Tom Ehrich on life & faith

Dig to rescue or dig for gold?

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:28:23 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

The juxtaposition was coarse and sad.

On the top left of The Times’ front page were photos of rescue workers searching for victims of yesterday’s mile-wide tornado in Oklahoma.

Top right was an article about Apple Inc.’s determined effort to avoid paying tens of billions of taxes to the US through an elaborate web of phantom companies and overseas tax havens.

Spanning the fold was the photo of a four-year-old girl burying her father, killed in battle.

While rescue workers dug with their bare hands to save human lives and the daughter of a fallen soldier carried the carefully folded American flag in her arms, Apple’s lawyers were scouring the globe to dodge their ethical duty.

My advice to Apple CEO Tim Cook when he testifies before Congress: don’t be clever, don’t mouth platitudes about obligations to shareholders, don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. Be ashamed. Be embarrassed.

What Apple has done — and many other corporations do, as well — might be within the law. But it is profoundly unethical. It is a violation of the covenant we all make as citizens to care for our fellow citizens.

Your company benefits greatly from the infrastructure provided to all enterprises, such as enforcement of contracts, public services and education, not to mention the freedom to dream great dreams. You cannot just take that and not give back.

The heroes in this land are teachers who shield their students from gunfire, neighbors who band together after the storm, first-responders who run toward danger and then stick around to deal with danger’s consequences, men and women who stand in harm’s way and sometimes don’t survive, and survivors who stand at the grave and commit to living.

You could get away with making billions from electronic wizardry. But when you shun your duty as an American citizen and withhold funds that states like Oklahoma desperately need, squeezing a bit more magic into a smartphone seems small and vain.

So, Tim Cook, when the hard questions are asked, keep a copy of The Times in front of you. Which do you want to be: the man selflessly digging through rubble to rescue a child, or the man digging for gold by evading taxes, employing workers in unsafe conditions, and lobbying government for favors?

Ah yes, that pesky buck

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:20:52 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

When he faced withering criticism, President Truman pointed to his Oval Office desk and said, “The buck stops here.” He took action.

Most presidents since Truman have said, “What buck?”

President Obama says, “Oh, that buck never reached my desk. And I’m really angry about it.”

Democrats in Congress say, “Hey, somebody stop that buck.” Republicans say, “Gotcha! Didn’t see that buck coming, did you? Here comes another.”

Meanwhile, as the buck bounces, the nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble, public education at all levels is on starvation rations, big banks are back at their risky and self-serving folly, military veterans are committing suicide at the rate of 26 a day, families are in chaos, corruption is rife, and large industries cannot hack it without cheating, lopping off jobs, and hiring the desperately poor to work in unsafe conditions.

Thus systemic dysfunction becomes the new normal for a nation whose lofty ideals now far exceed its ability to take action.

A divided citizenry disagrees on which “rascals” to “throw out,” but I suspect we are united in disdain for our extravagantly paid and privileged leaders.

Avoiding accountability becomes the new management art form. When J.P. Morgan Chase shareholders began to vote against their own chairman, insiders stopped publishing vote tallies. The Justice Department played “big brother” in chasing down Associated Press reporters for writing inconvenient articles. Gun lobbyists deny any connection between lax gun laws and rampant gun violence. Silicon Valley lobbies hard to hire technology stars overseas, rather than push their own school systems to work harder at teaching technology.

At all levels, from large enterprises like Yahoo to the small shop on the corner, workers fail to show up for work, fail to complete assignments, and yet still expect to be paid.

Is it as bad as all this? No, it’s worse. If you were to tabulate the signs of dysfunction, it would break your heart.

Is there hope? Oh yes, there is hope. At ground level, people are taking action to make lives better. They are doing the best they can to counterbalance official malfeasance and C Suite bullies.

I see a wonderful new attitude in faith communities, as pride and isolation give way to desire for mission. The example being set by Pope Francis is promising.

As people expect less from those who presume to lead, they are finding common ground.

It would be good if President Obama abandoned diffidence and discovered a passion for political action. It would be good if Congress’ absurd antics gave way to concern for the nation. It would be good if the wealthy realized “enough is as good as a feast,” as my father often said.

Until that “glorious summer” arrives, we are on our own and probably will be the stronger for it.

"Random Family"

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:54:05 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

AUSTIN, TX — I am deep into a disturbing and yet riveting read: “Random Family,” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.

