Justice

Applied justice is not blind reciprocity nor legalistic consistency. it is correction that turns us toward wholeness, rightness and newness.

I've been faced with lots of people demanding justice lately.  I suppose this is among the challenges of leadership.  The challenge has been to sort out what they want from what is required.  My good friend said, "Justice is what we want delivered to others and mercy is what we want delivered to ourselves."  Now there is insight!

1. It seems that when people want justice what they really mean is retribution.  Put another way, they're asking for logically sanctioned reciprocal pain: "If Bob injured Steve, we must injure Bob."
2. Other times it seems that when people want justice what they want is consistent discipline.  "When Mary cheated, you kicked her out.  Since Sally cheated, kick her out too."
3. I've also seen a remarkable that there is a punitive assumption and voyeuristic infatuation, often in the name of transparency.  "In order to stop the rumors, you need to tell everyone what you did about the David situation."  

Really?

When did we lose sight of the purposes of our correction?  It seems to me that the core problem with the three issues raised above is that we have lost our focus on a better future.  To examine the three ideas above, consider this:

1. If we were really interested in restoring both the injured and the injurer to a better place, what would we do?  My mother used to say, "Two wrongs don't make a right."  (But two Wrights make an airplane!)  Perhaps Bob must make amends as much as possible with Steve, but should we in fact injure Bob in the same way that he injured Steve?  I don't understand how that puts either of them in a better place.
2. Reciprocity has its problems too.  If the way we disciplined Mary was unhelpful, should we repeat it with Sally in the name of consistency?  Or should we be learning leaders who get better at discipline and correction as we grow.  Some argue for, "let the punishment fit the crime;" I wonder if it would be better to frame it as, "Let the punishment fit the perpetrator."  What correction makes them better people?
3. Even transparency, though logical, is often unhelpful.  The North Korean prison camp guards are reported to make liberal use of public executions in order to deter acts of dissent.  But is that really our model?  My practice has been public praise, private critique, positive tone.  My experience is that corrective action, accountability for remedy, and steady progress toward reconciliation happen best when they occur in small groups.  Think of it this way, is it harder to break a promise to a crowd (think politics) or to an individual (your running partner)?

In my nearly 30 years of employment, I have never fired an employee.  Not one.  Of those close to the edge, about 80% of them got better with good coaching.  The other 20% or so, eventually left as they found better suited roles.  Perhaps we need to change our focus from a simplistic view of justice as an equation to balance, and set our sights on justices as an unmistakable commitment to restoration for the injured and better character for the injurer.

Now some readers may wonder if I've lost my marbles.  Did you know that the Spanish word for marbles is "cincos". And even if you have four (cuatro) marbles, they're still cincos (fives)?  Crazy language.  

OK, that aside my seal it for you.  But in all seriousness, the question of criminal justice has to be looming in the background of this discussion.  Are you arguing, Paul, that terrorists, axe murders, and tax evaders really should be "coached" into better classroom behavior?  I've reached the conclusion that that would be a better outcome, but is very unlikely in the general case and very unlikely given the resources and structure of our criminal justice system. At the same time, there is little evidence that locking up a street corner drug dealer makes either the dealer better or restores the honor back to the community.  I'm not so sure our public justice system works toward better-ness, but it does work toward a consistent application of a public consensus of fairness.

I also grant that there are some crimes that are so heinous that punishment is the only course of action.  But this must be viewed from the perspective that in such situations, there is no real remedy for the injured and little hope of meaningful rehabilitation of the injurer.  Punishment is our choice when there is no way for either party to be improved through another option.

Consistent fairness may be the best we can get from our public institutions, and last resort punishment may be the best we have in extreme cases.  But in the everyday culture of most of our lives we have other options. I'm thinking about how we work toward better private institutions, and better offices, neighborhoods, churches, ballet schools, and Kiwanas Clubs.  Is fairness the best we have to offer?  Or can we, as leaders in these places, step beyond the simplicity of kindergarten reciprocity into a richer place of improvement for all parties involved?

