The Sustainist

Where is the Authority?

There is a crisis with authority in a world where anyone with a computer can have his/her own TV channel with the potential to have millions of viewers, anyone can go into Wikipedia and contribute definitions to any terms, anyone can get information on any thing across the globe almost instantly, and anyone can publish his/her writing (like this blog) any time without getting permission, major financial constraints, or clearance from any power figure or groups! All the things I named above give people power to receive, create, and share, bypassing many of the “traditional” authorities.

If we continue in this movement toward decentralizing authority (which we will) the big questions are: How do we know what the truth is?  Where or who is the authority in such a world? 

After the Israelites left the oppression of slavery in Egypt, they crossed the Red Sea and ended up in the wilderness facing a completely new situation.  Namely, there would be no masters with their repressive rules, and everyone was free.  How could they create a sustainable community in this new context?  Where was the authority?  Their solution was a divine one – instead of having a human authority, they had God who gave them a set of commandments to follow, popularly known as the Ten Commandments.  In some way, the Commandments, the new ground-rules themselves became the authority for this community of free people.

(Left image: This is a picture of the 1768 parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer emulated the 1675 Decalogue at Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue.)

We are living in a time like the experience of the Israelites.  We might just have crossed the Red Sea when the utilization of the Internet flourished with Youtube, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and many other digitized media.  Now, what do we do?  How do we create respectful functional communities in a world where so many people are so powerful in their abilities to get information, network, create and disseminate?  What are the new ground-rules for a sustainable community in this networked world?

Michiel Schwarz in his book, Sustainism is the New Modernism (with graphic designs by Joost Elffers) wrote:

in sustainist worldmaking there is:

no ecology without community
no development without equity
no design that is not codesigned
no value without shared meanings
no information that is not based on open source
no action without local consideration
no community without participation
no sustainability without fairness

Schwarz’s proposal here can be the beginning of a new set of ground-rules for our new context.  I found myself resonating with most of these phrases as I reviewed my approach to leadership development and community formation in the last 30 years.  As I consult with many different organizations (mostly Christian churches), I often insist on decision-making processes that seek input and participation from as many people as possible, especially, those whose lives may be impacted by the decisions.  This way of seeking information, experience and participation from members of the community is an essential ground-rule for creating a sustainist community.  As members of the community share their different experiences, information and perspectives, they discover shared meaning, values and decisions together.  These shared values will drive actions that automatically take into consideration the local contexts and people.

As more and more people arrive at this new individually empowered context, they expect to participate in the development and design of their communities.  They expect to share power with others in decision-making.  They expect to be part of a community that is fair and equitable in everything that it does.  And leaders today must be equipped with knowledge and skills to facilitate this power-sharing way of decision-making and community formation.  Since the authority resides with the people, leaders need to know how to engage the people to speak with authority, listen openly, and discover creative solutions in the midst of diverse perspectives and experiences.

At the Kaleidoscope Institute, one of the fundamental tools for building a sustainable community is the Respectful Community Guidelines.  We present these guidelines at every gathering and invite participants to agree to uphold them for the duration for the meeting. This set of guidelines helps the community to move toward the sustainist approach to sharing and receiving information and experiences before arriving at a resolution or decision. Invite members of your community to read the Respectful Community Guidelines out loud. Divide participants into 7 groups.  Give each group one guideline.  Invite each group to discuss and write down their reflection on chart paper the following questions: Why is this particular guideline important for forming a respectful community? In upholding this guideline, what are some concrete behavioral examples? Invite each group to report. Invite participants, as a large group, to consider:  How can a set of guidelines like this one enhance their community life? When and where would be appropriate to teach and use them?