Disturbing, because it describes a New York neighborhood not far from my own in miles but light-years distant in the human condition.

Now I know first-hand the cost of unrelenting poverty: the serial pregnancies of teenagers like Jessica and Coco, the drug wealth of Boy George and Cesar and then their imprisonment, three-generation households unable to provide consistent care for any generation, lost children, frightened teenagers, weary and drugged out grandmothers, men who prove their manhood by impregnating girls but don’t know what to do next.

I also know about dreams that won’t die, strong devotions, moments of grace, and systems that try.

LeBlanc’s 2003 non-fiction narrative is riveting because it doesn’t patronize or idolize its people. It just describes their world and tells their stories, gathered over 10 years of research.

I think my Manhattan apartment small, but compared to the projects on Tremont Avenue in The Bronx, I live grandly. I think myself strong and capable, but if I had been born into Boy George’s brutish world, instead of a middle-class family-friendly neighborhood in Indianapolis, would I have had the strength of character to survive intact?

I read “Random Family” on my flight to Austin, and then stepped into a seemingly prosperous world where all the cars are huge, money flows, and politicians inhabiting bubbles sneer at the Jessicas and Cocos across the tracks.

The gaps dividing us are vast, and yet they were formed largely by chance, not personal merit. I am grateful for good fortune. Now I wonder what should come next.

Mourner in Chief

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:57:46 -0400

April 26, 2013

By Tom Ehrich

By chance, President Obama has become our national “Mourner in Chief,” and we seem to be grateful for it.

After years of his predecessor’s cold diffidence in the face of tragedy, it is helpful to see the President and First Lady wiping tears from their eyes in West, TX, while mourning firefighters killed in a plant explosion.

Just a week before, he stood in Boston and joined its mourning after two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon.

Before that it was Newtown, CT, and coastal towns battered by Hurricane Sandy.

Whereas some called for vengeance — let’s declare war on someone to make the pain go away! — the President seems to have figured out the better, more mature first response is to mourn with those who mourn.

Action, including crime-solving, investigations and possibly retaliation, usually can come later. But the pain of tragedy requires grieving, not revenge.

Yes, anger is a stage in grieving. But great damage is done when we get stuck in anger. Besides, actions taken in anger are rarely wise and effective. Anger is usually a cover for the fear that arises when events, storms and people go haywire. We need to deal with the fear before we act.

Thus, Bostonians responded immediately to the bombings by declaring, in effect, we won’t live in fear. In what sounded more like determination than macho bluster, the city’s temporary motto became, “Boston Strong.”

Perhaps the cruelest response after Newtown was that of the National Rifle Association, whose message echoed the mobster in “Oceans 11,” “Be afraid, be very afraid — now go buy some guns.”

Our complex, diverse and often troubled nation has no shortage of angry avengers. We need more who take the time and compassion to grieve. When we have grieved, our words have content and our actions flow from reason, not reaction.

Congress, Bought and Intimidated

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:08:04 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

When special interests buy a Congress and make legislators afraid, this is what you get.

They ignore recent tragedies and the desire of a vast majority of Americans, and they capitulate to the gun lobby.

They impose a little public embarrassment on egregious banking executives but otherwise leave them alone to continue preying on the American public and boosting profits.

They ignore the outcome of the 2012 elections, because in their precious chambers, the balance didn’t shift that much, thanks to gerrymandered districts. The people spoke loud and clear in November, but Congress feels no duty to listen to anyone but lobbyists bearing gifts, partisan ideologues bearing scorn, and pollsters bearing reelection scenarios.

They ignore the wise advice of economists and adopt the austerity agenda that is already crippling Europe. Instead of adopting policies that could strengthen the American economy, they pursue discredited policies that will enable them to do further damage to the American economy and threaten retirees and the poor, while handing even more of the nation’s wealth to the greedy 1%.

When legislators are bought and intimidated, they ignore the common citizen, the public interest, the course of wisdom, and our American values. The nation apparently means nothing to them.

We can do better than this self-serving gang of rascals.

Tanking PC sales -- disturbing and encouraging

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:47:32 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

Okay, my blog beat is life and faith, not technology. But I still have an opinion on tanking personal computer sales.

The tech blogosphere is alarmed by sagging sales of desktop and laptop computers. Some call it “death of the PC.”

The common wisdom is that people are switching to tablet computers and smartphones. Some blame lackluster PC hardware offerings by Dell et al. Some blame Microsoft’s latest iteration of Windows.

