Pilanesberg for a few days to visit one of my favorite places in the world. I have culled my 1000 pictures to four sets of slides; one for each trip into the park. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Pilanesberg Safari Day 1

What a fantstic first day back at Pilanesberg. I drove from Roodeport in the morning and arrived around 11am. En route, I picked up peanut butter, honey, and a loaf of bread. At Pilanesberg's Manyane "Resort" I checked into my tent and immediately headed into the park. I started at this watering hole where the herd of elephant went by me. From there it seemed around every corner I found more of God's great creation.

Back in the Saddle

I will spare you a long story re: my silence and simply say it is good to be back. It is also good to have my camera gear back from the Canon Service Center. So, in celebration and for your edification I give you a collection of pics taken a couple days ago to document the visitors to our bird feeder here in Xenia.

Book Review: The Coach Model

THE COACH MODEL

By Keith Webb

“Coaching is not about certificates, it’s about being helpful to others” Keith Webb

Recently, Bob Tiede introduced me to The Coach Model by Keith Webb. Keith is a Professional Certified Coach, consultant, and speaker who specializes in leadership development. I found his book easy to read and very practical. I have already applied some of his techniques in conversations with family members, friends, and new acquaintances. In all honesty I find his approach refreshing and fun, though I do struggle with being patient and letting the conversation evolve at its own pace. Here are some highlights from the book.

Available at Amazon

Coaching is an ongoing intentional conversation that empowers a person or group to fully live out God’s calling. Coaches empower people to think more deeply, discover their own path and experience empowerment to realize that path. Written as an equation Listen+ ask + allow = empower

A good coach and leader begins with this question in mind, “How can I, as a leader who is responsible for others, not teach or remind?” Remember, 1) it is not my responsibility to change others; the Holy Spirit can and will do it on his own–maybe with me but often without me, and 2) it is not my responsibility to correct everything that I think is out of sync with Scripture, company policy, or best practices.

Keith offers “The Coach Model” below to help coaches structure coaching times:

C–connect: connect with the person to build rapport and trust; follow-up on action steps and indulge in some good old-fashioned small talk. Demonstrate, and have a genuine interest in the person you coach.

If this is not the first meeting, this phase is also a good opportunity to follow up on the previous meeting.

Possible questions:

What progress did you make in your action steps?

What? So what? Now what?

What? Designed to raise the coachees awareness of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors

So what? Reinforce learning by extending it into other areas of life. How can you extend the learning? Where else could you apply what you’ve learned? How do you want to do things differently in the future?

O–outcome: outcome is the intended result the coachee would like to achieve.

In this phase of the conversation the coach helps the coachee to reflect more deeply, and draw out how God is guiding. It’s critical to find out what the coachee considers to be the most valuable topic for each coaching conversation.

Example questions:

What would make today’s conversation meaningful for you?

Exploring: What would achieving this do for you?

Clarifying: What would success look like to you?

Focusing: That’s a big topic what would you like to focus on today?

Confirm the outcome: Are we making the progress you hope for in our

                                    conversation?

A–awareness: awareness is a reflective dialogue intended to produce discoveries, insights, and increased perspective for the coachee.

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.”–Galileo Galilei

Discoveries are a fundamental part of the coaching experience, and are the ultimate goal of the awareness step. Coachees make discoveries about themselves, their situation, their potential, their actions, their in action, their assumptions, their values. The thrill of discovery produces new thoughts emotions perspectives and determination.

Coaches stimulate or even provoke reflection.

“The most effective way to influence both individual and institutional behavior is to ask questions.”–Lyle Schaller

“Open questions are the single sure practice that invites critical thinking and effective learning.”–Jane Vella affirms that adults learn best through dialogue and questions that promote dialogue.

The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws the amount. Proverbs 20:5

Forward questions

What would excellent resolution of this look like?

What are possible next steps for the team?

Who might be able to help?

How do you prefer to learn new things?

To expand horizons and possibilities, ask questions from different perspectives: relational, financial, motivational, organizational, spiritual, etc.

Feedback: raise awareness by not giving feedback, draw out their own feedback.

What did you do well?

What could you improve?

How would you do differently next time?

C–course: Put feet to insights and discoveries by helping the coachee create action steps.

Coaches help people create action steps using the conversational skills of active listening and powerful questions. Coaching helps coaches to create action steps that will move them forward toward their goal. Remember, the best action steps are: simple, goal oriented, doable

H–highlights: Highlights focus on reviewing the parts of the conversation that the coachee found most meaningful. This reinforces the coachee’s insights and important points and strengthens his learning. Again, questions are the most powerful way to uncover the highlights. Ask the coachee what he/she felt were the highlights.

