Birthday -- The Beatles



Gentlemen: Stay Out of the Doghouse

Choosing Life

Most of you have heard about Abraham Biggs, the young man who recently killed himself and did so online for his friends to see. Did you know he left a note? I want to share it with you because I think his mindset is not all that atypical. Maybe you have never contemplated suicide, but you have probably experienced despair at some point in your life.

“To whom it may concern. I'm going to leave this for whoever comes across my bookmarks later on. I hate myself and I hate living. I think if someone knows me reads this, they will know who I am. So I'll leave this unsigned. I'm an asshole. I've let everyone down and I feel as though I'll never change or I'll never improve.”

Have you ever felt this way? I have. You probably have, too. Maybe not to the point of wanting to commit suicide, but we all have let someone down. For some of us it is many, many “someone’s.” We go through a day where we keep making foolish choices, one right after another. And then the next day we say to ourselves, “Today will be different. Today I will make wiser choices.” But we don’t. And then … well, the days get strung together until it is weeks or months, and now there is this wall of regret that you can’t seem to get around, over or through. And then you are overwhelmed with feeling that you and your life will never change for the better. A lie for sure, but not to the one who is stuck in this state of mind.

"I'm in love with a girl and I know I'm not good enough for her." (Not good enough? Can you spell L-I-E?)

"I've come to believe that my life has all been meaningless." (Possibly. Yet this is only because of the choices that he made. He didn’t see that he could begin making other choices.)

"I keep trying and I keep failing. I've thought about and attempted suicide many times in the past. I used to think of my failure in some mystical way of telling me that I really was meant for something meaningful." (Hello??? YOU ARE!)

"The only thing I dread besides the pain is the way my family will suffer." (This is what kept me breathing. This and the fact that I didn’t want to appear before God having killed myself.)

"I never really had any plans of leaving a note. I thought that I would not be able to describe why I wanted to do this, and I'm right. There's no way to tell you or anyone else why I dread every day." (Man, do I remember feeling this way. “Please God just take me now. There is no way to unscramble this egg. It is hopeless.”)

"There's no way to tell you or anyone else I dreaded every new day. My father had such high expectations for me and tried to give me every opportunity to improve upon myself, and I let him down. I think that I'm a major disappointment to him." (For me, disappointing those I loved was the greatest of burdens, the source of the most intense agony. Wanting to please those whom we love is a good thing. However, when we choose to only feel alive and happy when we are pleasing others is to jump into bottomless pit of despair.)

"I have a job but I'm always broke and I'm in college, but I barely show up to class and that's about it. I want my life to end. I'm tired of screwing up everything. I'm tired of people always telling me that they don't like me. I'm tired of trying to be decent. I hope someone finds this post and I hope that my parents know that I screwed up and not them. It's my fault that I screwed up my own life. The hate rages within me, rages not for those I love so dearly or those who have crossed my path. This hate rages with full force towards me and only me." (If his hatred had been turned toward others it probably would have led to another Columbine incident. I don’t know what he means by “decent.” I do know that if we begin from a standpoint that we have to live a life of angelic purity so as to earn God’s favor or to feel good about ourselves, we are lost from the get-go. Get over yourself. You are a screw-up. We are all screw-ups. This does not shock God.)

"You have touched my life in one way or another, especially those whom I call family. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for ending my life the way I did. I hope that you can find it in my heart to see it as a way for me not to suffer anymore and that I am finally at rest with myself, for being at rest with the guilt that constantly ate at me for so long." (The Guilt. Not living up to or experiencing the Ideal. Not being angelic. Not being or having what I so desperately wanted, and then the anguish over not being able to Let Go of all this. A maddening cycle.)

God has so ordered creation so that we reap what we sow. You can’t plant apples and expect oranges to appear. If you want apples you have to plant apple seeds. But in our culture we seem to think that everyone should be protected from the consequences of foolish choices. (See Fannie and Freddie) I should be able to have risk free investments. Or, I should be able to make stupid decisions, see that I have done so, say “Sorry about that,” and then reap no consequences. Life doesn’t work that way.

