Sometimes it takes those from outside our culture to point out what we should hear.
Cartoonist Yao Xiao saw how often people apologized in our culture as a sign of politeness. But apologizing is not the same as saying thanks.
So, instead of offering an apology – make it a moment of gratitude.
Thought for the new year:
Stop managing your time. Manage your focus.
The Vatican recently sent out a questionnaire to all the Catholic bishops around the world. The questionnaire asked some direct questions about views on marriage and the family. The answers from Japan were particularly interesting. After all, Japanese Catholics represent only about 0.35 percent of the country’s population.
The most amazing observation, however, came during the question about couples cohabiting before marriage (something almost 100% common in Japan). They observed, “The pastoral practice of the Church must begin from the premise that cohabitation and civil marriage outside the church have become the norm.
In developing a pastoral orientation, it is perhaps important to recall that the only time in the gospels that Jesus clearly encounters someone in a situation of cohabitation outside of marriage (the Samaritan woman at the well) he does not focus on it,” they state. “Instead, he respectfully deals with the woman and turns her into a missionary.”
This observation was as spirit-filled a response as I could have imagined. Instead of a pastoral stance which would beat others up and taken a hard-line approach – preaching and admonishing – they took their observations straight from Christ himself. Christ called out the woman’s situation clearly and truthfully, but he treated her with respect and love as the same time.
It’s a reminder that a pastoral response calls a spade a spade, but never loses sight of the beauty and worth of every human life.
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/japanese-bishops-vatican-mindset-doesnt-fit-asian-church
Writings from a theologian I love with a profound understanding of the human heart/condition:
“Man is the creature with a mystery in his heart that is bigger than himself. He is built like a tabernacle around a most sacred mystery…this sanctuary is neglected and forgotten, like an overgrown tomb or an attic choked with rubbish, and it needs an effort – the effort of contemplative prayer – to clean it up and make it habitable for the divine Guest. But the room itself does not need to be built; it is already there and always has been, at the very center of man.”
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Lest you think this is all just religious nonsensical musing – others recognize it too…
“I was raised as a type-A person that won love and approval from my family by my accomplishments and achievements at school and professionally. It’s how I thought the whole world worked.
But when my autistic son was born, I had someone that wanted to know if I could love them for simply who they are, not what they could accomplish or do (or not do). This was the first glimpse I had into what unconditional love must be like.
You have to set aside all those expectations and learn to live and love with whatever you are dealt. You first feel like your life has gone into freefall. But you must remind yourself again and again that freefall is where a bird first learns to fly.”
“It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that all of them cannot be punished…. But when innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, ‘It is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.’ And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever…”
-John Adams
Looked through the African Air photography book by George Steinmetz. One of the best parts was the introduction. It had one of the most powerful quotes I saw.
In Steinmetz’s intros, he describes how he exited college and hitchhiked across Africa for over two years. Most of the time completely alone, no knowledge of the language or customs, battling illnesses and unrest, and often found himself sleeping on police station porches or living off the generosity of locals who he couldn’t even talk with. It was there, with almost no knowledge of how to even use a camera, he started shooting photos. Those early pictures are an fascinating catalog of visceral encounters.
On returning to the states, he managed to get a meeting with Bob Gilka of National Geographic’s photo department and get some kind of job with National Geographic. Gilka is apparently famous for his harsh, critical style and a sign outside his office door that said “Wipe knees before entering”
So Steinmetz, after hard years in Africa, he put his photos on the slide carousel. Gilka held the advance button without stopping. This then happened:
He stopped once when he saw a photo he didn’t like. “Doesn’t work” he said curtly. I tried to explain some of the difficulties of the situation but he cut me off.
“Is that an excuse?” he asked.
“Uh, I guess so,” I said.
“Well, we publish photographs here, not excuses.”
Ouch.
Wow. What an introduction to the professional world; however, it really helped Steinmetz in the end. Gilka admired Steinmetz’s tenacity and determination; but told him to come back when he’d learned more photographic techniques, how to use artificial lighting, and could handle a wider variety of situations.
I guess it’s always a good reminder to me that to be good in your business/field – you should look at it that way. Don’t make excuses, make improvements.
Went back to Purdue for the School of Science annual alumni advisory board again. More interesting insights.
