When my kids were younger they participated in vacation bible school at the local church and because of their age I also participated as a teacher, and planner. I was never a director and I saw directors come and go. Some directors were meticulous planners for everyone one and every hour and minute. Others allowed teachers more autonomy and were “loose” planners, some seemed to have no plan at all. In my nostalgia I began to wonder about the directors and planning. Specifically I wondered about How one should plan, When would should plan and why one should plan.
Lets start with the last question first. Why plan? A plan is a detailed proposal for doing something or in more laymen’s terms it is a map. Following a plan should lead us to both lead and lag goals. So why have a map? Well a map provides direction. You could go on a treasure hunt without a map but the world is big and you have a limited amount of time and resources. Planning helps with efficiency, gives you and your team confidence, and reduces risk. So that’s why we should plan.
When should we make a plan? Well if time is a limited resource and a goal needs to be reached in that limited resource that’s when we should plan. A better question maybe when should one not plan? There is quote that I have seen on the sides of campers that reads “All that wander are not lost”. I love that quote because it deals with the art of discovery. Often times discovery is part of plan that does not really require a plan. Plans can come from discovery or exploration. You maybe exploring and learning about something new with no plan at all. Plans are not needed when you are looking for plans or direction.
How do I make a plan? This all depends on what and when you want to accomplish something. If you have a single goal with a timeline than you would create a tight plan. Your plan would be the meticulous one with every hour and every persons lead goals outlined. A plan that involves a lot of learning discovery and exploring will be more loose and grow tighter as you and your team learn more.
Planning is important and it should and will happen. The best thing to do is embrace it and lean into it and also realize that the plan has to be flexible as do you and I
Today is June 2nd and it is the second day of Pride month in the United States of America. Pride month is, an month long celebration of the LGBTQ community, a celebration and remembrance of the Stonewall riots which occurred at the end of June 1969.
The Stonewall Inn was a gay club and the New York City police had made it a habit to raid and arrest people in the gay clubs in New York City. On June 28, 1969 during a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, patrons were tired of the abuse of the officers and had enough. A riot started. The riot lasted until 4 in the morning and their were days of demonstrations and protests that followed. It looked like most of the neighborhood was tired of the way the police and government treated their friends and neighbors. No one should be treated poorly because of their sexual orientation. The New York city police department issued a formal apology to the gay community in 2019 for targeting the gay community.
The protests and demonstrations demanding equal rights and respect for people in the gay community seem to have worked and are still working. The protests and demonstrations are not full of people who are gay, they are diverse and have people who are sys gender as well as gay. Being at a protest listening , learning, donating this is all the actions of an ally.
This month to celebrate Pride one of the greatest things you and I can do is be an ally.
It’s that time of the year again the weather is nice you are shopping in the stores and college kids have been recruited. What are the college kids doing? They are canvassing in front of the stores that you are shopping in. The kids are looking for donations for charities. All kinds of charities. I know it seems foolish to even mention but you should give to charities. It is good to give to charities.
There seems to be a lot of bad news out there. Kids are dying disease is spreading, racism is running rampant. What can we do? Well, there are organizations that are working on protection for children, there are organizations dedicated to sending medicine and doing research for communicable diseases, and there are organizations focused on social justice and education. I don’t know about you but I am not a policy maker. doctor or researcher. I just go to work and home and pay my taxes and I feel pretty helpless with the hell scape I see on the news. Charity though, that makes me feel like a little bit of a super hero! I can give some of the money that I get from work and help the doctors, researchers and policy makers. Charity gives you your power back.
Charity inspires others. Every time I give I see the college kids at the drive signup and they smile and I like to believe that I help restore their faith in humanity and keep them from becoming cynical.
When you give on a monthly or quarterly basis you become part of community and this is seen by your family and children and another generation understands the importance of charity.
I know that times are tough for everyone and sometimes I feel myself leaning towards this when it comes to giving however I remember that for as tough as it is on me it is even tougher for others and this compels me to be charitable.
Our goals as human beings should be to make the world better for all life. One huge big way to do that is through charity!!! Please donate today! If you cannot afford money donate time (pro tip: money is easier than time!!)
At its’ height the Roman Empire had one of the most sophisticated road systems in the world. With new evidence however it seems that the Mayans may have also had one of the most sophisticated road systems as well. Researchers are still learning about the Mayan road system.
A lot is known about and documented concerning the Roman road system, One interesting aspect of the Roman road system was that, all the roads lead out of and into Rome. Rome was the center of the Roman empire. so it made sense to build all roads in this manner. The idiom “all roads lead to Rome” dates back to the 11th century and was first recorded by Alian de Lille a theologian and poet.