If you want rewards rather than consequences you have to begin making wiser decisions … while accepting the fact that, for a while anyway, you will be reaping the consequences of past foolish choices. The key here is to choose not to allow these consequences to define you, only to educate you and to motivate you toward ever increasing wisdom. But if we keep people from suffering consequences, where is the education? If “Sorry about that” is seen as a Get Out of Jail Free Card then how will wisdom ever come?

"Please forgive me for taking my life so early. I tried so hard to fight against this strong battle. I've reached out for help so many times and yet I believe I was turned away because of the things that I did. That is the punishment I'm willing to take, for I know who I am and I have only brought myself and others pain."

Whatever punishment he felt he was suffering was not from God. Or so I believe. The message of Advent is that Christ came into the world to show us what God is like: “When you have seen me you have seen the Father … I and the Father are one.” Christ showed us that God is love and light, full of grace and mercy. God is not in the condemning-business but in the forgiving business. “I did not come to condemn the world …” (John 3) If our lives are based on the faulty premise that we have to be angelic before God accepts us; if we think God’s love for us is based on anything other than grace, we will most certainly live lives filled with performance anxiety, if not downright despair.

“I love you all and will forever live within the memories we created.
Forgive me.
Love always and forever,
As for my signature I will leave you with a quote so that if anyone reads this they will know it's me, ‘Can’t feel pain if your dead? Just Saying.’”

As long as we are breathing, we can make wiser choices.

As long as we are above ground, we can turn away from those choices that will only lead to reaping painful consequences and begin making choices where we will reap the rewards of peace, joy and a life of meaningfulness.

As long as we are alive, we have the opportunity to yield our lives to the one who created us and demonstrated his great love for us by sending Christ, not to condemn us, but to forgive us, heal us, and make us whole.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008

Accepting Your Life

Acceptance of one’s life has nothing to do with resignation: it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, or psychological complexes and injustices. Dr. Paul Tournier

Skewed Feedback

Few things are as painful than having someone we love falsely judge us, or projecting inaccurate beliefs, attitudes and behaviors onto us.

Why does it hurt us? It hurts because it leaves us feeling invisible to someone we value so highly.

“I thought he knew me better than this.”
“She has known me so well for such a long time, how could she think this?”

Some of us will then go all squirrelly, worrying over

How This?
Why That?
Maybe If?

To begin with, only God has comprehensive knowledge of who you are, what you are, of what you have done, and what you are capable of doing, so you may want to cut people a little bit of slack when they miss the mark. By the way, this is why I think we should pretty much stay away from ever saying, “You are x.” “She is a so-and-and-so.” “He is a such-and-such.” I mean it’s not like we are All-Knowing and All-Seeing, eh? I think it would help maintain the bonds of love and respect if we would preface our assessments with, “It appears to me …” or something that reminds us that we do not see and know as God and so cannot make God-like judgments. Anyway--

Sometimes people do not see us clearly because of the speck that is in their own eye … and it’s not like we haven’t experienced our own looking through speck-filled eyes!

Sometimes feedback is a commentary on the person giving it. Maybe they need to believe this about you so as to justify their chosen behaviors, attitudes or decisions?

Maybe they want to believe this because it justifies their general beliefs regarding human nature or men or women or bosses or ministers or blacks or whites or husbands or wives, or whomever and whatever.

However, if this painful feedback has been given to us repeatedly by other people? Well then, I suggest that we take another look at ourselves and consider: it just might be accurate!

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008

Beauty and Hope While in Darkness: Andy Plays Mozart

One of my favorite scenes from Shawshank Redemption where Andy (Tim Robbins) decides to bless the prisoners with the beauty of Mozart's music.

Hope ... hope is essential.