While the tide seems to be changing, we have all heard (or lived) the woe’s of recent college graduates. Students graduating with many hopes/promises of employment that never panned out. Compounding matters, we see that in some fields a masters or PhD is the minimum entry bar. Some have even asked if a BA college degree has been reduced to the new high school diploma. The school you go to also seems to matter as we see huge unemployment rates coming from some degree-mill colleges.
So what is a potential student to do? The good news seems to be that for half the equation you should do what you should have been doing all along, and the other half is new but may well make your time at college better.
Stuff you should do when looking at a future college (or your own if you’re already there):
So what more is someone to do to really seal the deal? Last year, Purdue hired a social networking expert who was working on Purdue’s Linked-in and various other social networking sites. She came and talked to us – and she touted an idea that adds a new arrow to your quiver of employability.
It starts with a realization of the world you are now in. There are quite literally 1000’s of people around the country walking across graduation stages at the same time as you with the same degrees. You’re no longer unique just because you got a degree or even if you got a near perfect GPA. Instead, you need to now stand out from that crowd – just as you did when in high school. How does one do that?
You could get on the deans list and get a perfect GPA. Those do help – but in reality those kudos are not quite as important as you think they are to employers. Instead, we can take cues from very highly competitive fields: movies, design, and art. In those industries, a portfolio of great work and a name are keys to success. Sure, they need to have done well in their studies, but now employers are also going to want to see what you can do. They have less time/money to train, there are more people out there applying, and they want to know more than ever that a hire will pay off. Despite what you think, your college education just lays the groundwork for success – your employer still needs to get you up to industry-grade snuff.
New tips:
You hear it in the news – the US has a shortage of people going into engineering, science, and high-end technical degrees. We’re being trounced by the extrodinary graduation rates in developing contries and China/India. Even Obama introduced his STEM education support program to encourage students into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (which he touted on his trip to our Intel site a few months back).
I was recently elected to Purdue’s Alumni Board for the school of Sciences. During the last bi-annual meeting, we have a dean of one of the science schools come in. This time it was the dean of the Geology dept. He gave a great presentation on the interesting things they’re doing, but one of the most interesting points about his presentation was this: he gets calls all day long from companies and government agencies looking for geologists, but he has none to give them. Currently the enrollment in geology at Purdue is around 150 students. For ALL undergraduate levels. Purdue has just under 30,000 total students, and only 150 are enrolled in undergrad geology. He says he has jobs to give away, but nobody to fill them. And they’re not all just for oil companies – government needs lots of surveyors, building ground inspections, erosion and terrain evaluation/etc. Companies have all kinds of jobs too.
Surprised by this information, I went over afterwards to my haunt – the Computer Science department. In talking to one of my old professor acquaintances over there, I was surprised to find they were *just* reaching 200 undergraduates. When I was in computer science in the last 90’s, there were 250 students and rising every year. it turns out that enrollment plummeted right after the dot-com bust and has only recently started recovering. Both of Dean of Geology and the CS professor independently cited 2 major reasons: high-school curriculum focus and perception of job market.
First they both talked about the need for outreach programs. The dean of Geology and the CS department appear to desperately want to get kids in High School interested in CS or Geology (I’d say most of the schools of sciences would also agree). We all know that high school programs across most states have been getting chopped for years. Their evaluation is that the constant budget chopping has seriously cut back on all their curriculum; but in science/math it’s had a particularly chilling effect. Why? Because schools under budget constraints tend to focus only on core-courses that are required for state accreditation, and cut everything else. Computer programs are nice, but are expensive investments from a per-student basis. My own high school only had a programming course because one math teacher wanted to teach it pretty much pro-bono and the machines were the ones use to teach typing/word processing classes. Many science programs have cut back to just basic chemistry and biology. So it’s no wonder that students that have had lack-luster, or simply no, high school experiences with sciences like geology or computer science. Even fewer are inspired to look into or consider them as possible career choices. In recounting my own experience of being a rural Indiana student of a high school with only 500 students; my professor friend said I was most certainly a huge exception. Most rural students never see the insides of a Purdue science lecture hall, let alone even apply.
If anecdotal evidence isn’t enough, the Dean of Geology said that many states and oil/geology companies are becoming so desperate for geologists that they are starting to create their own high-school curricula for geology programs and giving them to high-schools for free; if only they agree to teach it. Some of these companies have even considered also sending along someone to teach it – for free.
