Why Suffering?

Sunday Morning Sermon - Oct 12 2013

Man thinks he has got everything right, and, hence works hard to ensure the systems he has put in place are maintained. These direct the way we live, think, act and even die. But the facts are he has made some horrible mistakes and the reason we are killing the world we are dependent on for life is because of the behavior he has brought about and the tragedy set upon us by selfishness and greed.

Many ask the question of why do we suffer and they rarely get a satisfactory answer. Ask a religious guru the same question and he wont be able to give you a sensible answer.

There is no doubt that some things we are not expected to know or understand and as soon as man discovers something he immediately starts to wreck it. This is happening now with genes which are only some fifty or so years away from their discovery. Already we are chopping into them, transforming them with bits taken from different species, and making our own versions of what we think we should have for a better life.

It is no different now to how it has always been as our brains anticipate the dreams of something better beyond the horizon. Caves were relatively uncomfortable and wild animals took their toll on family members so something was pushing for progress. That incentive to improve our lot has never diminished and no matter how much we suffer we can always measure our success through the determination of modern life.

Technology just about does everything for us now and robots are able to replace humans in many forms of engagement. Medicine is able to keep us alive well beyond our use by date and workloads are a lot easier now than just a few years ago. No matter how much these things have improved, however, there are still wars, suffering, overpopulation and now global warming. We are doomed by the very things we have put in place to save us.

Man-made religions, spiritual guru's, Ministers, Monks, and self appointed Mullah's are leading us all towards annihilation.

There is a good reason why humans suffer but we need to have an open mind to be able to understand, recognize it, and get off the bus. 

Boat People

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Sunday Morning Sermon – Oct 6 2013

People on our planet are eternally seeking to improve themselves in whatever available means possible based on where they are born, raised and live. On Friday, October 4, 2013, Italy held a national day of mourning for the death of more than 100 refugees fleeing their homes in Africa and seeking asylum in the greener pastures of Europe. Can this be considered an accident? Accidents and emergencies cannot last two decades. As a field researcher who has dedicated years of work to maritime migration, and as an Italian citizen, Maurizio Albahari, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, who specializes in social-cultural anthropology and teaches on international migration, pluralism, and European societies, said that he was grateful to the Italian Council of Ministers for taking such an unprecedented decision to make this declaration.

"Today ​we honor the memory of the families of more than 100 refugees, young adults, women, and children from Eritrea, retrieved off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa; and of the many dozens who are still trapped at the bottom of the sea. We also honor the selfless work of the island's residents, tourists, armed forces, medical personnel, and fishermen who have now rescued thousands on their way to Europe."

Yet we so hear, rather uncomfortably, to national and EU politicians who, as usual, point finger at smugglers, purporting that redoubling efforts to fight them will prevent further loss of life at sea. People at the helm of unseaworthy vessels are menial laborers executing the last and risky part of trips organized by transnational criminal networks.

Smugglers are not the reason why people are on those vessels. Italian and EU institutions are asking what can be done to prevent further tragedies. To answer, they have to ask also whether they did anything to enable them in the first place, including failing to consider implications and alternatives of their specific actions and inactions.

We need to raise a seemingly simple question. What brings thousands of people to trust criminals, pay them 10 times more than they would pay a comfortable seat on a ferry or airplane, and risk their lives to get to greener pastures? The overarching answer, in its brutal obviousness, is that they may not legally get on those planes and ferries.

They come from countries in Africa, Asia and the Far East, who methodically oppress their own citizens and will not grant passports and exit visas. They are refugees, forced to leave home without the time and resources to secure legal passage. They have survived the hardships of desert dwellings, refugee camps, war, oppression, abuse, and hardship that they don’t seem to have any other rational option but to run. They are poor. They fail to offer the financial guarantees requested by developed nations, and will not be granted a visa.

Quotas and legal channels for employment are inadequate both to their needs and to the needs of Western economies and aging populations. They are prepared to die as they leave with hope, but do not wish to survive in despair. They fall through the immense cracks of a system that needs them for a job or might grant them asylum, but only if they first make it through miles of peril and years of exploitation.