In the end, life is not about accumulation. It is much more than success. To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God’s love. In accepting the power of the Holy Spirit you too can transform your families, communities and nations. Set free the gifts! Let wisdom, courage, awe and reverence be the marks of greatness! –Benedict XVI - Homily for Vigil of Closing Mass - World Youth Day 2008

Fishing Poles and Fishing Lessons Are Not Enough

Up until recently, the member charities with whom I work were largely given to demonstrating God’s love through the offer of care for the poor, the diseased, the displaced, and the orphaned via material gifts: food, medicine, orphanages, water wells, and etc. Over the last few years, however, there has been a major shift in our corporate Way of Being-- how we choose to move through the worlds in which we work and serve--whereby we are thinking and acting in terms of helping others to generate value for themselves: specifically by helping individuals to create micro-enterprises. (Small businesses.) As I understand the message of Christ, the former Way of Being is a necessary intervention in the lives of the destitute that are living on the precipice of death, while the latter is the offering of a relationship that facilitates converting slaves into sons, and sons into fathers.

Slaves are at the mercy of their masters: e.g., poverty, victim-mentality, cultural norms that restrict and repress, etc.

Sons have a familial relationship whereby they are being trained to generate value for themselves, serve others with that value, and to steward the value they are generating.

Fathers—sons who are have matured into Fathers—are not only generating value, they are facilitating the creation of value in others.

I take the above metaphor of slaves, sons and fathers from St John (I Jn 2) who wrote of children, sons, and fathers. Children know their sins are forgiven and, thus, are free of guilt, no longer being slaves to manipulation and control; Sons, being more mature, are strong in the Word and in waging war against darkness; and Fathers who see “as from the beginning,” i.e., they have a very long-term perspective.

Within the context of charity work in Africa (and elsewhere) I assert that the mindset of many of those working for Charitable Agencies and Donor Nations which insist upon treating the African as a helpless child, in point of fact, turns him into a slave who either does not know that he can live free (that Christ gives us the freedom to create value and steward what has been created) or, worse, has become an Institutionalized slave who, when offered freedom, chooses the safety and security of slavery. Consequently, it is not so much that Africans failed to take advantage of the largess of Donor and Institutions by establishing free and prosperous societies, but that the methodologies of the Donors either established or strengthened the bonds of slavery.

So why doesn’t the African push back and break away from this slavery?

Part of the answer is found in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where he places survival as the most basic. When confronted with destitution and impending disaster, we humans will forgo most any ethical standard and accept any denigration or degradation of our self-worth so as to survive. If I, or worse, my children are facing unbearable suffering, I will beg-borrow-steal-lie-cheat to help us survive.

Now consider the methodologies of Donor Nations, UN Agencies and many of the larger NGOs (obviously this is a generalization and is not the case with each and every Agency): when we look closely, they are tied into the survival mentality, which actually helps keep the African in slavery. If I have to be a child or a slave to get “you” to elicit sympathy and give me money to survive, what do you think I am going to do? And because I am clueless as to my own God-given capacity for creating value for myself, if I do see or hear about “freedom” or “self-government,” I think to myself, “There won’t be anyone around to help me survive? No, thank you. Besides, playing the pitiful victim generates value for both of us, as you use my dire circumstances to raise money and I use them to get your money so as to survive: talk about a win-win situation!”

Of course, many will say, “Wait just a minute. We offer more than survival rations: we have created jobs, we have helped to build schools, we have loaned large sums of money to these nations toward developing an infrastructure conducive to commerce and increased prosperity. We weren’t seeking to enslave but to empower these people!”

For the sake of argument, let us accept that everyone involved has the best of intentions. So what? If what I am producing and reproducing are more and more slaves, my motives are irrelevant in light of the ever-increasing slavery.

By the way, those Institutions and Agencies that are now pulling out of Africa because they at least get that their trillions of dollars in alleged altruistic donations were basically wasted, still don’t see the larger picture: a large portion of the failure was in methodologies that confirmed to the African that he is a child or a slave who cannot generate value on his own. How in the world can I lay all the blame upon the men and women who danced to the music I was playing? If I wanted a different dance, I should have come up with some different music!

A Shift in Methodology
Which brings me back to the small group of charities that are now seeking to serve in such ways that facilitate Africans in learning how to create value in and for themselves and others. One of the chief methodologies that sets us apart is the kind of training we offer our micro-enterprise partners. While many other agencies provide training in technical skill, bookkeeping, pricing, packaging and marketing, we add to such training a component that makes all the difference when planning for success: the transformation of the individual’s character.