I think the problem is much more disturbing and encouraging than that.

On the disturbing side is the question of creating content vs. consuming content.

Some use technology to write articles, essays, on up to dissertations and books. Or to manage spreadsheets, create presentations, manage databases, track customers, write code — in other words, to do the work that business, education and the arts require.

That is work for a desktop or laptop. None of that content-creation work can be satisfactorily done on a mobile device. I have tried. Without a cursor or decent keyboard and without an ability to keep several apps open, the iPad makes content-creation frustrating, often nightmarish.

Mobile devices are made for consuming content — playing games, watching videos, reading emails, articles and books, checking the weather, and using social media. Oh, and telephone calling.

I use four devices — desktop at my office, laptop on the road, tablet on the sofa, and smartphone on the move — and each is great.

The disturbing decline, it seems to me, is in content creation. Fewer people are writing, managing data, making the quality of contribution that constitutes “creation.” Too many are like locusts, feasting on the work of others.

I read the stats on declining PC sales and see less writing, less thinking, less dreaming, less desire to develop one’s mind. I see more hunger for fun and games.

On the encouraging side, I think people who do create content are shifting how they work. They use web apps, accessed by a browser, not requiring the latest in PC hardware. They are simplifying how they create content, moving to tools like Draft, a splendid app just for writing, as opposed to the bloatware put out by Microsoft.

How much better could Office or Windows get? The problem isn’t Office 2013 or Windows 8; it’s the upgrade path itself no longer seeming necessary.

On the one hand, we aren’t educating enough people who yearn to write, think and create. That’s a problem. On the other hand, people are abandoning the upgrade treadmill and extending the useful life of what they own. That sounds wise.

This isn’t “death of the PC.” It’s something far more complex and worthy of sustained attention.

Spring comes to Bryant Park -- so do I

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:48:09 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

Of New York City’s 1,500-plus parks, my favorite might be Bryant Park, a 9.6-acre rectangle set behind the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan.

Gone are any vestiges of the park’s bad old days as a haven for drug users. Today, on a warm spring day, we bought food at Metro Cafe and stepped off 42nd Street and joined a crowd of office workers lingering at small tables.

Soon the park will offer Monday night movies on its lawn, as well as a mass yoga class and freestyle laying-about. Office workers will bring laptops and tablets to use the park’s free wi-fi as a second office. Not the quietest workspace, but still remarkably freeing.

I especially like walking briskly through the park on my way to work. It feels like a touch of Paris — still empty, though on its way to being the most densely occupied park in the world.

The urge toward freedom is built deeply into us. Even in urban congestion, we find places where we can see the sky, feel grass, laze about, and talk about something other than business.

Architectural historians refer to Grand Central Terminal as “New York’s cathedral.” But I think our worship space is actually the parks that enable us to be ourselves, honest before God.

Seeing the more that is God

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:29:01 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

After the Jazz/Gospel service early Sunday afternoon, I ate a slow Thai lunch at 84th and Lexington and headed up to 85th for a cookie before my evening commitment.

Outside Koffeecake Corner I came upon a fellow singer in the Gospel Choir. Big smile, warm greeting, wasn’t the service awesome, waiting for my friends, have you tried their cookies, see you at rehearsal.

Those two minutes proved two things. First, even in Manhattan, you occasionally see someone you know on the street.

Second, that seeing is like meeting up with God. A surprise, a delight, it transforms an ordinary street corner. I am part of something bigger than the world I see and touch every day.

If faith is shared primarily by stories, then faith will be a small canvas that shows a single glimpse of God’s reality, but also suggests something far larger.

That larger isn’t something we can control or comprehend; our insistence on doctrines and “truths” has been prideful. The more that is God will always extend far beyond our sight. When Jesus showed startled disciples his hands and side, they had no idea what they were seeing. It was enough for the moment, and later they would see more. Other followers would see even more than that — and God would still be beyond our grasp.

It is enough to be surprised by small glimpses. Open minds matter more than settled beliefs.

Later, at Lifeline, a friend who has reached a critical stage in recovery from addiction said her oldest child had called after a long silence. That call brightened her day at the recovery center where she lives for now. It reminded her of the more in her own life.

Listen & Respect

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:53:14 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

When I was a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, our competition in breaking news was Reuters.

It was a black day if Reuters moved a news story before we did. I once kept a long-distance telephone line open from Pittsburgh to New York for 30 minutes, so that I could be first to report a change in US Steel Corp.’s dividend.