Reflection Questions for Proper 22 (Year A) Exodus 20:1-4,7-9,12-20    What is the relationship between commandments and sustainable community? Psalm 19  What did you learn from this Psalm about how to listen to God? Isaiah 5:1-7   What does God expect from the gifts given to us? Psalm 80:7-14   What is the process of restoring our relationship with God and each other? Philippians 3:4b-14   What is the cost of knowing Christ? Matthew 21:33-46   What are the fruits of the Kingdom that God expect from us?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Come to Los Angeles in 2012 to study with The Sustainist, the first  two opportunities: February 27–March 2, 2012 Kaleidoscope Winter Institute Holy Currencies Conversations on Money and Sustainable Ministry March 14–18, 2012 Face to Face Seeing and Hearing Each Other . . . Knowing God Creative liturgy & music for a diverse and changing world An ecumenical gathering of church leaders to create worship experiences that are authentic, relational and missional

Job Creators

Our economy is not recovering as fast as we would like and many are still hurting, without jobs, and without spending money, which is supposed to feed our economy. On September 8, 2011 President Obama gave a speech focusing on job creation.  Meanwhile, the so-called “Super-committee” held hearings on how to cut the nation’s deficit down by $1.5 trillion.  Of course, the hearings and the reaction to the President’s speech consisted of many blaming and political finger pointing.  In the midst of all these squabbles, the rich got a new title:  Job Creators. The argument goes like this: we can’t raise the tax on the rich because they are creating jobs.  Another way to say this is:  let the rich keep their money so they will create more jobs, which then, will rejuvenate the economy.  The assumption is that the powerful are the helpers, and we are the helpless.  The rich are the job givers, and we are the job seekers.  We are like the Israelites in the wilderness, thirsty and hungry and the only thing they could do was to complain and blame Moses.  If we have this mentality, we would also expect the powerful and rich, like Moses, to hit some magic rock and the water would flow and we would all be thirsty no more. 

But the powerful and rich are not Moses and they are not connecting to a God who cares about the people. Many of them don’t care to even find that rock to hit in order to give others water.  According to a study conducted by the Deloitte Center for Financial Services, that as of May 2011, there are currently almost 38 million people around the globe who are classified as U.S. dollar millionaires. Of the 38 million millionaires, 10.5 million of them reside in the United States. (See HERE)  If every millionaire in the United State takes a small fraction of their income and created 2 jobs, there would be 21 million new jobs.  I have not seen much evidence of the rich being job creators yet.  Have you?

So then, who are the real job creators -- the kind of job creators who would keep our resources flowing and recirculating, feeding and refreshing communities and people?

In his book, Building Social Business, Muhammad Yunus wrote about how he nurtured the next generation of the poorest families in Bangladesh:

More than 50,000 students are currently pursuing their education in medical schools, engineering schools, and university with financing from Grameen Bank.  We encourage these young people to pledge that they will never enter the job market to seek jobs from anybody.  They’ll be job givers, not job seekers.  (pp. x-xi)

I wish someone had planted this idea in my mind when I went to college.  Somehow, my whole purpose (and for most of my college friends also) for getting an education was to get a good job.  And when I did get a job after graduation, I thought I had achieved my goal.  I had bought into the limited vision of myself as a job seeker only, even though I came from a family of job creators.

In the 1960s, my mother saw the need for children to have a place to go after school.  So she convinced my father to build a number of soundproofed rooms, put a piano in each room and hire music teachers to give individual music lessons to children for a very low monthly cost.  The children could also come after school everyday to practice, so their family did not have to buy a piano for them to practice.  This was the beginning of Rome Piano Company first in Hong Kong and transplanted in New York City with the same name with the same business model.  This modest business in Chinatown, New York, have been providing income for many music teachers and workers since the 1980s. 

My parents were not rich at all but they were job creators.  Now I understand why my mother was not happy when she noticed I was satisfied just to be a job seeker/taker for so many years.  Five years ago, when I finally made the shift to becoming a job creator by forming the Kaleidoscope Institute with a modest investment from the Diocese of Los Angeles, I told my mother about the idea and how it will allow me to nurture other colleagues who will work with me and share the financial return, she smiled and said, “It’s better to be an employer than to be employed.”

My mother did not wait for the powerful and rich to give her a job. She created a life-sustaining job for herself and her family and she created more jobs for many others.  She truly knew how to do more with less.  Who gave her the authority to be a job creator when she was neither rich nor powerful? Her authority came from the people whose needs she had observed and noticed.  In the process of working toward providing their needs, she became a job creator.  This is sustainist thinking.

