Today I was honored to be interviewed by leaders from one of our nonprofit partnering agencies. After answering the list of questions, I was asked if I had anything else to share. Here’s what I said:
The one thing I’d like to comment on is the culture of your organization. There are many words-all good-that come to mind. First, your team is united. You are all on the same page and seem to enjoy working together. Two other words that come to mind are passionate and caring. You deeply go after your mission, and your clients feel cared for. This was clear at your last event. But the word that most describes your culture is joy. It’s always present. It’s felt. Whoever’s responsible for maintaining this culture, they are doing a great job.
Culture has been on my mind the rest of the day. Every organization has a culture. There are many questions to make sure it’s the culture you want to experience and to display. If you have any part of creating that culture, consider the answers to these five questions:
What is the culture we aspire to maintain?
Is that the culture we have?
How do the employees know about this aspiration?
Who are the keepers of the culture?
When and how do we evaluate the culture?
Start here. Be willing to add to it. Watch what happens when you nurture culture.
I enjoy a writer who makes you think, or at least presents something ordinary unordinarily. Barbara Brown Taylor is definitely in this category.
In this second of her books I’ve read she gives you a different approach to thinking about darkness.
One beautiful way she does this is by showing you the value of darkness in biblical stories. She says the night sky was a key player in Abraham’s decision to trust God when he was told to “count the stars.” She spends a great amount of words on Moses’ encounters with God in the dark.
The God of Moses is holy, offering no seat belts or other safety features to those who wish to climb the mountain and enter the dark cloud of divine presence. Those who go assume all risk and give up all claim to reward. Those who return say the dazzling dark inside the cloud is reward enough.
Chapter 2, The Fear of the Lord
As you can imagine, much of the book addresses the emotions that come from fearing the dark. She believes that’s actually an indicator of something going on inside of us.
Our comfort or discomfort with the outer dark is a good barometer of how we feel about the inner kind.
Chapter 3, Hampered by Brilliance
A fascinating approach to her research for the book included cave exploration. With aid from professionals, she spent time sitting in the dark in caves and exploring portions of caves that demanded she address her fears. One takeaway: new life starts in the dark.
Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.
Chapter 6, Entering the Stone
A spiritual book about darkness is most likely not complete without a chapter on the dark night of the soul. Taylor’s coverage is exhaustive from both sides of the topic as well as from the individual to the communal. The most helpful section was her description of the difference between faith and belief. Sharing about her observations as a college professor, she gives this distinction about questions college students are asking or are being asked:
When I listen to college students talk about faith, beliefs are what interest them most: Do you believe in the virgin birth? Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? Do you believe that only Christians go to heaven? No one asks, “On what is your heart set?” No one asks, “What powers do you most rely on? What is the hope that gives meaning to your life?” Those are questions of faith, not belief. The answers to them are not written down in any book, and they have a way of shifting in the dark.
Chapter 7, The Dark Night of the Soul
I’ve already suggested this book to a few folks-one running friend who avoids running in the early morning hours, one coaching client who feels distant from God. Whether you are struggling with physical or spiritual darkness, I’d encourage you to give this book a read. See what you learn.
Jacques Lusseyran (1924-1971) was a blind author, professor, and leader of the French Resistance in WWII. At age 19, Lusseyran was arrested and spent nearly 15 months in the Nazis’ Buthenwald concentration camp. When the U.S. army arrived, Lusseyran was one of roughly 30 survivors of a transport of 2,000 French citizens.
In this collection of Lusseyran’s essays, he recounts becoming blind at age seven, reactions to societal progression, and observations from Buthenwald.
Essay #1, “The Blind in Society,” is his revelation that after his blindness he became aware of an inner light. Here’s one illustration of his observation of that light:
When I was overcome with sorrow, when I let anger take hold of me, when I envied those who saw, the light immediately decreased. Sometimes it even went out completely. Then I became blind. But this blindness was a state of not loving anymore, of sadness; it was not the loss of one’s eyes.
In the final essay, “Poetry in Buchenwald,” Lusseyran shares the power of poetry. His sharing of poetry with fellow prisoners brought hope and happiness. From that, he had this to say about unhappiness:
Unhappiness comes to each of us because we think ourselves at the center of the world, because we have the miserable conviction that we alone suffer to this point of unbearable intensity. Unhappiness is always to feel oneself imprisoned in one’s own skin, in one’s own brain.
I share these two thoughts to record them for future reference. I also share them in hopes that we move more toward love to eliminate the unhappiness we create in ourselves.
John Gregory 