All roads lead to Rome, means that there are many ways to get the same result. Often we here people tell us that results matter. I don’t care how you do it I just want it done. It is a trap that is baited with simplicity, the concept that results matter.
Results are not all that matter. Goals are important and results do matter however, results have to be meet in a certain fashion or way. See the thinking that all roads lead to Rome is short term thinking and that is dangerous.
Long term thinking is more concerned with how we navigate the roads. Life is a long term infinite goal game and often so are our careers. When you are doing something the best that you should results will come. You will get to Rome, you will meet your bosses quota. Your travels to and from Rome will be most likely smooth and almost event free if you are doing it right. Your 8 hour work day will not give you back pains and bad knees if you are lifting boxes correctly or sitting at your desk with the right posture.
You will get to your goals eventually that is never the question. Who do you want to be when you make it? That question is probably the most important one ever.
An absent parent or spouse more concerned with career than family life? A slacker always arriving late at work putting in minimal effort and leaving early? Every day at home or work you are gaining or loosing capital. The capital is not the result of the work it is the result of how the work is done.
I am still kind of reeling after the shooting in Uvalde Texas. The violence will never make sense. The shooting happened on Tuesday it is now Thursday and I am still just in shock. The monster shot and killed all the kids in the classroom.
Close to where I live there is a manufacturer that builds and sells assault rifles, lots of them. Someone on Facebook posted a picture of the factory that she drives by and made a comment about the factory putting the Don’t Tread on Me flag at half mast to remember the children that were shot to death using a rifle that they more than likely built. The picture had a not so flattering comment about the company that manufactures the death devices. Someone commented that it wasn’t the guns fault it was the evil peoples fault. That comment sounded a lot like the “guns don’t kill people, people do” statement I heard over and over again. I am not a big fan of this logic.
I guess if guns don’t kill people people do then guns are not dangerous and everyone should have on and there would be few accidental deaths. There are a lot of accidental deaths when it comes to guns. There are 430 accidental deaths from guns per year in the United States. That’s insane! Its hard to get a number on who owns how many guns in the United States however I think more people use and own toasters than guns. I would go as far to say that almost everyone at over the age of 17 has used and uses a toaster regularly. The toaster is the most dangerous appliance in your house. The toaster has set house a fire and electrocuted people. Toaster accidents account for in the United States an average of 300 people per year. Wait why is that less than guns? Well guns are made to kill people and toasters are not. When a gun kills someone it is working. When a toaster kills someone it is an accident. Guns and toasters kill people. People may or may not be the cause that the gun or toaster killed someone, a toaster could short out cause a fire and kill someone and a loaded gun could fall and someone could get shot but let’s be clear guns and toasters can, have and do kill people.
When a gun doesn’t kill someone it is not being used properly. I don’t think our nation will ever be safe if we cannot agree on fundamental truths. It is a truth that guns do kill people.
The stories about the evacuation of the Titanic have the famous statement “women and children first”, when loading the life boats. The story goes that women and children were helped onto the Titanic and loaded first. Why? Well, children are our legacy. Children carry on the species through time and therefore must survive. It is natural that we protect our children. Women bare children. When the Titanic sank the gender norms basically gave the role of caring for and raising children to women. So loading the Life boats with Women and Children first made sense.
It still makes sense today to take special effort to protect and care for women and children. However as a society the United States is doing a poor job of providing for women and children.
Yesterday I was publishing my podcast and news of a school shooting was in my feed. 19 children and 2 adults were shot and killed in Texas. Every year in the United States an average of 7,957 children are shot. The mortality rate for women in the United states is among the lowest in the wealthiest countries in the world.
How can we correct this? Start caring about women and children more than we care about ourselves. There are laws that are not passed in the United States that would make it harder to buy guns. Lawmakers and voters do not support these laws. the law makers and voters say they do not support them because they would hinder their rights to buy guns. I am a simple man and what I hear is that women and children matter less to them than their rights. Women die from domestic abuse and poor health care a lot. There are laws that have been halted that would provide health care to a lot of women. The reason the lawmakers and voters choose to stop health care laws or reform? Cost is a big reason for the lack of health care reform and health care for women. People do not want to invest in the health of women or children.
You and the nation that you live in will invest in and take care of what matters the most. The number one investment in the United States is the military. The military budget surges and not the good part of the military budget. Health care for soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen takes hits every year. Military schools and housing projects suffer budget cuts and are regularly shelved. Planes, war ships, munitions, and tanks are financed and roll off the assembly lines are rapid rates. Never stopping always producing and finding new ways to kill people.
America has and is still investing in death, Big time!! The lawmakers and voters for the lawmakers make some big money on war too. In 2021 lawmakers had over 1.5 million dollars of investments in the companies that built the machines that are used in war and “peace” operations of the US Military.