Back to the question:  Who are the real job creators?  The answer is you and me.  If we stop thinking of ourselves as job seekers and start thinking like sustainists, believing that we are job creators, what will happen?  Of course, we can’t do this alone.  We become job creators by working with communities – observing and noticing the needs and finding ways to address them and in the process, we create jobs. 

For example, just looking at Christian churches; scanning the Internet, I found out that there are approximately 7000 Episcopal Churches, 42,000 United Methodist Churches, 10,000 Lutheran Churches (ELCA), 10,000 Presbyterian Churches, 19,000 Roman Catholic Churches, and 5,500 American Baptist Churches.  Adding them up plus many other church groups I have not mentioned, I would say we have at least 100,000 churches in the United States. If we shift from the idea that churches are charity organizations to churches as job creators, what will happen?  If each church works with its community to create one new job, there would be 100,000 new jobs locally. If each church works to create 2 jobs, we would have 200,000 new jobs.  If each church works to create 5 jobs, we would have created over half a million new jobs!

Invite the people of your community to explore being a job creator: Invite members of your community to spend a week observing their local community focusing on needs. Gather members of your community and make a list of needs they noticed in the community. Brainstorm ideas on how to address these needs while creating new jobs.  Some of the questions to consider are:  What resources do we currently have? How can we invest these resources to address the stated need? How can we create a plan that will allow the investment to generate new jobs?

Reflection Questions for Proper 21 (Year A) Exodus 17:1-7    What/where is the rock that you can strike to give you sustaining water? Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16  What parable and mysteries of sustainability will you tell the next generation? Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32   What is the difference between our sense of fairness and God’s sense of fairness? Psalm 25:1-8   What does it mean to be led in God’s truth? Philippians 2:1-13   What does it mean to be of one mind with Christ? Matthew 21:23-32   What does this passage teach you about authority?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Save the date: March 14-18, 2012 Come to Los Angeles to study with The Sustainist: Face to Face Seeing and Hearing Each Other.....Knowing God Creative Liturgy & Music for a diverse and changing world An ecumenical gathering of church leaders to create worship experiences that are authentic, relational and missional. March 14-18, 2012

 

Fear-Miner

I saw long lines of cars waiting to get through the police check point before crossing the bridge to enter Manhattan.  It was September 10, 2011; rumors of terrorist activities abounded as New Yorkers were getting ready to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of 9-11. I was glad I was heading the other direction out of Manhattan; my family’s business PianoVerse – a combination of music school and piano retails – was hosting its first Summer Finale Piano Recital at the Langston Hughes Library and Cultural Center in Queens.  As I travelled on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, I had doubtful thoughts about whether watching 60 students play the piano was the right way to spend the day when so many 9-11 memorial events were happening.

After the initial rush to set up the performance space, I sat back to observe the students and their families as they arrived.  While most the students (starting at the age of 5) were nervous about performing in front of an audience, for most of them the first time, I noticed one particular girl whose facial expression gave me the impression that she was absolutely petrified. She was hiding under the shadow of her mother unable to move unless being guided. I decided to keep an eye on her.

Each student’s name was announced; the student came out from back stage and took a bow; the supporting families applauded enthusiastically; the student sat down at the piano and played; cameras and camcorders moved into action; most of the performances were not perfect but it did not matter; when the student finished, he/she stood up and took another bow, with a smile this time; there was more applause. 

When the little girl I saw earlier came out, she just stood there and forgot how to bow.  Her teacher came out from behind and guided her to the piano.  They sat at the bench together and played. The teacher was playing a simple rhythmic baseline supporting the melody she was playing.  The music was beautiful and the crowd paid extra attention.  When they finished, the teacher guided her to the front of the stage and she bowed – more applause and encouraging shouts. 

When she returned to her family in the audience, I heard her mother say, “You did it!” and they hugged.  Her mother looked at her proudly and said, “Will you do it again?”  She said with a big smile, “Yes!”  At the moment, I had no doubt I was at the right place to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of 9-11.