If we “Give a woman a fishing pole and teach her to fish,” and she is terrified of admitting mistakes for fear of being “wrong” and all that goes with the stigma of being “wrong” in her culture …

If we “Give a man a fishing pole and teach him to fish,” and he believes that fishing one-hour a day is sufficient effort …

If we “Give a woman a fishing pole and teach her to fish,” and she believes her failure to catch any fish today has nothing to do with being at the lake at the wrong time of the day but, rather, that she is a victim of her fishing pole …

If we “Give a man a fishing pole and teach him to fish,” and he believes that, at end of the week, fish or no fish, he is entitled to a “livable wage” …

If we “Give a woman a fishing pole and teach her to fish,” and she is convinced that such learning is beyond her capacity …

The missing component in so many past efforts to raise people out of poverty in Africa has been right here: the failure to facilitate a change in mindset, which encompasses beliefs, attitudes, and the character of those who were being trained.

Rather than challenging the erroneous mindset regarding “mistakes” and being “wrong,” Agencies and their trainers simply said, “TIA.” This Is Africa.

Rather than challenging a poverty-producing attitude toward hard work, trainers simply thought to themselves, “Well, he’s an African, what did I expect?”

Instead of blowing the idea of victimhood to smithereens so as to facilitate respect for self and the ability to create value, trainers acted as if “Once a slave always a slave … these people are incapable of personal responsibility.”

Instead of allowing the individual to be trained and changed by suffering the consequences of poor choices and attitudes, Agencies kept these individuals from learning by rewarding failure. “After all, what can you expect: TIA.”

Rather than teaching the individual about her God-given capacities and placing her in situations where she can discover what she is capable of, trainers subverted her growth in self-respect and belief in her ability to create value by feeling sorry for her and, in turn, gave her a fish. “What can you expect from such a helpless women, after all.”

Without interrupting and intervening in ways that develop a mindset where the individual is now committed to generating value for herself, for taking responsibility for failures and successes, for refusing to ever think of herself as a slave or a victim again, and insisting that others do the same, no matter how much money we give her and how many skills we teach her, she will fail to ever achieve the kind of efficaciousness in generating value that she is capable of.


Copyright, Monte E WIlson, 2008

Carmel Meetings

We came to Carmel for a gathering of the directors
of various charities.

The first night we went to Clint Eastwood's
The Mission Inn for drinks and to
celebrate Wally McCall's birthday.

Walking out onto the deck

Some views from the deck

The Birthday Babe
Wally is not only the omni-
competent CFO of our charities,
she is the Dorm Mother who
keeps us all on a short chain ...
or at least tries to.

In front of our hotel
Davide, Wally and Colonel

Joseph, JR, Mike and Davide

Bill "USMC" McCall and Mike Bresnan

Carmel by the Sea

Took this photo this morning ...
Amazing beauty.

You can see Pebble Beach from where
I was. Awesome golf course.

Clint Eastwood sold this place a
few years ago, but they still serve
Dirty Harry Burgers!

The Biblical Garden at
The Church
of the Wayfarer.

The streets of Carmel.
One of my favorite places,
although the taxes here make
the cost of cigars quite high.

While there is a noise ordinance here,
it is evidently not strict enough.

The courtyard of the Lamp Lighter

Normandy Inn. The hotels here are
all funky, boutique places.

This is the Cypress Inn, owned by
Doris "Que Sera, Sera" Day. My favorite
hotel in Carmel.

The courtyard. Really cool place
especially when they have the fireplace
roaring. See the dog? I think
most everyone that lives here
owns a dog. Weird.

A few of the houses. The entire town
has the feel of a small town
in Austria.

This is my favorite house. It's at the
end of Ocean Ave. Some years
back I was here when the house
was up for sale: you could have picked
it up for 8.5 million.

Another view of the same house.

This is the view from walking toward
the ocean on Ocean Ave.

Leadership Development

The two workshops (one three-day for
eight trainers/coaches; the other,
two-days for twenty-five recipients
and potential recipients of micro-enterprise
loans) completed our
Leadership Development Trainings
that we began earlier in the year.

The focus in these trainings was on

The Basic Foundations of Communication
and Persuasion.