In this age of digital news, the Journal’s competition is The New York Times. I had assumed The Times normally won, because their overall coverage is so much more substantial and balanced than Murdoch Madness.

But the Journal broke the news of a papal election 11 minutes before The Times did — an eternity in news time, if not in church time. Just now the Journal ran a brief on the Pentagon beefing up West Coast missile defenses a full 46 minutes ahead of The Times.

My hunch is that The Times hasn’t yet raised the performance bar for its digital staff. They did a superb job of analyzing the election of Pope Francis, and that matters. But do does timeliness. In this realm, speed means quality, and being first conveys trustworthiness.

Now, at this point, you might be asking, Who in the world cares about those eleven minutes of lost news time? Surely getting it deeply and correctly matters more than getting it first.

No, not more than. Just as much, perhaps, but not more than. And that is a point I wish religious folks could grasp.

People insist on defining what matters to them. If given any opening, they will assert their interests and needs, and you can be sure you haven’t guessed everything on their list.

To some news readers, speed matters more than depth, and that’s just the way it is. To some Christians, a presentation of God who looks like them conveys truth — female, dark-skinned, young, tolerant — and your presentation of God as male, white, old and narrow doesn’t convey truth. You can accept that and show an open mind to all, or reject it and drive much of the population away.

Does this mean God is a commercial product designed by shallow focus groups? No, it means God isn’t just one thing, but many things, each containing a piece of God’s truth, and none containing all of that truth.

You can try to talk someone out of their interests, needs and beliefs. Or you can respect them and treasure the other person for seeing what you are unable to see.

Now that would be an interesting sight: people thanking each other for being different.

The Other 1%

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:55:53 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

Behold the new One Percent.

In New York City, where a simple breakfast (two eggs, bacon and juice) at the swank 44 restaurant costs $29, an estimated 21,000 children sleep in homeless shelters each night.

That’s 1% of the city’s total children. The homeless-children count is up 22% from a year ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It’s the worst homelessness since the Great Depression, and it’s happening in other cities, as well.

Meanwhile, the other 1% — those whose relentless greed contributes to the expanding ranks of the poor — is being invited to pay $14 million for an apartment in the Dakota, at 72nd and Central Park West, where John Lennon once lived and urged people to “imagine no possessions…no greed or hunger…all the people sharing all the world.”

It’s easier to imagine than to do, it seems.

Believe in life

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:29:02 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

On the same day North Korea threatened a preemptive nuclear attack on the US, I had other concerns: snow starting to fall on Manhattan, dinner with a friend, investment strategy after a record Dow high, web site design, completing slides for a church leaders’ retreat, and of course the strenuous doings at Downton Abbey.

Those concerns would vanish into irrelevance if nuclear missiles did start flying. North Korean would vanish, too, as would any prospect of peace.

What else can we do, though, but live the day we have before us? I remember visiting towns along the Mediterranean. If enemy ships appeared offshore, the day changed. Otherwise, they made shoes, harvested grapes and olives, attended mass, taught their children, and walked along the harbor gazing out to the sea that was their source of food, home to dragons, and avenue of attack.

Today’s ally could be tomorrow’s enemy. Today’s lovemaking could be tomorrow’s death in childbirth. Anything can go wrong. But life can’t be lived in fear of the wrong. The boldness of living is to live even as evil powers threaten war and life itself promises difficulty.

Faith isn’t about guarantees. Faith says the loved one is worth holding even if she is torn away tomorrow. Faith says learn to plant olives even if destruction pends, because the day of needing food will come.

Faith says believe in life, even as death hovers. Faith says believe in God, even as darkness seems to be winning.

Office, not Home -- at least for Me

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:14:57 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

I believe in the work-from-anywhere revolution that mobile technology makes possible.

In fact, I believed in it before the iPhone, iPad and wireless Internet. It seems antique now, but I once wrote in my hotel room in Naples, Italy, and then found a telephone connection for dialing into the Internet.

Since then, I have enjoyed working in airport lounges, Amtrak trains, my sister’s kitchen, countless coffee houses, various Manhattan parks, and my early-morning perch at a small table in my apartment.

And yet, when it came time to establish my business in New York, I rented an office in Midtown. As I set about growing that business, I bought a desktop computer, not the latest upgrade to my iPad. And when I brought a part-time marketing wiz into my business, I established a place for her in my Midtown office.