45 lawmakers voted against the background check law in the senate last year and have filibustered the law. all but three of the senators have and continue to take money from the NRA an organization dedicated to making it easy to buy and sell guns.
Protecting our women and children is the right thing but it is not profitable or easy and it seems all the United States cares about is money and efficiency not people. This is sad because people matter most.
I think Orson Welles understood how important people are and should be. When asked if he ever cast a friend in a film instead of the right person he answered with frequently. When asked why…
Because I don’t regard art as the prime importance. I already told you that I prefer every other loyalty in life to arts
Orson Welles
If society is not loyal to at the very least its women and children I fear it will be lost. All that matters is each other. not profit or rights or freedom. If we have no women and children we have no future and no hope.
It has been 100 years since women have gotten the right to vote in the United States of America and there is still dramatic inequality when it comes to women’s and men’s rights in the United States of America. Right now The United States is ranked 17th for women. Just all around there are 16 more countries, all of which have less money, influence and power than the United States and yet women are treated better there.
It’s not the money, or military might that makes a nation good or bad, it is the way the nation treats its citizens.
The United States has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, if the anti choice movement takes away the right to abortion it can be assumed that this rate will grow even larger. In 2020 17 women died for every 100 000 births. To compare the UK was 7, New Zealand was 3, and South Korea was 2.8. In the top ten richest countries in the world the United States has the highest rate for killing women while they are giving birth.
1 out of six women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime. Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark are among the top ten safest places for women, the United States is the tenth least safe country in the world for women.
After the civil war came the reconstruction period in the United States and that was the beginning of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is a plan to address racism in the United States. The program was working well and getting better until somethings happened in the supreme court and the White House.
In 1978 the supreme court ruled that quotas for measuring affirmative action were unconstitutional, in 2017the Whitehouse advocated for using “ace-neutral alternatives” for admitting students.
Affirmative Action was moving and had a way to measure it’s success however there have been some bumps in the road. Affirmative action also benefits women when it is executed and protected.
The playing field is not equal women and minorities start and often stay at lower levels than white men. To argue against this is to argue against the numbers and facts.
To make the United States better for women we must treat women with more that respect. We must bring women to the level of the white male in all facets of life. In the home, the workplace. the religions, and the government.
Women are 51% of the population but only make up 20% of representation in the government. That has to be fixed and it starts with our votes. The majority of Americans did vote for a women president however the antiquated broken system that the United States uses to count votes made it so that the unpopular male won. So we are getting there now we just need to look at the rules that have been created by the white males to keep white males in power. Its a lot of work but it can and will be done and it needs to start with men. We need to show women more respect than we do our fellow men. We need to be sure that we always consider representation when we are hiring, and we need to be aware of our training and unconscious bias against women.
Instead of scoffing at this post and ones like it perhaps consider your own actions or inactions. I certainly am going to try. I know that we can do better than 17th place!!
Words can influence, inspire and destroy a soul. Violence only brings death or harm and sometime both. Violence is a complex process but its rewards are short lived. Words live on for generations and inspire grandparents, parents, and children.
What we say to others matters so much and what we write down matters even more. Words can help but they can also hurt. Lies can and often do result in harm and in extreme cases death.
You can lie to everyone and use the lies as a tool to get what you want. You may never even suffer the consequences of lying to others however you will one day be faced with a situation in which you have to look to your self for truth and if all you have done is lied you will not be able to trust yourself.
Lets make a focused effort today and this week to use true words that make the world better.
Man that title! What a great post to end the week on right? I mean that is a huge question. The question stems from a Bill Maher video a friend of mine posted on FaceBook.
In the video Bill mentions how outrageous cancel culture has become. There is nothing wrong with tearing down the statues of confederate leaders in the United States. These leaders were truly on the wrong side of history. The confederate leaders in the United States killed people so that they could enslave people of another race through brutality and force. The confederate leaders in the United States deserve to be canceled however, Abraham Lincoln does not.
The King James version of the Bible has instructions for slaves and slave owners in both the old and new testaments. The instructions are not for the slaves to escape and the owners to free them either.
Ephesians 6:5: “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters.”
Colossians 3:22: “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.”
1 Peter 2:18: “Servants, be subject to your masters.”
Here is a pretty good article written by a pastor concerning the bibles take on slavery. At the end of the article the pastor admits that he wrestles with the bibles take on slavery and the article outlines why. That article is definitely worth a read. Even though some passages seem like and endorsement for slavery there are other instances in which the bible almost reads as an abolitionist pamphlet.
I think it is strange and maybe speaks to the person receiving the word but the same book and God were used to support and decry slavery.