On Grace

Grace in a sense is not God's blindness, nor God's desire to pretend that our sin is absent; rather it is that he refuses to let our sin become the defining element of our character.  Would he like us to be less sinful?  For sure, but he is focused more on our being defined by his Son than on the absence of sin.  

Satan, by contrast, wants us to be defined by our sin regardless of our righteousness.  In fact, he really doesn't worry about our occasional acts of holiness so long as we are focused on and are increasingly defined by our sin.  

There is great freedom that comes from understanding that it is the definition of our character, the core of our identity that is of primary importance; our disciplines of holiness are only tools to that end.

Ignorance, Apathy, Intimacy and Awe

In my high school years, a joke went like this:

Q: What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?

A: I don't know and I don't care.

I suppose that there may be many whose eschatology (good SAT word, so go look it up!) can be summarized by ignorance or apathy.   But for the present I worry more about the tension between intimacy and awe.

In the evangelical aquarium in which I swim, there is such an emphasis on God's grace that our kids have grown up not getting what they deserved and getting what they didn't deserve and there is a sense of a kind of avuncular (another good SAT word!) God.  "Hey God..." has become a common opening to public prayer among my daughters' friends.  It is a welcome contrast with the disembodied "power" that I imagined God to be as a teen.  But really... "Hey God..." Are you serious?

Perhaps that's the point.  We're not serious.  In the midst of our theological intimacy, we have lost the majesty and awe of the Creator of the Universe.  I'm not suggesting a return to the fear and trembling that was the staple food of a shame-based catechism.  I'm not even suggesting some sort of balance between intimacy and awe... an awkward middle ground.  Rather, I'm suggesting that we need both at the same time.

What is a life of intimacy and awe?  It is access to the Creator and Redeemer of the Universe.  It is like having a back stage pass... It permits a certain uncommon access, but not a buddy-buddy familiarity with the main act.

I'd be happy if we could replace, "Hey God" with "Wow.  God!"

Connections and Leadership (Influence)

Two conversations in the last couple of weeks have come together into an ah ha moment for me.

CONNECTION

• In a conversation with a long-time friend, I was reminded of the basic human need to connect.  Perhaps it comes out of our created-in-the-image-of-God nature.  The relationship connection in the Trinity is perhaps reflected in our desire to connect with others.  In the difficult times of marriage, my reflex is to find some way to reconnect with my wife.  When my kids are aching, I lie awake at night wishing I could be with them.When I worry about a presentation at work, it is a worry that my perceived value to my bosses will be disconnected.

• I think this connection thing is really about ensuring the integrity of a relationship despite the circumstances.  It is a seeking after a more profound principle of mutual concern and effective care.  When that happens in the context of relationship, the word we use is love.  Stuart Briscoe put it this way:  "It is the overwhelming preoccupation with the well-being of another regardless of their position or response."
  

• If we have overactive connection sensors, I'm guessing we are insecure about our relationships and we compensate by spending too much energy securing a secure relationship.  I think this is what happens when people tell us to chill out about one thing or another.  Others with overactive connection sensors might devalue their own sense of worth, separating themselves from relationships.
  
  I have a friend who alternates between the two.  Sometimes she's annoyingly present.  It's a kind of awkward do you still like me packaged in a guest who can't just have fun in a group.  Other times she intentionally disconnects.  I can't always figure out if she's hoping that we'll reconnect for her, or if she's thinking that she just  doesn't deserve the connection.  (More on that later.)
  

• If we have under active connection sensors, we may just be callous or clueless.  More likely, however we're just connecting with something other than people.  A game, a job, a hobby, a chemical, a book, a computer, or whatever.