Highlights questions:

What do you want to remember from today’s conversation?

What was most useful to you from our conversation?

What are your takeaways from this conversation?

To truly grow an organization, leaders and teams must reach organizational objectives and develop the capacity of the people in the organization. An effective supervisor seeks to accomplish the 2 goals simultaneously, reaching organizational objectives while developing employees. The COACH model offers all leaders and coaches a great framework for achieving those goals. 

Logic and Theology: Grad School Speech

On my Facebook page a few weeks ago I asked people why they do, or do not believe in the existence of God. As part of my graduate studies I needed to deliver two speeches. I chose to do one that would illustrate a primary reason for my faith.

Here is the transcript for my 3 minute speech given during my Master's Degree studies. For your amusement I have included the class critique of the speech (it gets cut off) so the video is about 6 minutes long. I do want to say that Dr. Mike Hazel is a fantastic teacher and researcher. I miss him and the other GU faculty.

Video: Logic and Theology
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Transcript: Logic and Theology

Jefferson and Adams. Lewis and Clark, Antony & Cleopatra, peanut butter & chocolate, Narcissus and well, Narcissus. Over the eons there have been many great pairings. Pairings of people, things or ideas. I have found that the discipline of logic can be a great pairing with theology – the study of the nature of God.

C.S. Lewis, a professor at Cambridge University had this to say about Jesus Christ. “I am trying to prevent anyone from the foolish statement, ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher.” By applying logic to the life of Jesus he developed the idea of the “trilemma” a choice between 3 mutually exclusive choices.

You may recall that Jesus was killed because he claimed to be God. This was blasphemy of the most heinous sort to the Jewish rulers and this was the reason they used to get Jesus killed.

When someone makes a claim to be God there are really only 3 choices. The claim is true, or the claim is false. If the claim is false the person was either lying, or crazy. So the three choices are God, crazy or liar.

Dr. Henry Cloud, a psychologist in So.Cal. tells the story of a missionary woman who had been out on the mission field for too long. She was elderly and hospitalized for mental illness. One day, she walked out into the hall, let her robe fall off, and standing there naked proclaimed, “I am Mary, Mother of God.” Clearly, that was not the case and she was in fact, delusional.

When Jesus says that He is God he did not display any type of delusional behavior and his other statements have been recognized through the ages as profound. In fact, Jesus’ teachings are respected by religions outside of Christianity! I don’t know many people who would claim to knowingly follow a delusional person. And if he did I doubt he would convince many others to follow.

Of course Jesus spoke a lot about love and being truthful. In fact, he even said that everything he said was true. Juxtapose that with the claim to be God and things become problematic. To claim to be God, to tell others to be truthful and say that everything you say is truth is strong stuff. If he was not God and knew He was not God then he was a first rate liar, he let himself be killed for a lie by not denying that he was God, and he hypocritically told others to be truthful, while He was lying. That is not what great moral teachers are made of. Great moral teachers are men and women of integrity, not bold-faced liars.

That leaves us with option three; Jesus was God just as he claimed. If that is the case, then everything he said was true and needs to be included in His teaching, not just the stuff we like. And if that is true the option of “Jesus was a good moral teacher” is also off the table.

I am not going to tell you what to do with this information; I am merely suggesting that logic and theology make a great pair. Logic can help bring theological ideas into focus without compromising the intellect, or the spirit of faith.
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What about you? I would enjoy hearing your reasons for your belief, whether you believe there is a God or believe there is not a God.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mike

A Deafening Silence

It has been a long silence on this blog.

I am not happy about that.

The noise in my head is deafening. Finding my voice has been a challenge and continues to be a challenge: more noise stuck in my head.

Enough.

Now to attempt to calm the din and find my voice.

My journey for the past year has seen me complete a master's degree in commuication and leadership. I graduated on Mother's Day Weekend. I enjoyed a beautiful weekend with my wife as we took in the sights and sounds of Gonzaga Commencement. It was a wonderful weekend.

Traveling home on Mother's Day I called my mom from the airport and wished her a happy Mother's Day. My dad was sleeping so I didn't speak with him.

Exactly one week later I spoke to him as he died at my side in Hartford Hospital. I spoke to him but he had not spoken in almost a week.

Then this fall my wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary! We took a long awaited trip to Alaska. Probably the best vacation of my life. Driving around Alaska with my wife, enjoying the flora, fauna, friends and food was wonderful. With that trip I realized a life-long dream of visiting all 50 states.

But...

the din...

it is incessant.

So I think it is time to continue this journey and the destination for this leg is my voice. Time to face my fears and speak. Ironic for someone who teaches public speaking.

More soon.