It is evident then, that this chronicle of death cannot end merely as a result of tougher penalties on smugglers, additional resources for search-and-rescue operations, and heightened military surveillance and dissuasion. Prisons, radars, and helicopters are not solutions. Every institution, at every level of governance, needs radical action.

Fishermen and ship masters should not have to fear that rescuing people will result in criminal charges for aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants. Or are they to engage in racial profiling and evaluate in hectic moments whether somebody in distress is a refugee or an undocumented economic immigrant? Should they rescue the former, but abandon the latter and perhaps face prosecution for failure to rescue? Can these decisions, and people's life, be left to discretion, chance, and the elements?

Intergovernmental border patrols and national armed forces need to clarify, to themselves and to citizens, whether they patrol the oceans to deter migration, to rescue people, or to intercept and deport them to countries of origin and transit.

Citizens need to remember that in liberal democracies it is on their behalf and in their name that laws are written and implemented. They need to demonstrate to lawmakers that they are not "afraid" of their Eritrean, Syrian, Somali, Egyptian, Afghani, Iraqi, Ghanaian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Pakistani employees, fiancés, neighbors, schoolmates, and coworkers, to mention the nationalities increasingly resorting to maritime journeys.

These are not problems only concerning smugglers, immigrants, and refugees. This national day of mourning is a call for the EU and its member states to start refashioning what sovereignty and humanitarianism mean in the 21st century. It is an invitation to fellow Italian and European citizens, including migrants and their children, to practice democracy in its representative and participatory dimensions.

And it serves as yet another reminder of north-south disparities in wealth and power, signaled by the fact that the developed nations are a frontier in the first place.

There is no single solution to this continuing chronicle of death. There are certainly alternatives to this state of affairs. They are more rational, and more just, than inaction and methodic negligence.

Amen!

Nature

Without nature humans will never survive on our mother planet Earth. We have a moral and ethical obligation to treat nature with respect and kindness. We must learn to tread lightly upon her and listen to her birds sing, her winds sigh through the branches of her trees, her wildness deliver its message through her wolves, coyotes, foxes and other wonderful creatures, and enter her presence to restore our souls.

We must learn to be compassionate to her animals and give them assurance that we are their friends. As we hug a child to let it know that it is loved so should we hug a tree to show our respect for the oxygen and shade it provides us and for the homes it provides for birds and squirrels and so many other creatures and life forms.

It is our bounden duty to treat nature as a special gift that has been bestowed upon us; for to respect life we are obligated to respect nature. The Golden Rule is meant to apply equally to all. To do otherwise constitutes the profoundest disrespect to the basic ethics of life.

We see some getting out to their gardens. Try and plant a tree or two if you can because the world needs trees. Fruit trees are needed even more.
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Lets try not to cut down trees unnecessarily. Trees take many decades to grow into what they are today. They provide shade for the weary, homes for the birds, and contribute to the food chain by way of their emissions.

“Waste is a sin against nature. As long as we respect the earth and make use of its gifts then we can live in harmony with nature,” 

Amen!

How does your Behavior impact others?

Sunday Morning Sermon - Sep 22 2013

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. One of the most interesting parts of this test is the Feeling 'F' versus Thinking 'T' scale. This scale rates how you make decisions in your life and within the world around you. In other words, when you are making decisions, do you consider facts more than feelings?

Those who rate very highly on the 'T' scale often find it difficult to empathize with others because their decisions are based primarily on rational facts. Thus, at work they can struggle in management positions when it comes to addressing their staff, as their (at times) tactless and abrupt manner often offends. They tend to find it very difficult to sugar coat issues and to truly empathize with emotional problems they cannot relate to. These individuals are unfortunately often completely oblivious to their impact on the health and well being of their staff.

In contrast, this Myers-Briggs scale is particularly interesting when you consider those who rate highly on the feeling scale. Often people who are strong 'F's on the scale assume they are very considerate and kind towards others. However, these very people can be completely unaware of their negative behavior towards other considerate and kind individuals. Because they base their behavior so strongly on feelings, they can fall into the trap of assuming these nice people will simply accept their rudeness, disrespect, lateness and so on. A classic example of this is when they choose to make an effort to please those they are not confident around and thus ignore, pay little attention towards, and neglect friends, colleagues and associates who they assume will just always be there for them. Usually, by the time they realize this person has had enough, the relationship has been tarnished beyond repair.