In other words, I agree with Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s controversial decision to ban working-from-home at her company. It’s too easy to lose focus at home, to take care of household chores, instead of business, and to lose the zest of working alongside other people.

Maybe it would be different if I still had children at home. But I don’t think so. In my opinion, creative work requires people, interactions, irritations, listening, competition, sorting through nutty ideas and good ideas, and experiencing the many faces and accents of our diverse world.

Besides, if I were cashing a paycheck, I would expect to be held accountable for what I do, not just wired money for work I’m only halfway doing, which apparently was the case at Yahoo.

Those are my views. Others will see it differently. And that, too, matters. For making personal decisions about the work we do, how we do it, and where work ranks in our hierarchy of values is essential to developing and expressing our unique selves.

The challenge back to Mayer is to make sure face-time at Yahoo is quality-time. Too many office workers spend their time in pointless meetings. Bureaucrats in business, education, religion and government live for meetings. It is meetings that tend to stifle innovation. It is the layers of authority that meetings exist to support that stifle fresh thinking. It is the acting-out and gamesmanship that meetings evoke in the insecure that tend to prevent creative collaboration.

Getting employees out of their pajamas and into an office chair is fine. But treating them with dignity and respect and as free and capable beings whose time matters will contribute even more.

Bubbles bursting in US Christianity

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:21:41 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

Life inside a bubble can feel complete, even dynamic, as the bubble’s surface shimmers and yet retains form.

But watch this video of a bubble bursting in slow motion: http://mashable.com/2013/02/21/bubble-burst-slow-motion/.

When the surface is breached, the bubble collapses immediately, in one case shattering into a liquid spray faster than a metal object can fall through where it used to be. What looked like a permanent structure is, in fact, uncertain, short-lived and quickly lost.

We saw a ”tech bubble” burst 13 years ago. What had seemed durable and laden with value turned out to be vapor. The “housing bubble” came next. Some think another “tech bubble” is about to burst,.

The bubble I see bursting is the Christian enterprise in America. It is bursting ever-so-slowly, as in the slo-mo video, and millions of people still find life, meaning, safety and structure inside their bubbles.

But one failing congregation at a time, the surface of shimmering shape is being breached, and collapse comes quickly. Suddenly, as if overnight, the money is gone. Bills can’t be paid. Clergy are unaffordable. Young families flee or stay away. Buildings are returned to secular usage.

Perhaps most perplexing, many people discover they didn’t have much religious interest beyond keeping the building open. They hadn’t learned to rely on prayer, to see their lives as mission for God, to make decisions in the world based on Godly admonition, or to form sustainable spiritual relationships beyond bubble boundaries.

I recently wrote a newspaper column on Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise retirement. I lamented his eight years of leading the Roman Catholic Church backward. I lamented the Church’s track record of supporting injustice in order to defend the institution.

My column drew an immediate burst of rage from staunch Catholic traditionalists, who termed me “anti-Catholic” and therefore inherently wrong and unfit to write a column.

Their vehemence was so sudden and over-the-top that I wondered if a bubble was being breached. They were rising to defend something that suddenly looked vulnerable, maybe even passing away.

They wouldn’t see it that way, of course. In their eyes, the Church is built on solid rock and will last forever. Those who deal in bubbles often see reality that way. Then the bubble bursts.

In the past 50 years – a mere wink in 2,000 years of church time – Mainline Protestant churches have become a shadow of their 1950s heyday. Roman Catholic dioceses in America are closing schools, closing parishes, losing nuns and priests, and spending heavily to settle sex-abuse litigation.

Other denominations are struggling, too, such as Southern Baptists. So are megachurches once they get beyond the excitement and personal charisma of the founding pastor.

Bubble-bursting isn’t limited to whatever denomination or tradition you don’t like. Nor is it anti-Catholic (or anti-anything) to lament over it. When the wind of God’s Spirit is trapped inside bubbles, this is what happens.

The Spirit aims to roam freely over the landscape, creating what God wants created, changing lives, sending people out, showering grace on those who need grace, sending prophets to call down the greedy and self-serving,

That wind blows where it will and cannot be held for long inside any bubble, no matter how fervently some want to see that bubble as a rock-solid structure and the bubble’s shimmering surface as God’s great and eternal delight.

Waging war on children

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:43:00 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

I had a sinking feeling when conservatives in Congress immediately began building a case against expanding the availability of pre-school education.