It seems to me that the underlying success of Facebook is an expression of this desire to connect.  It shows the entire spectrum of connectedness:  Casual friends from decades ago whose posts I rarely read.  Close friends and family members whose every Like and Tweet get priority on my smart phone.  Because people seem to say things in social media that they'd never say in person, it seems that we now get clarity about expression, over-expression, and under-expression of our need for connectedness.  It must be a sociologist's playground.

But Facebook is too easy an example. Watch a city get excited together as their football team progresses to the Superbowl.  See hundreds of people gather in tents near their state capitols in the Occupy movement.  Watch cancer patients connect to online communities of mutual support.  These are mass connections.  See a dad take his daughter on a date.  A manager who mentors a new employee.  A neighbor who welcomes a newcomer.  Individual and powerful connections.

But all of this is prelude to the more important point, and it comes to my second meeting of the week.

INFLUENCE

Mel Lawrenz has a new book coming out in July called Spiritual Influence.  Anyone who is a parent is aware of the dynamic of influence.  We worry about what group of friends our kids will hang out with because we know of the influence of a crowd.  In this book he describes influence and talks about ways to have positive influence... especially for people whose life situations put them in a position of influence.

I was in a discussion with a few others about what Mel points us to in his book.  We were talking about what healthy influence looks like.

Now make the connection:  CONNECTION AND INFLUENCE.

• People will attempt connect.  It is how they were wired in creation.
• Those who have influence can facilitate connections to what is good... or to what is destructive
• Good spiritual influence is the skillful application of our lives in a way that helps others to form good, productive, honoring, and loving connections with others.

Perhaps our role as leaders or influencers is to take that God-given, DNA-wired need to connect and to facilitate connections that are healthy and honoring.  Can we steer people to a connection with God, the source of all that is good?  Can we help our friends to connect to a skating club or a bowling league instead of  the drug culture?  Can we get them into a musical ensemble or a book club instead of the bar scene.

Can we draw people into deep relationships with other people instead of pseudo-connections to a computer, a bottle, or a workplace?  In the end, the ultimate facilitation we can do is to connect those in our sphere of influence to the one person who can give them a fully satisfying connection:  Jesus.


COMPONENTS OF CONNECTED INFLUENCE

The exercise of connected influence may be the skillful application of our gifts and resources in a way that is preoccupied with the well-being of others.  I think there are three components of our influence

1. Influence that leads to selecting healthy targets as we connect... with whom we connect
2. Influence that leads to selecting healthy methods for connecting... how we will connect
3. Creative expression that makes our influence effective... how we will facilitate connection

But for all that, wait for Mel's book.

Detecting God

So how do we detect God?  I was in a car traveling with a colleague who just couldn't understand how people could believe without the tangible proof of a repeatable scientific experiment.  It got me to thinking.  Perhaps the tool of the scientific method is just the wrong tool.

Consider this.  To measure distance we use a ruler.  To measure light we use a photometer.  To measure radiation we use a Geiger counter.  A ruler just doesn't work to measure light intensity.  Perhaps when we ask ourselves about detecting God, we assume that we can use the tools that are common to our daily experience:  Rulers, speedometers, cameras, and radios.  But just as a chain saw is a lousy tool for caulking windows, so is the measurement of God's presence by traditional methods impossible without tools designed to the task.

So what are the tools for detecting God?  A humble heart made subject to God will resonate in God's presence in the way that a tuning fork will resonate in the presence of a particular tone.  Though there may be other ways to detect God's presence, it is this humble submission that seems to be the only commonly accepted tool based on human experience.

 Because God speaks through Creation (see Romans 1), there is a place for detecting God by exploring and studying creation.  But that is like discovering the artifacts of an ancient civilization.  There is a difference between discovering a pottery shard and living with an indigenous culture. Both give evidence of the culture, but only one is an experience that is undeniable and experiential.  Studying God's creation and living in relationship with God are both ways of detecting God, but one is a more authentic and complete experience.

So we should study creation, and we should measure it with the tools of science, engineering, and practical living.  But we should also be seeking to explore a more living experience of God whose presence is not measured with a micrometer.