Secondly, there is a perception that the job market isn’t good for sciences. For CS, there is apparently still a lot of stigma from the dot-com explosion. During a lot of the later 2000’s there were tons of out of work programmers, and even though the tide is completely turned around, the perception is that there is still a glut of programmers and/or that it’s a difficult job market. In Geology, there is a perception that one will have to work for an ‘evil’ oil company; not knowing there are tons of fascinating other job opportunities doing surveying, soil research, water erosion, earthquake prediction/prevention, etc, etc, etc.
These two points were big factors in their take on the situation. So as a member of this board, what should one advise? I did some of my own research, and will write about THAT next time. 🙂
I haven’t written on this much, but felt that I’m in a good place to share my thoughts now that it’s been 2 years.
My dad had a stroke about 5am the day after Christmas in 2008. When it happened, I fell back on a lot of the things I learned in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). CPE is something almost all ministers of most every denomination are required to take during their training. It wasn’t a bunch of classes; instead, it is primarily experience driven. I think this quote about CPE from Wikipedia sums it up nicely:
“Learning in CPE is largely focused on the students’ development of the self. The students are introduced into encounter with persons in crisis. Out of an intense involvement with persons in need, and the feedback from peers and supervisors, students develop new awareness of themselves as persons and of the needs of those to whom they minister.”
So why is it they take this approach? Because everyone experiences crisis differently. The reality is that there really is no way to teach what you or others will actually feel or experience when another person dies, is informed of a terminal illness, is involved in an accident that will permanently affect you or a loved one, etc. Yes, there is some minimal educational ground work that can be done to set expectations and understanding basic processes of how people deal with acute stress. (i.e. the 12 stages of grief) But after that, it is a process of experiencing and participating – then taking time to reflect, connect what you learned, and process what happened based on your own beliefs and faith. If one does this over time and with enough people, (hopefully) you learn enough about yourself, your faith, and how to be present to others so that one can actually be of service to others in those moments. That’s what CPE (hopefully) does.
Unfortunately, this also means it’s limited by the individual student’s ability to cope with and process the experiences they have. People must be in a healthy place themselves before they start. Much of the screening (6+ months of screening to get into a 4 month program) is to judge some of that. But the reality is that even when ‘ready’ you walk into CPE, it will expose all of your own unresolved emotional, family, political, relationship, faith and other issues. This is ok so long as you are willing to properly deal with those emotional hits and not take them out or project them on others. Your job is to listen to the person in crisis’ beliefs/needs/feelings/confusion and guide them to understanding of what it is they are experiencing and what their own lives are telling them. It’s not about telling them what they should do/feel. Some programs go so far as to even require their students simply reflect what the person is saying/feeling and do not allow them to even ask questions. (try THAT as a listening exercise with someone at some point).
So to that end, here are some things I learned (or re-learned) and probably are good to keep in mind if you or a loved one gets seriously or fatally injured. This is mostly true for the first few hours of the event:
1. You will (all) be in a surreal state – You and everyone involved (save the hospital staff) will experience everything in a surreal state of adrenaline, grogginess (if at a weird time of day), and emotions that can be anything from fear/terror, anger, shock, disbelief, or even ambivalence. Your internal state will be in such a state that you’ve likely never felt it before both physically and mentally. But what will you feel exactly? There are no rules and no two people will be the same – in fact, in different crises, the same person will likely experience it differently each time. THIS IS ALL NORMAL. Outside of obvious self-/other-/ or property destructive behavior – simply let everyone react as they are doing and tell yourself that’s ok.
In these moments, folks will react in the way their psyche and bodies need or dictate. It will likely be strange and you’ll see sides of folks you likely never have – but again that’s ok and to be expected. The only key is that you don’t try to force yourself or others into a particular response. Don’t tell yourself or others that their crying needs to stop, or others must do a particular thing or act a certain way, etc. As long as the behavior isn’t causing harm or getting in the way of decisions that need to be made in those moments – it is probably better to let it run its course. It is the time to respect and let those things happen for everyone there. If one person starts monopolizing interaction, or breaking into behavior that is utterly disruptive or combative, then you *might* calmly ask them what they need next (ex: asking if they’d like to go somewhere quiet, or just sit down, or hold the loved ones hand, etc).
Severe grief, destructive behavior, or completely disruptive/domineering behavior that is trying to force others into courses of action/disparaging/etc should not be allowed if it’s severely impacting others. The best answer for that behavior is to gently remove them from the immediate vicinity and have them speak their mind to good listener. Most of the time this behavior comes from trying to take control of a situation that hurts that they cannot be in control of.