Today the same is being done with other social issues and the Christian religion and text.
There are Christians that are Pro Choice and Anti Choice in the Abortion debate. Both camps use the bible to defend their positions.
There are Christians that are pro death penalty and anti death penalty. Both camps use the bible to defend their positions.
There are Christians that are pro gay marriage and against gay marriage. Both camps use the bible to defend their positions.
Environment
War
Evolution
Universalism
Women’s role in the church
Women’s role as leaders
Depending on how you read and interpret the bible as a Christian you may fall into one side or the other of one or all of these positions.
“Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…”
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was a slave, an abolitionist, a social reformer, an orator, a writer and a statesman. Frederick Douglas escaped slavery (essentially violating Ephesians 6″5) and after ten years of freedom wrote a letter to his former owner. I found some huge insight in a letter he wrote to his former owner and current slave owner (the man still owned his sisters and brothers).
Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my control….. God, the Creator of all mankind, the black and the white, and that he had made the blacks to serve the whites as slaves. How he could do this and be good, I could not tell. I was not satisfied with this theory, which made God responsible for slavery, for it pained me greatly, and I have wept over it long and oft
Frederick Douglass
I would surely cancel anyone who promotes slavery in any way. That being said, I am not ready to cancel the Christian God. Not yet anyways. I am honestly not sure why
phesians 6:5: “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters.” Colossians 3:22: “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.” 1 Peter 2:18: “Servants, be subject to your masters.”
are in the bible but, there are many verse that call slavery what it is and are totally against the practice.
“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages,
Their is a certain western type of Christianity that seems to still be prevalent within the United States particularly. This style of Christianity makes it ok to take away peoples freedoms and rights based on how the bible is interrupted. This religion this god deserves and should be canceled. The god who says it is ok to enslave a race, prevent a woman from controlling her own body, deny adults the right to be married, deny science and destroy the world for our children to get more profit. That god that religion should be canceled. The God who tells us That we are all free. The God who tells us that all men and women are equal. The God who forgives. The God that uses love. The God that tells us to put our swords back in its place and demands peace. This God this Christian religion should be revered celebrated, studied and embraced. This religion will bring us into the 21st century with hope. All that the current western religion has is what it had during the time slavery was legal in the United States and that is destruction and death.
So I will gladly cancel the god of the western world but, I still and think I will always believe in the God of the whole world.
My wife gives the greatest gifts and that’s because she loves me. When you love the person you are giving a gift to it shows and the gifts tend to be more treasured than a gift given out of obligation or reluctantly.
Giving gifts is something humans have done since the beginning of time. The ancient Egyptians were the first to give gifts on birthdays, The Greeks and Native Americans gave gifts during religious celebrations.
One of the greatest gifts ever given to any man or woman alive today is their life. The odds of you being born are 1 in 400 trillion. A lot of things had to happen to make you happen and a lot of people were involved. The easy way out is to say that you were gifted life by a creator or the universe and I am not here to argue against that concept however consider this your life is a gift from your mother and father. Their lives from their mother and father. If you think about it the reason you are here is because of everything everyone in the world did prior to your life so your life is a result of the whole world. Are you treating your life as a special unique gift from your ancestors? Imagine if we did do that…
What would a life lived as if it were a gift from previous generations look like? I think that life would be less rushed’
Life is not a race, it is a gift. Enjoy it, don’t rush through it.
Daniella Kessler
A few weeks back my wife and I went to a restaurant with our dog to eat. We were but on the list because the restaurant was full and the three of us waited out on the restaurants patio. Maybe it was the company of two of my favorite souls, the drinks’ or the beautiful weather but I was not in a hurry to go eat. I loved every moment the three of us spent waiting.
I think the life would be more grateful.
If you’re awake, you are blessed/ Life is a priceless gift, appreciate every minute of it(:
Unknown
8 Years ago I did participated in a grateful exercise. I bought 50 blank cards and envelopes from the store and wrote out to 50 people in 50 days why I was grateful that they were in my life then I mailed out the cards. Time passed months even and I was at the park on a jogging trail I was waved down by the someone he stopped me and let me know that my letter to his wife made her so happy. Being grateful takes practice and it is worth it! Being grateful changes our perspective and can change our situations and even if it doesn’t change the situation it will change the affect that the situation has on your life.
I think the life would be more giving.
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
Tony Robbins
You have talents, passions, maybe even some wealth. If you are not giving that back to people the talents, passions, and wealth is wasted. Becoming more is only accomplished by charity.
Next time you feel the urge to hurry, complain, or be selfish consider how great and rare a gift you were given (1 in 400 trillion!).
The Corrigan Encore 