God Speaks

The opening lines from the New Testament letter to the Hebrews opens this way:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

As my friends Jacob and Vinod and I wandered across this passage, I began to wonder.  How does God speak?  Many say they have heard from God.  Some describe it as a clear sense, an unmistakable hint, and on rare occasions, a voice.  For me, it has never been a voice.  Perhaps it is because God does not choose to speak English.  

Consider this:  American Sign Language (ASL) is a language.  It has grammar and structure and meaning and consistency.  But it contains very little of what we know as English per se.  One won't recognize cognates, and the system we use to capture and parse the language is optical rather than audible.  It is different in almost every way from spoken English.

Household pets seem to make some of their desires known.  There is meaning without a spoken language.

Is it possible, then that God speaks with clarity and purpose but perhaps only rarely in the form of utterance that we usually associate with the spoken word?  Romans 1 may give us a hint here:

... what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Apparently at least in some occasions, God makes his himself and his purpose clear through creation.

John's famous opening lines, "In the beginning was the word" gives us a hint too.  

There seems to be an overwhelming sense that God communicates, but perhaps not in what we normally consider a spoken connection of words, syntax, and rules of acoustics and grammar.  If, however, it appears to be language-like, then would could assume from analogy that it is learn-able.

The 10th chapter of the Gospel of John includes these words.

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

John calls this a "figure of speech."  Perhaps because no other form quite describes how God speaks.  If learning the language of God is like learning other languages, then it requires immersion, focus, determination, practice and guidance from those who are already fluent.

Perhaps that is the meaning of mentoring and discipleship.

An open letter to my daughters and their friends...

Most of what I write here is simply a kind of personal diary; a place where I can write down insights that I'm too afraid I'll forget absent some kind of record.  But today I believe what I have learned is important enough that my daughters need to know this.  So here goes:


Dear Amy, Julie, & Carrie,

My world is different from your world.  Duh.  But your world is different from your world too... or at least it will be.  I am seeing some trends that I believe will shape your adult lives and I think they're worth pondering as you work through the last formal years of your education.  In fact, if I'm right, these trends will be shaping those who think they're shaping the trends:  Your educators, philosophers, and leaders.

Here's where it started for me as I sat in class today:  The professor showed us this video:

Pepsi, the owner of Doritos sponsored a competition to create and then vote for the best advertisement to show at the SuperBowl in 2009.  Thousands of people submitted videos for the contest.  Everyone voted.  This one was the winner.  

What is innovative is not that it is funny, nor that it was among the top-rated commercials of that year's SuperBowl.  Rather, the surprise is it was not created by Pepsi nor by its advertising agencies.  It was not created by anyone with credentials to create.  It was created people whose video was the most liked.  Some call this "crowdsourcing."  In effect, work that used to be done by a company itself, is now opened up to those outside the company to do in competition and without a clear contract.  One winner out of thousands of submissions.  Does the Harvard professor who presented this case recognize that the product he sells (The credentials of a Harvard MBA) may be irrelevant shortly?

I learned today of a company named threadless.com. Threadless is a company that depends on individual artists to design T-shirts.  They come up with cool designs and submit them online to threadless.  Then the general public votes on which designs are best and the company prints the shirts and pays the "winners" a $2000 prize. The company itself has very little assets beyond its idea and business model.  All of the innovation comes from the artists.  Some of whom win the $2000 prize, and others who have to just enjoy the process of competing. Interestingly a lot of pop artists are building a threadless award into their resume if they're a winner.  It is becoming a new credential.

There were other examples in our conversation.  topcoder.com is a site that puts out computer software problems.  Their clients are other companies, like GE, who have software problems.  When topcoder puts out a problem it is really putting out one of its clients' problems.  Once posted, a bunch of freelance computer coders all work on the problem.  The client then picks the best solution out of all of those submitted and the winning contribution gets a cash prize.  Some of the top coders are making half-million dollar incomes in this way.

