HerbEly

Katrina: Post-Traumatic Personal Growth

There are some ghosts in today’s stories about recovery by the victims of Katrina. The GetReligion Blog defines "ghosts."

One minute they are there. The next they are gone. There are ghosts in there, hiding in the ink and the pixels. Something is missing in the basic facts or perhaps most of the key facts are there, yet some are twisted. Perhaps there are sins of omission, rather than commission.
A lot of these ghosts are, well, holy ghosts. They are facts and stories and faces linked to the power of religious faith

Here are two news stories about an ongoing study of the mental health and recovery of victims of Katrina. See if you can spot the ghosts in this story by AP writer Jeff Donn:

In a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a new survey reveals that the traumatized survivors of Hurricane Katrina forged a surprisingly powerful inner strength that steeled them against suicidal despair.

Maybe This is Why

From Martha, Martha by way of Steve

You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work out speedily and efficiently as we would like them to. The reason for this is not only the loving wisdom of God, but also the fact that our acts have to fit into a great complex pattern that we cannot possibly understand. I have learned over the years that Providence is always a whole lot wiser than any of us, and that there are always not only good reasons but the very best reasons for the delays and blocks that often seem to us so frustrating and absurd.
(The Hidden Ground of Love, Letters by Thomas Merton)

Through a long chain of circumstances and unsuccessful attempts at other activites Second International Conference on Intelligence the Ethics of National Security and Intelligence in Springfield VA in January 26-27, 2007. I just got tagged to write a working abstract. For that, see my next post.

Meek, who, Me?

Today's Gospel (Mt. 25:11-30) urges meekness. At first this is an unattractive, but this poem from Mary Karr's Sinners Welcome: Poems may remove some of the roadblocks.

Who the Meek Are Not

           Not the bristle-bearded Igors bent
under burlap sacks, not peasants knee-deep
           in the rice paddy muck,
nor the serfs whose quarter-moon sickles
           make the wheat fall in waves
they don't get to eat. My friend the Franciscan
           nun says we misread
that word meek in the Bible verse that blesses them.
           To understand the meek
(she says) picture a great stallion at full gallop
           in a meadow, who —
at his master's voice — seizes up to a stunned
           but instant halt.
So with the strain of holding that great power
           in check, the muscles
along the arched neck keep eddying,
           and only the velvet ears
prick forward, awaiting the next order.

From Poetry Daily

Your eMail has a 44% Chance of Being Misinterpreted

Go here to read the story and find out what you can do about it. Of course, the first thing I did is send it to all the president elects in Kiwanis Capital district's division five. As my son, Matt, pointed out: Dad you are sending them an email to warn them that emails are easily misinterpreted.

As the article points out, emai works best when it follows personal communication and when the emotional content of the message is low. Negative messages and disagreements should always be handled in person or by phone.

Ki and the Practice of Presence

    Martial Arts teachers often speak of Ki as an inner force and source of energy that flows through the body. The concept of Ki is vague and unproveable, yet reflection on experience shows that it exists. I certainly can provide no new answers, but here are some personal reflections based on my experience with Centering Prayer and traditional Tae Kwon Do (TKD).

    Before I give my own reflection, here is a discussion of Ki from martial arts faq.

Why Beginning Teachers Leave

Lisa Lambert writes in this morning's WaPo:

According to a new study from the National Education Association, a teachers union, half of new U.S. teachers are likely to quit within the first five years because of poor working conditions and low salaries.

The story reminded me of a long discussion that I had with my wife, youngest son – both teachers – oldest son – an engineer.  I’ve written before about how Education schools are failing to prepare their students in the most basic skill – classroom discipline and management. To me, this was a fraud: after four years of room, board, tuition and expenses, students should have been taught the most basic skill. Our oldest son observed that after four years of engineering education, he still needed extensive support during the first year on the job. He had learned many sub-disciplines in the engineering field. He still needed close supervision when he began his career.

Here, I suggest, is the difference. In most careers a novice is closely supervised and supported during those critical first months. This is absolutely essential. People notice an engineering mistake when a bridge falls down or an airplane falls out of the sky. Beginning teachers, however, are often left on their own. Some schools, particularly inner city or country ones, require special disciplinary skills. If beginning teachers don’t get the necessary support, they are likely to assume that the failure is theirs, get frustrated and leave.

Last night I heard a speaker from a local Wal-Mart/Sam's club talk about how he reduced employee turnover from 45 to 18% over four years. How? He knew the lesson that every first lieutenant learns and school boards have yet to learn: take care of your troops.

In Defense of the Hired Hand

In the past I've heard the reading from yesterday's gospel (John 10:11-18 ) as a criticism of those who do good works in exchange for pay:

12. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it.

It seems that the criticism was not that he worked for pay but that

13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

It seems to me that this has text has been used to imply that it is a higher calling to be a shepherd than a hired hand. Yet the problem was not that the hired hand earned his own bread by the sweat of his brow (Gen 3:19), it was that he cared nothing for his sheep.

Many people - doctors, teachers, and carpenters both earn their own bread and "care for their sheep." What could be a better life?

As I posted earlier this morning, each of us needs to discern a personal vocation. No "state in life" (i.e. lay, religious, single) is inherently superior to another. What matters is that we honestly discern our calling.

Frederick Beuchner on Discerning One’s Vocation

Wise words on how to make choices concerning career, marriage, and life:

“Vocation comes from the Latin vocare, "to call,” and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling to all kinds of different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a) but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement(b). If, on the other had, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time your bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only surpassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patents much either.
Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Frederick Beuchner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith Quoted from On-the-Job-Prayers  William David Thompson, p.32.

I’m persuaded by Russell Shaw’s contention in America magazine that we do not suffer from a shortage of vocations to the priesthood but from a shortage of vocational discernment. Here is the quote from Shaw:

Some Sensible Words on …

Sprituality and Health from Duke University’s Dr. Harold Koenig on What Religion Can Do for Your Health.

and on

the Associated Press on historical errors in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code. The age of miracles is not over. Even CNN and the AP can get a few things right.

Book Review: On-the-Job-Prayers

    Ellen Wulfhort’s story on “workaholism” prompted me to write this short review of William D. Thomson’s On-The-Job Prayers. Small enough to be tucked in a briefcase, glove compartment, toolbox, or top center desk drawer, this book has one hundred brief reflections on spirituality of work, a quote from scripture, and a short prayer. Each page can be read as a meditation in less time than needed for a coffee break. The index provides quick references for work related issues such as “Monday mornings,” happiness,” and “excellence.”
    Later this weekend, I plan a post on how work can be an addiction and a spiritual path to finding balance on one’s life.  For now, here is an extract