On the one hand, their case was familiar: another program that might boost the federal deficit and create an entitlement constituency. That case won’t stand much scrutiny, as the economic benefits of better early-childhood education far outweigh its up-front cost, but it isn’t overtly offensive.

The just-below-the-surface argument that this entitlement constituency might vote Democratic was sadly familiar, too.

The deeper and unspoken case, however, is disturbing. Education can mean entry into the middle class. Upward mobility boosts tax revenues and consumer spending, but it also means more people who consider themselves worthwhile and their freedom worth defending.

A wealth-centered movement hell-bent on creating downward mobility, so that more wealth flows upward to the few, won’t want poor children to learn and to advance. If anything, they want more children to descend into ignorance and poverty, as now seems to have been the subtext of No Child Left Behind all along.

Thus, sabotage public schools. Deny funding to public universities. Prevent too many citizens from becoming truly educated. Never mind the personal and economic damage that this strategy causes.

Waging war on poor children on the pretext of preserving individual freedom and promoting sound fiscal policy takes hypocrisy to a new level.

Ah, the "conventional wisdom"

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:36:15 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

Here’s how the so-called “conventional wisdom” gets formed.

Statistics about computer usage come out. A blogger writes a somewhat nuanced article. A lazy headline editor slaps this header on it:

“Users are Ditching PCs for Tablets and Smartphones.”

Someone remembers Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs famously predicting a “Post-PC era.” And readers say, “This is it! The PC is dead!”

Well, not exactly. If you look at the numbers, it seems just one-third of PC users are using their desktops and laptops less for content-consumption activities such as browsing the Internet, scanning Facebook, playing games and reading books. They are using their tablets and smartphones more for those activities.

The rest of PC users still use their desktop and laptop units for browsing and Facebooking, as well as content creation activities such as writing documents, managing spreadsheets and entering data.

In other words, people are still tied to their desk-located devices for activities that earn a living, while for leisure-time uses the balance is shifting to tablets and smartphones. That reality is a long way from calling time of death for the PC.

The more interesting question is how much time we spend creating content versus consuming content. And its corollary: how much time we spend working versus playing. Those aren’t questions about gear but about life-purpose.

Similarly, in the church realm where I work, headlines ask, as one did today, “The shrinking church: congregations look for solutions as they face declines in membership, attendance.” Where, such article ask, have all the people gone?

In fact, they haven’t “gone” anywhere. They never arrived. Mainline churches have missed two consecutive generations of young adults – because they never came, they never found a reason to attend Sunday worship. If something else had been offered, who knows? But as it is, churches have remained remarkably stubborn about “putting all their eggs in the one basket of Sunday worship,” as one pastor put it recently.

The better headline would be: “The stubborn church: Can congregations liberate themselves from their Sunday-only stalwarts?”

The more interesting question is: can church leaders find the flexibility and courage to look beyond Sunday morning?

And for all the question is: can we ignore the headlines and dig a little deeper?

OMG, no URL. OK, OTL

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:11:20 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

I signed up for an interesting online course offered by the University of Virginia’s business school. So did 70,000 others.

I watched the first of three video lectures for week 1. When I returned for videos 2 and 3, I couldn’t find the URL for accessing the course. I reviewed the last five emails from the Darden School, and not one of them had the link.

Seems to me every email about the course ought to include the link. But then I think church web sites ought to identify their city, state, phone number and location. Businesses ought to post their hours of operation. Emails should have a sender address naming the sender. New York City businesses should state their location by cross-street. (Is 500 Fifth Avenue at 5th or 50th Street? No, 42nd.)

Effective communications don’t just speak to the tribe. They market to the stranger. Unless, of course, you’re only interested in the tribe. Then tribe-speak makes sense. It keeps the uninitiated away.

Tribe-speak, insider lingo, code language, acronyms – they all succeed in keeping people away. Then we wonder why churches are dying and businesses are failing. If we want our enterprises to prosper, we need to market them all the time.

Same with marriages and friendships. We can’t say “I love you” just once a year. Friends need to be reminded they are valued. Employees need to know when they have done good work.

Tribe-speak isn’t just about the childhood comforts of secret handshakes and stay-out clubhouses. It’s also about power. I remember sitting in on a US Navy meeting that was conducted entirely in acronyms. Message: we belong, you don’t.

In the case of the missing UVa URL for the GGSGPB course, I plan to be MIA until they send me a link. For now, they are, in my opinion, OTL.

