Pentecost

I really enjoyed this devotion from Elizabeth Sherrill over on ourprayer.org:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
Acts 2:1 (RSV)

Today, on Pentecost Sunday, we read the account in Acts of the once confused and frightened followers of Jesus empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach, heal and carry the glad news of His salvation to the ends of the earth.

But Pentecost is not just a Sunday. Today ends the fifty-day Easter season; tomorrow begins the six-month season after Pentecost, the longest in the year and, for me, the most challenging, because after Pentecost the story is open-ended. After Pentecost the story is still being written.

For the next twenty-six weeks the Word asks what I am doing with the Spirit’s gift.
I’m uncomfortable with this second half of the year. Me, carry the sacred story forward? Me, become Jesus’ hands and feet and voice? How can I? How would I know His will? How would I find the strength?

By coming together, the Word tells me on Pentecost, with other believers. This is the birthday of the church, that great Body assembled “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Revelation 7:9, RSV). Today I’m going to renew my commitment to church attendance and to joining with fellow believers wherever I can. It is when we gather all together in one place that the Spirit gives us wisdom and power. It’s from that place that He sends us out, as He sent the disciples on this day, to carry His blessings to the world.
Holy Spirit, draw us together, that when we go each to our own assignment, we may go in the strength that comes only from You.

By Elizabeth Sherrill

Of Baboons and Bosses

Of Baboons and Bosses

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Thinking About Leadership & Followership

The following excerpt comes from Leadership and the Quest for Integrity by J. Badaracco and R. Ellsworth (1989)

As most people can attest from personal experience, many individuals enter companies with drive, energy, and ideas—attributes commonly associated with leadership—only to have unchallenged conventional wisdom, the emphasis on specialization and technique, bureaucratic processes, political infighting, and the erosive pressure of day-to-day problems stifle their leadership abilities.  In this sense, leadership can be unlearned. Also some organizations are simply sick. Cautions, political behavior has metastasized like cancer throughout them. In these cases, the right approach is usually to get out.

So-what does a leader do, what does a follower do about:

• ·      unchallenged conventional wisdom,
  
• ·      emphasis on specialization and technique,
  
• ·      bureaucratic processes,
  
• ·      political infighting,
  
• ·      erosive pressure of day-to-day problems

What does courage have to do with these things?

Friends

How to Build Friendships
By Norman Vincent Peale

Building strong relationships with others will make your life more positive and fulfilling. These 10 steps will help you find and keep lifelong friends.

1. If you genuinely like people, enjoy being with them, talking with them, and being helpful to them, you will find that people generally will like you.

2. Become interested in the other person's ideas and activities. Direct conversation to the other individual's interests, rather than talking about yourself.

3. Practice the old saying: "To have friends, be friendly."

4. Remember names. A person's name is important to him. Knowing it will help you get along with him.

5. Be an easy-going comfortable sort of person, so that there is no strain in being with you.

6. Be stimulating. If being with you makes people feel better and more alive, you will be sought after; people will want to be with you.

7. Do not rub people the wrong way. Be courteous and affable.

8. Avoid being sensitive, or easily hurt; for people instinctively shy off from the super-sensitive, fearing to arouse an unpleasant reaction.

9. Sincerely attempt to heal every misunderstanding that you have with others.

10. Love people and do things for them. Perform unselfish and outgoing acts of friendship. Such sincere self-giving inevitably leads to pleasant
personal relations. It is all summed up in a familiar Scripture admonition: "Do for others what you want them to do for you." (See Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:3 1.)


Excerpted from Help Yourself with God's Help by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, 1976. Copyright © 2004 Guideposts

Memorial Day Weekend

My head is full of ideas about blogging and starting a serious site. But likely those ideas will have to wait as doctoral homework demands my time.

This weekend I will continue reading and researching for my literature review on courage. I am considering (strongly) including followership in the lit review as well. Courage is a bit shallow when it comes to empirical research. There is discussion about actions such as feedback that comes from courage but I'm finding nothing that talks about how to enhance  courage, build courage, even encourage courage!  

Very fascinating stuff though. Lots of questions about following, why do we follow even when we follow bad leaders, why do we blindly accept the wrong solutions when we believe in a better way but keep quiet, where is the courage for a leader to listen to someone under him/her?  

On a personal note, I have had 1.5cc of saline removed from my lapband in order to improve my nutrition and health. My doctor has given me 2 months in order to improve my blood work else I have to begin a series of special shots or have a blood transfusion. I'd like to avoid those!  So, although I'm eating more, I do worry about weight gain. It's been two long years since I've had good nutrition and my body is going to freak. So we'll see.

Ray wants to race tonight, J works till 10. Tomorrow J works till 10 again but we are all off on Monday.  They want to go boating but I am not into the boating. I'll sit on the side of the lake and read about courage and followership.