One of the key issues that 9-11 brought out was fear, which became the driving force for so many things in the last 10 years.  Fear that is not addressed constructively can become an alienating and destructive force. At the recital, I witnessed how the children were encouraged to face their fear, admittedly under a lot of pressure. But no matter what happened, their families were still there for them, loved them. In that security, they could work through their fear, discover their courage and find their self-esteem increased.  Perhaps, the biggest learning for these children was to know that their families would sustain them in the most fearful situation. They were in the wilderness of fear having to perform in front of a crowd, but the applause, the shouting encouragements, the cameras, the proud smiles, and the hugs were “manna” and sustenance that carried them through their journey. These families helped their children mine from their fear gifts – the gift of family, the gift of unconditional love, the gift of self-esteem. 

Sustainists do not buy into the prescribed roles – fear-conqueror, fear-bearer and fear-exploiter (see the last 2 posts) – when dealing with fear.  Sustainists are fear-miners. We do not avoid fear but face it. We approach fear as an opening; when we dig down we can mine from fear the God-given gift of wisdom, courage, dignity and self-esteem with which we can face any adversity that comes our way. Buried below our fear is the seed of sustainability. Beyond our fear are the hope and new visions for us, our communities, and our nations.

Invite the people of your community to gather for a time of dialogue on the subject of fear: Invite participants to recall an event in the past when they had successfully worked through one of their fears.  Invite them to write down their reflections using the following guiding questions: Where were you? How old were you?  What were you doing? Who else was there?  What were they doing? What was your fear? How was your fear addressed constructive? As a result of working through this fear, what did you learn? How might what you learned from this event impact your life today? Form small groups of 5 to share their reflections. As a large group, invite participants to share after they listen to each other:  I notice . . . I wonder . . .  Invite participants to share ideas of what they can do as a community to assist others, especially the young people, to address their fear constructively.

Reflection Questions for Proper 20 (Year A) Exodus 16:2-15    What sustains you in time of fear? Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45  What does it mean for God to be with you on your journey? Jonah 3:10-4:11  What does Jonah’s story teach you about what is right and wrong? Psalm 145:1-8   What did it mean for you to praise and bless God everyday? Philippians 1:21-30   What are the privileges for believing in Christ? Matthew 20:1-16   How does this text challenge your sense of what is fair?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Save the date: March 14-18, 2012 Come to Los Angeles to study with The Sustainist: Face to Face Seeing and Hearing Each Other.....Knowing God Creative Liturgy & Music for a diverse and changing world An ecumenical gathering of church leaders to create worship experiences that are authentic, relational and missional. March 14-18, 2012

 

Fear-Exploiter

In the last post I described how we could be cast as Fear-conquerors and Fear-bearers in dealing with our fear.  Behind these roles are the Fear-exploiters who exploit our fear in order to maintain and increase their power and control and financial gain. Fear-exploiters can be individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, or even nations. In my book, Finding Intimacy in a World of Fear, I spent a whole chapter on Fear-exploiters and these are some of their characteristics:

Fear-exploiters do not want us to remember the truth and learn lessons from our history. Instead, fear-exploiters want to define history, choosing those historical “facts” that reinforce their power.

Fear-exploiters use the fear of rejection, isolation, chaos, psychological and physical harm and death to maintain control.

Fear-exploiters propagate a spirituality of scarcity. They project a reality that says there are never enough of resources, power and love. They will sell us symbolic substitutes that promise to make us safe while the goal is to keep us craving for more.

Fear-exploiters want to divide communities by spreading misinformation about one group or another within that community. When the different factions in the community are not able to work together, the fear-exploiters stay in control.

Fear-exploiters evoke fear to condition some in the community to be fear-conquerors while turning most people into fear-bearers, supporting the status quo without questions.

Fear-exploiters pile fear upon fear in order to overwhelm people so that eventually they are afraid of fear itself. The more the people avoid fear, the less able they are in addressing their fear, and the stronger the fear-exploiters will be in maintaining and increasing their control and power.

To stop ourselves from becoming fear-exploiters, we must be a people who remember our history—to honor its gifts and learn from our mistakes. We must take the time to reflect on what kind of power and influence we have, and not use it to evoke fear over others in order to maintain our power and control. Instead, we must exercise our power and influence to build trust among people, creating a community of respect.