The most interesting aspect of this type of behavior is that these very individuals are often the first to complain about being mistreated by others (usually by those very people they have tried so desperately to impress). The lesson for those bearing the brunt of this negative behavior is to be assertive, to try to make the 'F' people aware of their behavior and stop it before it completely tarnishes the relationship.

In work situations this happens all the time. Senior Managers who are not aware of, or do not consider, the impact of their decisions on their staff are often left wondering why their staff are not loyal, have a high turnover, or are no longer willing to work overtime to impress tho boss! When treated in a disrespectful manner, staff will eventually become disheartened and lose interest when treated with disrespect.

The moral here is that if you want positive relationships with the people you really care about in life to last - you have to make an effort and give these people the respect they deserve. Don't assume you can return their calls when you feel like it (eg after you've spoken to all the people you're trying to impress). Don't turn up late to social events without advising them or making up a lame excuse that you bumped into an old friend on the way. Don't repeatedly cancel at the last minute because something better came along or you've just lost interest. Don't assume you can get away with making little or no effort and they will always be there.

Life is all about balance and give and take. You get what you put in, so be mindful of those who perhaps you have been taking for granted and take this chance to tend to this relationship more closely.

Amen!

To shoot or not to shoot

Sunday Morning Sermon - Sep 15 2013

Its been a while now since the US has been deliberating a military attack on the Syrian regime in order to deter it from using chemical weapons against its own people.

WMD's have been used by so many across the ages since we saw. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Gaza, and the lot, in our lifetime. How often did the powers that be try to step in and stop the killings? Its been a wait and see approach in almost all the cases.

Two Republican senators who are among President Barack Obama's sharpest foreign policy critics on Saturday blasted a Syrian chemical weapons agreement as "an act of provocative weakness" by America that will embolden enemies such as Iran as it continues its push for a nuclear.

What concerns us most is that our friends and enemies will take the same lessons from this agreement: They see it as an act of provocative weakness on America's part," Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a joint statement. "We cannot imagine a worse signal to send to Iran as it continues its push for a nuclear weapon."

So the people are on both sides of the fence. Most Americans do not want a military confrontation while some are shooting from the hip.

What the two senators do not support is the agreement their former colleague, Secretary of State John Kerry, announced Saturday in Geneva after days of tense talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The deal calls for securing and destroying Syria's chemical weapons stockpile and imposing penalties if the government of President Bashar Assad fails to comply with its terms. The agreement was the result of a surprise proposal by Syria's staunch ally, Russia.

There are those who also claim that the chemical weapons that Assad is throwing out are the very MD's that good old Saddam had in Baghdad which he stealthily shipped out to Damascus. Are they opening a brand new can or worms here to prove that the WMD's did actually exist in Iraq?

But then who armed Saddam with the WMD's in the first place?

We live in a bitter and vicious circle of men, machines, and molotovs that seem to be manufactured, distributed, sold, and moved around for personal benefit, be it for cash or for conflict.

When will the madness stop?

Amen  

Oppressing Women

Sunday Morning Sermon - Sep 8 2013

[better late then never, the pastor was too bz this week]

In the corporate culture that we do live in these days, we don’t monitor or measure women’s advancement adequately. Overall, we as a people understand an issue better when we have ways to perceive, analyze and measure it.  Our Corporate Planet still hasn’t effectively quantified and measured the impact of the lack of women leaders on business outcomes, or researched and identified effectively where in the pipeline women are falling out, why, and how to address it.  Diversity programs abound, but the needle has yet to move.

In many peoples view, quite a number of women haven’t themselves made the decision about how far they want to go in business or government or readied themselves to deal with the consequences.  We believe that there will always be a work-life balance struggle that women will face more intensely than men traditionally have (although that may be changing with younger generations on the ground today).   “Men have always sacrificed not staying home with the kids, and women haven’t thus far been willing to make that sacrifice to the same degree. “ Women now need to decide definitively how far they wish to go, and commit to actions that support those decisions.