Weary

I saw this on a blog as I've tried to rest and read today. 

side note:  I began taking iron supplements today in an effort to boost my red blood count level. From the research I've done, if all goes well, I could be back to normal energy level and readings in 4 weeks.  I am hopeful that all will go well. I've contacted the lady who does my fills hoping to get an unfill down to 1.7 soon in the hopes of increasing my caloric intake and thus improve my nutrition.

Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities, by Elizabeth Edwards, was published by Broadway Books on Friday, May 8, 2009. It is an honest searching book that explores her own struggles to be resilient in the face of the death of a son, her terminal cancer, and the marital infidelity of her husband, John Edwards. Here is a quotation: 

On Acceptance 
"This is the life we have now, and the only way to find peace, the only way to be resilient when these landmines explode beneath your foundation, is first to accept that there is a new reality. The life the army wife knew before her husband went to war, the life of the patient before the word "terminal" was said aloud, the life of the mother who sat reading by her son's bed and not his grave, these lives no longer exist and the more we cling to the hope that these old lives might come back, the more we set ourselves up for unending discontent....My life was and would always be different, and it would be less than I hoped it would be. Each time, there was a new life, a new story." 
p. 31

Peter Rollins Post

Peter Rollins posted a thought provoking essay on his blog today.

Visit http://peterrollins.net/blog/ for the full essay.

I really like the first quote from Kierkegaard:

One gift has been given me and in such a degree that I can call it genius it is the gift of conversation, of being able to talk with everyone.
This happy gift was given to me in order to conceal the undoubted fact that I am the most silent man of my day.
Silence hid in silence is suspicious, arouses mistrust, it is just as though one were to betray something; at least betrayed that one was keeping silence. But silence concealed by a decided talent for conversation as true as ever I live that is silence. Soren Kierkegaard, Journals

Towards the end of the piece, Rollins writes:
Of course there are very few who can truly touch our subjective world, who can touch the secret that we are to ourselves.

In thinking about this essay, it is very pointed for me as I am a very private person. Most people wouldn't describe me as such, initially, but to really know me is to understand that I have a very small inner circle and limit my friends to few and my acquaintences to many.

However I think the closest of the close for our inner circle still are not allowed the view to our most initimate thoughts, fears, ugly jealousy, or odd ideas. I believe we shield ourselves from others but if you are a believer, Christ is the one that knows your true heart. Christ is the one that sees the jealousy, the regrets, the hopes, the frustrations, and the joys. Hopefully Christ is the rock, the sustainer, the celebrant, and the comforter.

I struggle daily though to try and close the gap between the me in my head and the me I demonstrate for the world.

Exhaustion

Ready for the Weekend

Alex-are you still out there?

The weekend brings renewal. I'm looking forward to bringing this week to a close.  I was able to finally get Anita's paper submitted. I am so glad it is done. I will remember that paper as the "swine flu" paper. Although I am blessed I did not have the swine flu, I had some strange bug that caused nausea and I couldn't eat, it absolutely zapped my energy and now I've ended up anemic. I had blood work done on Monday and they were "concerned" that my iron level was 2.6 when a normal adult if 60-150!  They gave me some pills I've supposed to take 3 times a day BUT here are the restrictions:  take with food, do not take with my antibiotic (wait one hour on each side of the antibiotic) and thus that restricts me to NO TIME.  I guess it didn't compute to them that it takes me so long to eat and get something down, that by then it's time to take another antibiotic and the other medicine just doesn't fit in! HA!

Thankfully I am better and hoping this full, free weekend brings rest and renewal. Now time to turn my attention to:

• Lit review on followership and courage
  
• Qualitative Project
  
• Reading Book 3 for Anita
  
• Reading Book 3 for Alex
  

Do-able, right?  RIGHT!

Exhaustion

I am exhausted in every way. Physically and mentally. The energy from being a "new PhD" student has worn off awhile ago, the energy from the light at the end of tunnel has not yet arrived.  I'm behind and I'm overwhelmed.  However I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Hope that proves worthy.

I'm sick as a dog-two weeks and can't keep food down, gotta focus on protein intake.  This week I struggled to keep water down. By Friday though, I'd been able to drink two jugs of water and am now keeping solid food down-just gotta focus on the content of the food.

Work:  overwhelming

School:  so behind = overwhelming

Home: dirty = overwhelming

So stinkin tired too.  Ugg.

Good Blog Resource

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/05/04/my-25-favorite-personal-finance-career-and-personal-development-blogs/

Great Quote

I just saw this quote on a prayer site. It is too good to not repeat.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.—Abraham Lincoln

It reminds me that I'm not perfect and will never be-only Christ has achieved that.  I just need to be the best I can be, each day, and allow myself to forgive and embrace all the good things that God provides.