For those who are cast in the roles of the fear-conquerors, we need to ask ourselves: Who stands to benefit from our use of aggression against others whom we are told are our enemy? We need to take the courage to reach across the division set by the fear-exploiters and listen to the fear-bearers’ experiences. Fear-conquerors and fear-bearers need to come together and tell the truth, and in the process expose the fear-exploiter’s scheme.

Fear-Conqueror and Fear-Bearer

In the blog post “What Happened to the Self-Giving Spirit?” I named  “fear” as the key issue on which we need to refocus our energy.  I thought I would continue the exploration of fear this week as we approach the 10^th anniversary of September 11, 2001. 

In my book, Finding Intimacy in a World of Fear, I wrote about how we, as a nation, dealt with our fear through two primary images – fear-conqueror and fear-bearer.  Fear-conquerors deal with fear through acts of aggression against an “other” seen as the enemy.  Fear-bearers are taught to treat fear as a warning tack that says: Go no further. If you are a fear-bearer and you do not use fear to limit yourself, there is an implicit threat of violence.

Immediately after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, we went into fear-conqueror mode.  Bathed in patriotic and religious rituals, new rules were being defined to justify aggression; later, the doctrine of preemptive strikes was born.  As long as we were striking back, it did not matter how it was justified—we were conquering our fear.

Meanwhile, everyday people were made to conform as fear-bearers.  President Bush, in his address to Congress on September 20, 2001, invited us, the people, to continue to participate in the American economy and have patience in facing the inconveniences of tighter security when we traveled.  In the months that followed, the call for patience for many came to mean: keep your mouth shut and endure the new rules. Certain types of people were being singled out and searched in airports, even though President Bush said explicitly, “No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith.” While persons from the historical dominant group said that they were willing to give up some of their rights for the sake of security, the historical minorities and powerless groups experience this as an extra burden put on those already perceived as fear-bearers.  Systemic prejudices and discriminations against the historical minorities were practiced openly all in the name of security. 

Fear-conquerors and fear-bearers are often presented to us as the only two options in dealing with our fear.  If I cannot fight like Rambo to conquer my fear, the only other option is for me to be a fear-bearer, stepping in line in support of the fear-conquerors in order just to survive. While I agreed that the United States should not become fear-bearers by submitting to the control of the terrorists, I have trouble with the fear-conquerors’ course that the nation has taken to conquer its fear.  But if these were the only two options, being fear-conquerors was the only choice.  By becoming fear-conquerors, the United States basically was insisting that the terrorists be the fear-bearers and step in line to our demands.  When both sides insisted that the other be fear-bearers, violence would be sure to escalate. When the wars were going badly and the people in the United States were beginning to question the fear-conquerors’ approach, the fear-conquerors turned inwards on its people—forcing those who questioned the validity and legality of the wars into fear-bearers.  This is the problem with having only two options in dealing with fear.

I will explore two more approaches to fear—fear-exploiter and fear-miner—in the next blog post.

 

What Happened to the Self-Giving Spirit?

“I was a witness ten years ago,” a New Yorker at the site of the World Trade Center said, “That day that changed everything.”  This Sunday is September 11, and like many people, I was reflective of that life-changing day 10 years ago as I walked around the site of the old World Trade Center.  I looked through the wired fence into the on-going constructions of the new buildings and the 9-11 Memorial, and I saw several U.S. flags prominently displayed. 

The thing about history is that you can’t change it.  The only thing you can do is to learn from it.  What have I learned in the last 10 years?  The first thing that came to my mind, to my surprise, was not the heroic self-sacrificing acts of the rescue workers who first arrived at the scene of the falling towers, nor the outpouring of compassion and goodwill around the nation for the victims of the attacks.  To my surprise, the first thing that came to my mind was the rapid movement toward unsustainability of the U.S. economy in the last ten years!  A nation-changing event like 9-11 could have the potential to unify our nation so that we could work together, with the self-giving spirit that has been so much part of the people’s psyche in this nation.  It had the potential to help us recreate a stronger and safer community together that is free of fear.  But I recalled little evidence of that even on the day we “got” Osama bin Laden. 