"Born on third base"

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:54:23 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

Every once in a while, in my daily writings, I fashion a phrase or sentence, then sit back and smile.

Nice! I say to myself. The words fit, they dance, they sparkle. Not always the most profound thought, but a delight to the writer’s eye.

I had a reader’s version of this “Nice!” moment today, when I read New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s description of Russian leader Vlaidimir Putin: “He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.”

What a perfect phrase! I thought. Not original to Friedman, it turns out. Used often against former President George Bush, the phrase goes back at least to 1986 and Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer.

Still, a nice phrase, and when applied to those lucky enough to be born to wealth or, in Putin’s case, vast oil and gas reserves that he did nothing to create, it explains why, as Friedman put it, Putin “thinks he’s a genius and doesn’t need to listen to anyone.”

Luck isn’t greatness. Luck isn’t achievement. Luck isn’t worthy of praise. Luck is simply luck. Not a bad thing, as any baseball player who does get to third base after a lucky bounce will tell you. But not an act of genius, not an invitation to pronounce judgment on others, not an occasion for boasting.

In fact, luck can create a false sense of prowess and thus open the door to humiliating failure.

Some in today’s ultra-wealthy class got there by hard work, invention, and determination. Some of those, like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett, move on to gratitude and generosity.

Others, however, were born into wealth, started life with investment trusts that insulated them against life, grew up in safe surroundings, attended superlative schools, and won praise without actually accomplishing anything. Those tend to be arrogant and harsh on their “inferiors.” It’s one reason corporate recruiters prefer state universities over Harvard and Princeton, where “entitlement” attitudes often cripple work ethic.

The great inequalities that President Obama vowed to address are more subtle than differences in bank accounts. Some in America start behind and, despite excellent minds and hard work, never catch up. Some start out ahead, by sheer luck, and not only lord it over others, but rig political and economic systems to their benefit.

That is the rot that caused the downfall of the Roman Empire, the crumbling of Europe’s great nations, and the corruption of modern Russia and China. Whether the unjust reign of the lucky will undermine America remains to be seen.

I am hopeful, but our own history as a nation shows that the lucky don’t play well with others. They think they deserve to win.

Speaking of fear

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:57:47 -0500

By Tom Ehrich

Let’s consider fear.

Not the usual phobias – fear of snakes, fear of heights – but the fears that tend to compromise our effectiveness as leaders.

I’m thinking fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of losing control, fear of conflict, and fear of change.

These fears can paralyze us at precisely the point where we need to act, or cause us to behave compulsively when we need to listen and absorb, or drive us protectively inward when our better course would be collaboration.

For example, fear of failure can cause a leader to overcompensate and to take on too many tasks because colleagues cannot be trusted to do them right. This irritates potential collaborators, leaves them feeling diminished, and causes some to wonder what the leader is hiding.

Fear of rejection can cause a leader to be too accommodating, too passive. Fear of conflict leads to shallow relationships, as well as hiding of outcomes. Fear of losing control leads to narrow and safe leadership alliances, not bold and challenging interactions.

Fear is a powerful demon, turning us into the very beings we want not to be, and undermining the accomplishments we want to attain. When afraid, we make poor and self-defeating decisions.

Fear has many sources. A situation can trigger an ancient dread or a painful memory. An antagonist can threaten us. An authority can promise reward but also imply risk. Fear can arise from having our personal space invaded, or being shouted at, or being drawn into unwanted intimacy.

Sometimes we are wise to be fearful, as in an unsafe system where honesty will be used against us, or where people around us are being hurt, or where dangerous persons are unchecked. Scott Peck wrote an entire book about fearing evil, called “People of the Lie.” Leaders in an open and diverse system like a church can count on encountering people who are, in fact, evil and dangerous.

Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid.” Speak the truth even when doing so will offend the darkness. Stand for justice, even when the powerful fight back. Welcome the outcast and lowly, even when the proper and pious threaten reprisal. Choose life when others prefer death. Choose love when others hate.

The Christ-led response to fear is to take the counter-intuitive position and to walk apart from the crowd. You might still suffer, but God will be in that suffering.

In my experience, we learn to be brave, partly by having bravery work for us, but mainly by seeing how lousy the outcomes are when we yield to fear. For a time when I felt under attack, I went home from leadership meetings more than once filled with self-loathing because I had yielded to fear.