Here's another one to check out:  inocentive.com.  This is similar to topcoder, except the problems don't  have to be software.  They could be biology or chemistry or sociology or economics.  Apple has done this with the iTunes Ap Store as well.

I understand that major symphonies switched to a model like this in the past.  Auditions are now conducted blindly with instrumentalists playing their audition pieces behind a screen, known only by their numbers so that the judges cannot be biased by reputation, credentials, or history.

Here's the trend to note:

1. Many people compete
2. The top solution wins on its merits alone
3. Winner takes all
4. No credentials required to participate

You probably already have hints of this as people post their lives on facebook only to quasi-compete for how many "likes" they can get.  But the trend is much more profound than that.

1. The flattening of global income among knowledge workers is the certain end of this work.  When all that matters is the accuracy or correctness of your solution, it won't matter if you're in Bombay, Boston, or Bonn.  You'll get the same $2000.  The world of relative affluence in the West will be a curiosity of history for you and your children.
2. The need for certain credentials (a college degree, an MBA, a certification) will become less important than the value of one's solution.  Barriers to entry drop dramatically.  Drop outs who happen to be brilliant software coders (or pop artists, or photographers, or whatever) will win.
   
3. Increasingly, those that can will flourish and those that cannot or will not... will not.
   
4. The need for a completely different social safety net will be dramatic.  When a person's compensation is completely and uniquely tied to one's performance, there will be new psychological and sociological problems that will plague our collective psyche.  (The psychologists and theologians will be in high demand.)  What will it mean for our competitor to be unknown to us -- perhaps next door, perhaps in Bhutan?  What will it mean for the structure and operation of our schools and universities?

So, you're thinking, "Dad, this is deep and I'm distracted with exams or graduation or something trivial like that.  Why now?  Are you serious?"

Well, yes, actually.

In a world in which grace is increasingly irrelevant, you will need solid anchors for your sense of self.  Your mom and I have spent years reminding you that your value is not in your accomplishments, but in the quality of your character and in the intrinsic value established in you by God.  In Genesis we hear that God created and at every step "it was good."  When he created human beings, Genesis says that was "very good."  But you're about to enter a world that will increasingly send you precisely the opposite message.  You're about to raise your own families in a world in which the messages are "perform or exit."

You have watched the community at Potter's House and the life of scavengers in the dump.  You have seen what happens to community when compete or exit is the operating system of the community.  Though knowledge workers of the crowdsourcing world will not be scavenging in the dump, they may be scavenging in cyberspace.  Tough the work is different, I think this trend can have similar effects on the quality of human relationships.

My sense is that it really won't come to this.  It will be worse.  People, in a sense of absolute despair will eventually begin to opt out and there will be some sort of counteracting social upheaval.  I can't predict its details, but its certainty cannot be in doubt.

It will be my role for the next 30 years (or whatever additional time God gives me on this planet) and your roles to propose alternative cultural, philosophical, educational, theological, and value frameworks for those who would reduce human value to an all-or-nothing competition. Those alternates need not be new, but it will be women (like you) and men of unusual character who will need to step into the gap.  You will be lightning rods of truth, clarity, value, grace, and love.  As Christians, you have a scriptural foundation to use as a measuring stick, the revelation of God for clarity of thought, and the grace of God for the hope you will need to thrive.  Others may offer other world views.  But the need to interpret this grace-less world will be profound.  You will need to do this.

As I write these words, I worry that I am being a bit too melodramatic.  I hope so, but I think not.

I have no doubt of your readiness for this task.  I only write it to remind you that though Mom and I have prepared you as best as we know how, we have prepared you with the tools of a culture that is soon to disappear.  Use your formation education to learn to learn so that you can be nimble, humble, curious, and grace-full in the world that is at our doorstep.

It may be for this reason that you are here on this planet. http://threadless.com

And hey...want to go out for ice cream?