Month: September 2023

I’ve spoken to multiple people who connect the Star Wars idea of The Force to what they experience as a divine, beyond-the-physical-universe, spiritual power.  It’s the vague-but-real sense of experiencing Nature. I know some Unitarians who, when asked whom they are praying to, say “Love.”  Warm, fuzzy, safe.

Jesus used the descriptor of ‘friends’ for his disciples:

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15, NIV)

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.” (Luke 12:4, NIV)

Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.” Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. (Matthew 26:50, NIV)

He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. (John 21:5, NIV)

The Force is impersonal, abstract.  Friendship is intensely personal.  Friends like one another and enjoy being together.  I’m speaking here of true friendship, not ‘Facebook’ friends.

The conviction that Jesus likes me as His disciple, and enjoys me, sustains me through up and down days and weeks.  This conviction converts crushing loneliness into rich solitude.  A personal connection, being known, is to some far less safe than an abstract and distant ‘divine power.’ But I will take the embrace of friendship as the greater treasure.  As Mr. Beaver said of Aslan, ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

My home office window looks out to a large gardenia bush.  I’m reliably informed that it should flower once annually each Spring, a massive display of white flowers that practically cover all the greenery.  This bush does indeed bloom like this.  But it also sends out occasional blooms at other times.  Sometimes just one or two.  One day in late August I counted 21 blooms.  Today there are 9 blooms.

This encourages me.  God can make something bloom “at the wrong time” and be beautiful.  I’m not in charge of Creation (though I’m commanded to help steward it as a co-ruler with God).  An “untimely” flower in the hottest and driest time in the Florida panhandle brings joy.  Perhaps this is a picture of what God is doing amidst what appear to us as worrisome and stressful times.

Homeostasis is a set of processes which bring things back to ‘normal’ – like how your body works to keep your temperature steady. 

Allostasis is a more recently invented terminology which better explains our full physiology.  We have stores of energy and more oxygen processing capacity than we need when we’re resting – because when we need to exert ourselves we can.  We can operate at a higher level of output for long periods when necessary.   Our hormonal systems (e.g., adrenaline) can make us hyper-alert and ready to change.  Yet basic cellular maintenance continues (e.g., red blood cell replacements, detoxification in the liver, immune system hunting down viruses). 

Allostasis is more how we need to think about our lives.  Some things need to be rock-steady; for everything else we must be able to surge capability, and be adaptable.  We can develop physical and mental capacity through training before we need it in the crisis moment. 

…

I finished listening to this podcast series on The Cold War.  Highly recommended.  It brought back many memories and gave me information I didn’t know.  I’m older than most of my work colleagues, who don’t have memories of bomb drills in school or long gas lines or maps showing the most likely nuclear targets.  (I lost recess privileges one day when I explained to our class that crouching under our desks was not going to save us from thermonuclear war, and apparently scared the other children.)  I remember the ‘malaise’ of the 1970’s and the despair of some families whose sons died in Vietnam.  There was no formal declaration of war with the Soviets but it was bloody, and thankfully only bloody short of nuclear weapons.  It was an incredible relief when the Soviet Union fell after the Berlin Wall came down.    

The West beat the Soviets on technology innovation and economics. (The US spent 3% of GDP, the Soviets 25%!)  Yet the real power of the West – Individualism vs. Collectivism — was the moral difference. The Soviet leaders were killers and murdered millions of their own citizens.  Kennan ended his famous “long telegram” with this counsel:

“We must have courage and self confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet Communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.”

The US is in a kind of cold war with China today, albeit different in many dimensions.  Perhaps someday there will be a good historical review of this cold war.  How will our times be remembered?  What stories are we living now?  How can we maintain our efforts to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, flawed as we are?

Perhaps I should be thinking about what allostasis is needed now for peace and human thriving in the future.

Our dog Watson’s world is contracting.  He can’t hear or see well.  He’s on multiple medications for Cushings and other problems.  He loses his doggy mind sometimes for reasons we don’t understand, especially later in the day. He is more sweet than smart. He’s always been an anxious pup but now he’s an anxious old man (about 12-13 years, we think; Watson was a rescue).  I should get a T-shirt that says “Not the Momma” because my beloved wife is the gravitation center of his universe. No one is second.  I might be fourth, good for walks and belly rubs.

The smaller his world becomes, the more attached Watson is to my wife.  He follows her around closely.  He’s not truly happy or settled without her close presence.  Watson wanders around the house looking for her when she’s out, again, and again.  

In part, this is an image of following Jesus.  There’s an old Jewish saying, “May you be covered by the dust of your rabbi,” meaning that you’re close enough that you breathe in the dust raised as your rabbi walks ahead of you.

Watson’s devotion to Cathy is tiresome at times, and she occasionally longs for a break.  The Gospel accounts make it clear that Jesus loved his disciples, but I’m pretty sure he looked forward to times alone.  Perhaps this is why he occasionally said “Go!”  (Just kidding.)

…

We had two intense thunderstorms two days ago.  (We live in one of the lightning capitols of the world, apparently.)  Watson loses control, becomes inconsolable, quakes, drools, pants with sustained panic.  My beloved was out at an appointment, so “not the momma” tried patiently to calm him. 

I think after all these years of living safely inside through thunderstorms he would learn that he doesn’t need to panic.  He doesn’t need to hyperventilate, because the storm will end and he will be fine all through it.  Not so. 

Reflecting on this, it does remind me to ponder what my gravitational center is.  How many storms have God carried me through, and yet I still am instantly likely to panic and worry?  As Jesus challenged the disciples, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25)   

Vines are my nemesis in our yard.  My beloved wife tells people, “It’s Glenn vs. the Vines!” 