Here’s some common things people might experience/fall into. But expect people to vacillate between several of them:
2. Time no longer exists – You’re likely in the states mentioned above – and the normal way we experience time will be gone. Minutes might pass like hours, or if there is a lot of activity, you might experience 2 hours in the blink of an eye. When you’re all said and done, you’ll be completely outside your normal perception of time. Many people walk outside and realize half a day has passed. Or that it’s now morning, or night. This is why it’s ok to let people do much of what they do – because they don’t realize they’re in these strange states for as long/short as they are. Again, all perfectly normal.
In that situation, if it’s clear that the situation will go on over hours, it’s time to be attentive to yourselves/each other. Give each other permission as the situation allows to go rest in shifts, to eat, to get a shower, etc. Nobody will want to leave at first, but it is absolutely essential. You can’t be there for the other person and process things in a healthy way yourself if you’re constantly in alert mode. Severely exhausted people make worse decisions and are less emotionally capable of dealing with crises. Offer to take turns sitting watch for each other. Sometimes the best thing to do is give others permission by example, “Bob, I really need to eat. Please could you stay here and watch until X o’clock and I’ll do so for you after.”
3.You’ll shut out what most other people are saying – especially your family/siblings/close ones – Even if you are really trying to listen to others, in the heights of crisis – you simply are in an altered state and will unlikely be able to process meaning/intent from words properly. This is a good way to see where people are – because in these moments, all shields are down and people are responding with the raw guts of what they are feeling – not with their rationality intact. Don’t get upset if someone screams at you, or breaks down in response to a simple question.
4. You won’t know what to do – both during, and right after, you might feel like you want to run away. You’ll feel like no matter what, you have to stay even though you can’t do anything. You’ll feel helpless. You’ll want everything back to normal. You’ll just want the person back the way things were. You’ll be scared of what’s supposed to happen next. You’ll be angry at doctors, the person in crisis, a sibling. These are all normal things to happen; so don’t take them personally (or try to take them out on each other if you’re the one experiencing them). Do, however, take note of them for later processing. These feelings will all have to get sorted out in good time. That is exactly what 1/2 of grieving loss is. Don’t expect to be able to deal with it all right then; but don’t bury it all either. Healing is the process of going through all those issues that came up – and it takes far longer to talk them out than it does to have them come up.
5. You are in trauma yourself! – When a loved one has an accident, or is rushed to the hospital, or is going through emergency surgery/etc, recognize that you will be kind of in a state of ongoing trauma yourself too. Just like hard exercise creates tiny tears in your muscles, you are experiencing the ripping of your emotions and mental reality as the event is happening. Sometimes it feels like waves of strange new reality or change just flowing over you, or perhaps the crumbling of things you held as true and dear. This will go on until the situation stabilizes enough (person is stabilized physically, surgery is over, etc) that the outcome is known (they’ll live/die/etc).
While it’s going on, you’ll likely be left with tons of questions: what does this mean? what will happen now? what if they don’t get better? what can I do? etc. Sometimes it might be regrets. These thoughts/questions very likely will unseat you – because they’re likely challenging the things you’ve known/loved a long time (my father’s always been there since the day I was born, what will life be like without him?). Recognize this is normal and don’t try too much to bottle them up, or go crazy trying to answer them or acting out. Just know these things WILL all get sorted out in time, and that there is no problem that cannot be overcome or dealt with given enough time and the help of others. However, in the moment, you are experiencing trauma yourself – so be gentle with yourself and don’t try to force things.
6. Fatigue will set in. You’re in a massively heightened state of internal stress/activity that will feel like running a marathon; and you’ll get very tired without knowing why. Be sure to be attentive to yourself and your own needs as time allows or you are setting yourself up for a physical collapse/emotional breakdown in which you’ll be no good to others or yourself.
7. These all apply to the person experiencing the trauma as well! Don’t forget to realize/address these same things with the person undergoing the event. They’re in a brand new situation in their life and perhaps experiencing their own mortality. Maybe for the first time in their lives. They might even know this is their last moments of life. Talk to the person as if they are a real person – not some kind of little kid. You might have to speak loudly and clearly, but address them as you would anyone else.
Probably the best lesson I’ve learned out of this was:
Dealing with loved ones and family is messy. It isn’t efficient or the ‘best’ way to deal with things. It is also essentially the lesson of what love is.
More in another post about steps we can take before the inevitable crises of life happen.