For churches that follow the Revised Common Lectionary, this Sunday is also the day we read the great story of Israelites crossing the Red Sea.  This story was also a life-changing event and it was recorded in the Bible for all to remember.  Israelites had followed Moses at God’s instructions and left slavery in Egypt.  But the Egyptian army pursued and was closing in on them by the Red Sea.  Moses, with God’s help, parted the sea, and the Israelites traveled across to the other side.  But the Egyptian army followed and was stuck at the bottom of the sea.  The water returned and the army was destroyed ending the pursuit once and for all and the Israelites were finally safe.  On that day that changed everything, the Israelite community entered into a new phase of their journey – how to live together as a free people.  They spent the next 40 years learning to be a sustainable community in the wilderness.  They faced many fears and uncertainties: where were food and water they needed?  What were the new rules now that they didn’t have slave masters?  Each one of the struggles was met with sustainable solutions – manna from heaven, living water that gushed out of a rock, the ten commandments, etc. – calming their fears and moving the community toward greater sustainability.

The horrible event of September 11, 2001 had put the U.S. in the wilderness, but instead of meeting the challenge with constructive solutions that pull the people together creating a stronger, more sustainable community, we went the other way toward greater fear and unsustainability.   Instead of challenging the people to continue the self-giving spirit that exemplified the initial responses to the attacks, we fostered the illusion of wellness socially and financially.  Nine days after the attack, President Bush addressed the people of the United States this way, “Americans are asking:  What is expected of us?  I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children.”  A little later in his same speech, he said, “I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy.  Terrorists attacked a symbol of American prosperity.  They did not touch its source.  America is successful because of the hard work, and creativity, and enterprise of our people.  These were the true strengths of our economy before September 11th, and they are our strengths today.”  

In the years that followed, we the people went forth and borrowed money that we could not afford to pay back and bought stocks and real estates.  There would be no tax increases so we could spend more money to “participate in the economy” without asking the realistic question: who was paying for the 2 wars we were fighting?  Instead of asking the people to give back to the community that would help us reestablish our security, we were encouraged to spend on borrowed money.  And finally, the illusionary wellness bubble burst and we wondered why. 9-11 was the day that changed everything for the U.S., and why would we think “business as usual” would make us safe again?!

Ten years after 9-11, we are still in the wilderness – fearful and facing an uncertain and unsustainable future.  Perhaps it will take many more years for us to learn to deal with our fear constructively – certainly not through spending money we don’t have.  It is not too late to change course to refocus our energy on the heart of the issue – fear.  Where is our manna from heaven?  Where is the rock that we can strike to give us living water?  How do we discover the new covenant of a sustainable future together?  How do we learn to share our resources fairly, equitably and with a self-giving spirit in this wilderness so that we can restart our journey toward a more secured and sustainable future?

Invite the people of your community to gather for a time of dialogue on the 10th anniversary of 9-11: Invite participants to individually make 2 lists: Constructive things that have helped them address their fear in last 10 years. Challenging things that reinforced or increased their fear in last 10 years Form small groups of 5 and invite them to share their lists. As a large group, invite participants to share after they listen to each other:  I notice . . . I wonder . . .  Invite participants to share ideas of what they can do that will constructively address their fear and uncertainty in the next 10 years.

Reflection Questions for Proper 19 (Year A) Exodus 14:19-31    How are you like the Egyptian army and how are you like the Israelites in this story? Psalm 114  What is the relationship between nature and the divine? Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21   How have you been delivered and how do you celebrate it? Genesis 50:15-21   What did you learn from this passage about dealing with your fear? Psalm 102:8-13   How do you connect with the different images of God in this text? Romans 14:1-12   What did you learn from this passage about living in a multicultural community? Matthew 18:21-35   What does it mean to forgive from your heart?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Save the date: March 14-18, 2012 Come to Los Angeles to study with The Sustainist: Face to Face Seeing and Hearing Each Other.....Knowing God Creative Liturgy & Music for a diverse and changing world An ecumenical gathering of church leaders to create worship experiences that are authentic, relational and missional. March 14-18, 2012