Antagonists in church conflict usually start their assault by establishing an environment of fear. Not cogent arguments, not contrary positions, but intimidation. The leader who can respond by remaining non-anxious and reasonable will eventually prevail. But that is asking a lot of a leader, especially when fellow leaders protect themselves by standing aside, not enforcing healthy norms, and leave the bully and the leader to joust.

What I suggest, first, that you sense the fear as it rises. Knot in the stomach, body language of turning away, loss of normal confidence in speaking – just see it happening. Then, second, name the fear and insist that no meaningful decisions can be made as long as some are causing fear and others are feeling fear.

Sandy: Lines Drawn, then Blurred

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:45:38 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

A storm like Hurricane Sandy starts by drawing lines. Then it blurs those lines.

Maps showed who was in “Frankenstorm’s” path and who was beyond its destructive reach. New York City braced for the worst.

Later maps showed New Jersey a pending disaster and New York City outside the line of truly-awful. Live reports by the amazing crew of CBS-2 showed 20-foot waves at Atlantic City and calm but steadily advancing water breaching the seawall at Manhattan’s southern tip.

But then we in Manhattan began to understand that slow-moving flood. Soon it would pour into subway tunnels and power equipment – eventually flooding seven tunnels beneath the East River and causing one power plant to explode. Bridges, ferries and all rail service were suspended, turning the heartbeat of the “connected” economy back into an isolated island.

Now, new lines would emerge. Power would be cut off – preemptively, to protect equipment – south of Battery Park, then south of 14th Street, then south of 39th Street, with another potentially ruinous high tide to come this morning.

Residents of Brooklyn and Queens saw their own lines of safe/unsafe, evacuate/stay. Fires destroyed 80-100 homes in an oceanside area of Queens.

As quickly as we took solace in being north of 39th or inland from Far Rockaway, we soon saw air-traffic disruptions that will cascade across the country, closing of stock exchanges that will cascade around the world, mass-transit closings that will disrupt stores and offices, many billions of dollars lost that could cripple some enterprises and drive some people over the line to poverty.

New York works by being the hub of global commerce, global communications and global travel. When New York stops working, shudders spread far and wide.

As the day of Sandy’s arrival proceeded, my wife and I took a walk along the Hudson to marvel at the oncoming flood, then we hunkered down at home. We watched CBS-2 document the storm. I felt humbled by the hundreds of first-responders who were putting out fires and clearing live wires, as well as medical personnel carrying NYU Hospital patients down stairwells and out to ambulances for relocation to other medical centers.

I noticed something. People were praying for us. People in untouched places like Houston and Indianapolis, and in the far-flung world of Facebook were lifting us up to God. Our sons checked in from California and Upstate New York. Friends sent messages.

We weren’t alone, stranded on the wrong side of some line.

My own prayers are following the storm north into New England, where we have family, and where recently-made friends in Vermont suffered mightily from Irene in 2011 and could face more flooding.

As New Yorkers began saying to each other after 9/11, “We’re all in this together.”

Knuckle-Down Mode

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:31:25 -0400

By Tom Ehrich

I am struck by how many enterprises are setting up a big roll of the dice. Microsoft is betting the farm on Windows 8. Loss-ridden phone-maker Nokia has one shot left with a new smartphone due next month. Blackberry seems down to one last chance at staying afloat.

The upcoming retail season could be make-or-break for major brands like Best Buy, as well as for countless local enterprises. I get the uneasy feeling that some automakers are blowing hard on the dice.

I know this rolling-dice moment is true in the church world. A lot is riding on this year’s stewardship canvass, leadership selections, and boldness in planning.

It is always difficult for mature enterprises to stay afloat. They stop asking pertinent questions, they focus too much on survival, they lose their appetite for risk, they resist change, and the loyal turn out to be loyal to themselves, not to the enterprise.

The compelling vision loses its oomph, and custodians of that vision fight to retain it, rather than seek a fresh compelling vision.

The good news is that staying alive and charting a better course aren’t a dice game. Microsoft, for instance, is allocating $1 billion to advertise Windows 8 – but first, they gave themselves a sterling new product to promote. If Microsoft makes it, it will be superior technology, not hype.

Faced with extinction, serious, well-led enterprises don’t lapse into magical thinking. They knuckle down and get the work done.

I see many church leaders entering knuckle-down mode. They will face enormous resistance from longtime constituents who still want their way, still don’t want change, still don’t intend to support a fresh vision. But leaders seem determined to press through that mindless and selfish resistance.