Purpose: To impart fundamental communication skills
that will increase the participant’s effectiveness.

The two critical learnings were
1) paying attention —listening—to your audience;
and 2) using what you have “heard” in
crafting a well-formed presentation based
on intended outcomes.

The coaches (see above photo)
were trained to be on the ground
support for the loan recipients.
It was amazing to see just how
far they had come from
six months ago.

“Listening,” of course, requires that
we engage
not only our ears but also
our eyes and our ability to sense
people’s present psychological states.
Most of the useful communication is
not spoken but, rather, seen and felt!
We used various exercises to demonstrate
not only the accuracy of this presupposition
but how to increase their calibration
--“listening”--
skills.

“Listening” also involves investigation:

Who is your audience?
Ages?
Education?
Economic status?
Gender?
Present psychological state?
(Eager to learn? Anxious? Skeptical? Etc.)

To attain the greatest possibility for
effective communication and persuasion,
the speaker will want to “hear” as much
as possible before crafting what she
is going to say.
And this is true whether it
is a conversation with one individual
or an audience of fifty people.

What do you want your
audience's to be feeling
as you are speaking?
Curious?
Frustrated?
Respect?
What?

What do you want tp
see them doing at the
end of your communication?

What do you want to hear them
saying as they walk away?

What do you want them
feeling as they walk away?

Now,
let;s craft a presentation
that will accomplish
this!

While my emphasis was on skill,
Davide’s was on character.
Davide is somewhat like an
Italian Socrates

If the individual does not have a mindset
(beliefs, attitudes, and such) that will
support the skills, then the
individual’s ability to effectively
utilize those skills will be severely restricted.

Some of the conversations focused on

Power v Influence,
Preaching v Conversation, and
Fear of Mistakes.

Up until recently,
it was the practice
of local schools
where
if a student received,
say, a 70 out of possible 100
on a math exam,
he or she would
receive 30 lashes with a cane:
1 lash for each error.
Do you think this might make
people a tad nervous
about the process of learning??

The feedback from those trained
has been incredibly encouraging.
While we will monitor the actual
results--success in business,
pay-back-ratio of loans given,
the effectiveness of local coaches--
I have no doubt that these people
are making quantum leaps
not only in their level of skill
but in making the kind of
internal adjustments
to their mindsets that
will have an enormoous
impact on every area of
their lives.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008

Nakuru: A Day Off Before Workshop Begins

CJ, Davide and Monte at the Equator

We decided to have some fun
on our only day off and show CJ the sites
around our campground at Lake Nakuru

Tuckered out after a day in the mud

Bored with the tourists

Before

After

Nakuru: Dedicating Newly Drilled Water Wells

We came into Nakuru a few days before the workshop
begins, so that Davide could dedicate two wells
provided by the charity he manages:
Comitato Mani Aperte

The first ceremony begins with the school children
who would directly benefit from the water
singing and dancing their way toward us.
They sing about how important clean water is to them,
(Sixty-percent of all diseases there are water born)
They sing about how grateful they are for the water

One of the song and dances is about the prevention of
AIDS and how, if you do not do all you can do to
prevent it, you will DIE ... and as they sing the
word "die," they lean way back and slide
their right hands across their throats in a slicing
motion, as if they are cutting their throats
with a knife. Pretty Dramatic, eh?!?

Davide and David Maina (Life Water Kenya)
dedicating water well.

Davide sharing with the people how grateful
we are to be able to serve them
by providing the clean water so necessary
to their health and well-being.

CJ Doner joined us for
the first four days
of our trip.

Each of us were asked to plant a tree
as part of the dedication ceremony.
CJ decides to act as if the ground is made
of stone, which the children thought was
hilarious. He has an amazing ability
for connecting with children.

Two Firsts fpr me:

I had never participated in a dedication service
where the children, en masse, came in on
their day off!

This group of children wrote a poem for
me and Davide extolling our greatness and
generosity in bringing them clean water.

At least that is what David Maina told us:
Not knowing Swahili, they could have been saying
"Are you believing these two White Boys made
us come to school on a holiday?!?!?"

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008