I’ve identified 5 different varieties so far.  Four have thorns.  Two of the varieties grow 1-2” a day (yes, I’ve measured this), at least 10 months of the year.  Left unchecked they will take over an azalea bush or oak tree in a few months.  They are uncannily capable of using any vertical surface to climb. At least we don’t have kudzu. 

I’ve whacked off the vines close to ground level.  This certainly gives the plants, trees, and fence relief.  But they’ll start growing back immediately.

“OK, let’s kill the whole plant!”  I’ve carefully pulled the vines away from bushes, laid them down on a plastic bag, and sprayed them with herbicide.  This is better, but I’ve yet to completely kill them.  It doesn’t work at all for two of the five varieties. They glow better with RoundUp™ treatment, I swear! 

Digging up the root systems has been a hopeless effort.  The network of fine roots breaks off.  It looks like one way these vines spread is by sending out long roots underground to new locations to pop up. 

“OK, let’s try a stronger herbicide.”  I picked up a potent herbicide at a local Ace Hardware, described to me as “Agent Orange for the suburbs” in hushed tones by the store employee.  The label warns “Powerful defoliant, use with caution.” It works better, but after a few weeks the vines reappear.  Apparently, the extensive root systems are difficult to kill off.

I’m left with a monthly battle against the vines.  Spray, slash, rip. It’s weirdly satisfying to fill our yard waste bin.  I tell myself it’s part of my “move more” exercise program. 

It occurs to me that this is an interesting picture of evil.  We fight it, we beat it back, we cut it off, we blast it with armaments, but the deep roots are never killed off entirely.  Tolkien has Gandalf explain that the evil Sauron is only an emissary of a greater evil.  Paul reminded the Ephesian church that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 6:12, NIV) Our task is to fight evil when we find it, and trust that the Ultimate Evil Fighter will vanquish it someday. 

The normal situation in your career as a team or organization leader is “We don’t have enough people/money/whatever to comfortably do everything we’d like to do, or are asked to do.” 

There will be plenty of times when you need to run on lean.  In fact, I encourage you to develop the ability to excel while running on lean resources.  You should be trimming unproductive fat from the program – that’s simply smart management.

The reason why a trained runner only needs the calories of a Wendy’s Triple burger to run a sub-3 hour marathon is that her body is highly efficient.  From the mitochondria up to organ systems and total cardiovascular capacity, every calorie of fuel is burned efficiently. 

I suggest you apply strategic allocation to the portfolio of your team’s work that turn into results which measurable help the organization.  This distribution is not at an individual level, but the overall team.

70% of the total team effort needs to go to imperatives (must-do’s) and high ROI initiatives which you will happily feature in the end-of-year summary. 

20% of the total team effort should go to a rich mix of wins.  Include some work to develop new capabilities and streamline existing capability to improve productivity.  There is undoubtedly some run-maintain work that is necessary to avoid a future crisis.  Identify areas of growth and innovation, too, based on what you can anticipate about future organization needs.  Not all this needs to be visible to the world; there are plenty of high ROI projects which are foundational and enabling phases of work.  But nothing in this 20% should be embarrassing to discuss.

10% of the total team effort should go into capability & capacity development.  New business and technical skills.  Improved people skills.  Investment in relationships with other groups.  Onboarding new hires.  Better documentation and cross-training.

Why 70-20-10?  Every time I’ve seen a group let one of these 3 get too large, or too small, bad things began to happen.  This distribution isn’t magic, and still requires disciplined execution for success, but it’s a proven pattern you can replicate.

At this point you’re probably saying, “But…” and I’m sure you’re half-right.  Only half.  Push your work into these three categories.  Check at least quarterly to see if the team is still on track. 

I like being around smart people.  One of the best things about the R&D group I work for is that I’m rarely the smartest person in the conversation.  Years ago I got in a rough spot and seriously considered shifting to a different industry.  My smarter-than-me beloved wife pointed out that I would be less happy to work in an environment where I was nearly always the smartest person in the room.

Yet, it’s not an IQ thing.  It’s about people who consistently do hard things.  That’s the real value of an excellent peer. 

Those hard things can include:

Solving difficult multi-dimensional technical problems

Skillfully navigating emotional situations and egos

Being professional and doing a job well, even the parts you don’t like

Sacrificing your immediate interests for the good of others

Being faithful in a marriage which is not exciting and loaded with struggles

Resisting deep-but-wrong desires

Parenting toddlers and teens and young adults

Reading hard books

Mastering new crafts and new skills

Learning to be content

Fighting for joy amidst painful losses

Leading people through crisis and change

You and I do well to surround ourselves with people who consistently do hard things.  These are the people who seek wisdom and have earned wisdom to share.  These are the deep people. 

They’ll be your biggest encouragers, too, because they know.  Their challenges might not be exactly like yours, but they know. 

It’s useful, and necessary, to think about these two questions simultaneously:

Am I thinking big enough?

Am I thinking small enough?

I observe that most of us, most of the time, aren’t thinking big enough.  Our views about God are abysmally small.  (Helpful hint:  Read Your God is Too Small by J.B. Phillips.)  We have doubts or wildly incorrect views about our individual potential.  Though we overestimate what we can do in a short time, or by ourselves, we usually underestimate what groups can accomplish over time.  We were made for big things, serving an infinitely big God.

We were made for small things, too.  The smallest kindness and courtesies are valuable.  Creation is beautiful and marvelous at every scale, and much hinges on the tiniest organisms.  Every thought has power.  Every breath is precious.  Every look and word between people has meaning.  Every journey begins with a single step.  Our entire life is a blip on the geological or cosmic scale – what significance do we truly deserve?

Thinking big and small is a good strategy to keep us humble yet aligned with our great purpose.