There are hundreds of women who have fought very hard to lead, thrive and grow in the corporate environment and in the political arena, but our culture has yet to embrace them.  In short, people are more comfortable with what they know, and men have remained more comfortable with men at the top.  As long as 95% of senior corporate leadership is male, the  culture will be challenged in integrating and promoting women leaders. 

In politics, women don’t really help women.  In fact, most women are “super critical” of other women.  Nations need to grow more accustomed, as some countries have, to accept women at the top, as powerful, intelligent, highly capable agents of authority, command, and change. Why aren’t women voting for women?”

It’s vitally important to include women in key decision making roles and to encourage diversity of all kinds — of background, culture, gender, socioeconomic background, etc. – in leadership and teams to ensure success. Research shows that the more diverse a group, the more capable it is to solve the problems at hand and arrive at better solutions.

David Landes – eminent Harvard historian in his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Wealth-Poverty-Nations-Some/dp/0393318885]

 asserts that one of the key forces behind how an economy will perform is its openness to new ideas.  And one of the best gauges of that openness is how a country treats its women.   The best clue to a nation’s growth and development potential is the status and role of women, and the economic implications of gender discrimination are serious.

Kathy Matsui, renowned top-ranked equity strategist in Japan, conducted groundbreaking research on what she calls “Womenomics” which points to investing in women as the key to creating stronger economies and a more equitable global society. She asserts that women’s education is the best investment our generation can make for global peace and sustainable development.  In her TEDxTokyo Talk on Womenomics, Kathy shares that companies who have adopted explicit practices that promote diversity – for instance, programs that support working mothers or ensure objective evaluation and performance metrics — experience higher average profit margins than companies that don’t.

This tells us that it is vitally important for both companies and individuals to step up and do what they can to support the education, development and growth of women globally.

Amen!

Man's Inhumanity towards Man

Sunday Morning Sermon - Sep 1 2013

Mark Twain's major theme in the novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is man's inhumanity to man. Huck Finn states, "Human beings can be awfully cruel to one another".

This theme is no surprise to us all. We have, throughout history, read about the many events of such cruelty inflicted by man upon his own species.

The question that we now ask is whether we have learned any valuable lessons from this history?

When WWII ended we heard the voices say, "never again", yet we've seen so many new wars that have been fought, lost and won, since then. Millions have suffered or died in vain.

What motivates man to kill his own?

Yes, we know that animals and other creatures do kill each other. But they do it only as a form of instinct to survive. Never on a planned and hidden agenda to oppress or abuse. In the case of man its different.

What do human beings kill for? Usually its territory, power, religion, culture, ethnicity or basically, the inability to accept and tolerate one another.

Where did racism stem from? Racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior, or superior..

Historical economic or social disparity is alleged to be a form of discrimination caused by past racism and historical reasons, affecting the present generation through deficits in the formal education and kinds of preparation in previous generation, and through primarily unconscious racist attitudes and actions on members of the general population.

A hypothesis embraced by classical economists is that competition in a capitalist economy decreases the impact of discrimination. The thinking behind the hypothesis is that discrimination imposes a cost on the employer, and thus a profit-driven employer will avoid racist hiring policies.

Although a capitalist economy would avoid discrimination in order to avoid extra cost, this can be avoided in other ways. A capitalist company, for example, may use racist hiring policies as it deviates towards the “cultural norm”. For example, in a predominantly white society, hiring a person of color into a position of management may then cause disputes, and damage communications between other employers. Thus, the company would be economically put in a deficit because of the discrimination of other companies, as they invoke discrimination and isolate that company. Although this may be a radical, over exaggerated point of view, it portrays how pervasive racism is and how a company may sometimes deviate towards racist hiring policies in order to not be isolated, thus preventing the company from going into an economic deficit. 

Settler colonialism has always been one of the main contributors of segregation of human beings into groups and levels of social hierarchy, which then develops into a form of racism and divisiveness. The South African model is the best example of this.

Today, we see so many fires burning across many nations where people are involved in fighting their own people espousing their own causes and justifications. Interventions by more powerful first world nations have rarely brought forth a permanent solution to this madness. In fact such interventions have actually fueled the fire even further drawing more blood across wider landscapes.

Are we humans doomed to destruct ourselves in this manner, sooner than later?

Only time will tell.

Amen!