Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Thomas Merton on The Will of God

Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

From Thomas Merton's No Man Is An Island, On the Will of God (cont)
• A right intention (which we should have as we follow the signs of God’s will) is a transient intention. It is proper to the active life which is always moving on to something else. We pause from one particular to another, reaching ahead into many plans – the works done and planned are all for the glory of God. They all stand ahead of us as milestones along a road with an invisible end. And God is always at the end.
• Right intention is more common than a really simple intention. It reaches out for merits, sacrifices, degrees of virture, etc. We need a simple intention – the aim of the contemplative life – no merely to enable a person to say prayers and make sacrifices with right intention: it is to teach us to live in God. A simple intention is perpetual death in Christ – keeping our life hidden in Christ. It seeks treasure nowhere but in heaven. It prefers what cannot be seen, touched, weighed, tasted, or seen.
• A right intention only aims in the right direction. But even in the midst of action, a simple intention renounces all things but God alone, seeks Him alone. The secret of simple intention is that it is content to seek God and does not insist on finding God right away, knowing that in seeking God we have already found God.
• Whatever is offered to God with a right intention is acceptable to Him. Whatever is offered to God with a simple intention is not only accepted by Him by reason of our good will, but is pleasing to God in itself.
• Our intention cannont be completely simple unless it is completely poor. It seeks and desires nothing unless it is completely poor. It seeks and desires nothing but the supreme poverty of having nothing but God. True, anyone with a grain of faith realizes that to have God and nothing else besides is to have everything in Him. But between the thought of poverty and its actualization in our lives lies the desert of emptiness through which we must travel in order to find Him.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

On the Will Of God: From Thomas Merton

Luke 9.23-27
23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. 25What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? 26Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.’

From Thomas Merton's No Man Is An Island, On the Will of God
• Prayer must be first as we seek God’s will – not only to discover God’s will but above all to gain the grace to carry it out with all the strength of our desire.
• The will of God, which the Holy Spirit teaches us in the secrecy of our inmost being, must always remain as much a mystery as God Godself. Our desire to know God’s will implies rather a desire to recognize certain signs of the mystery of God’s will, than to penetrate the mystery itself. If I do not remember this distinction, we no longer revere the holiness and the mystery of God’s will in itself.
• When we speak of God’s will, we are usually speaking only of some recognizable sign of God’s will. The signpost that points to a distant city is not the city itself, and sometimes the signs that point to a great place are in themselves insignificant and contemptible. But we must follow the signpost if we are to get to the end of our journey. It is one thing to see a sign, another to interpret it correctly.
• To know God’s will (which is mysterious) we must be silent in the presence of the signs whose meaning are closed to us. Otherwise, we begin to incontinently place our own superstitious interpretation upon everything – the number of steps in a doorway, a card pulled out of a pack, the shadow of a ladder, the flight of birds. God’s will is not so cheap a mystery that it can be unlocked by any key like these!
• Nevertheless there are some real signs that everyone must know. They must be easily seen and read, and they are simple. The come sparingly and are few in number. They show us clearly enough the road ahead, but not more than a few paces. Once we take those steps, what then? We must learn to be poor in our dependence on these signs, to take them as they come, not to demand more of them than we need, not to make more of them than they really tell.
• If I am to know the will of God, I must have the right attitude toward life. I must first know what life is and know the purpose of my life. God does not need our sacrifices, God asks for ourselves – charity, divine union, transformation in Christ: these are the end.
• This is why the will of God so often manifests in demands that I sacrifice myself.
• God’s will for us is not only that we should be the persons God means us to be, but that we should share in God’s work of creation and help God to make us into the persons God means us to be. God’s will for me is that I should shape my own destiny, work out my salvation, forge my own eternal happiness, in the way God has planned for me. And since no man is an island, I cannot work out my God’s will in my own life unless I also consciously help others work out God’s will in their lives.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Reflective Practices and Mental Models: From Peter Senge

Matthew 7:21-28
21 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” 23Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”
24 ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. 26And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’
28 Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, 29for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.


From Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
On Reflective Practice and Mental Models

  • The most important mental models (our internal picture(s) of the world, i.e. our worldview) are the ones shared by the key decision makers. They must be constantly reexamined. Managers also must develop reflective and face to face learning skills. We must become “reflective practitioners”.
  • The problem with most managers is they are ultimately “pragmatic” – they are generally “reactive”, not generative. If we are going to be a true learning organization, people at every level must surface and challenge their mental models BEFORE external circumstances compel them to do so. (Proactive approach)
  • Espoused Theory vs. Theory in Use: Espoused Theory is what we say we are, what our mission statement says we are, what we profess, (the manifest culture) : Theory in Use is what we actually believe, our mental model, and dictates our actions (the latent culture)
  • My espoused view may be that people are basically trustworthy, but I may never lend friends money and jealously guard all my stuff – obviously my theory in use (my deeper mental model) differs from my espoused theory.
  • We have gaps between our espoused theories and our theories in use. This is a consequence of vision, not hypocrisy. The problem is not in the gap, but our failure to tell the truth about the gap (remember last week and dealing with the structural conflict??) The first question is: Do I really value the espoused theory? Is it really a part of my vision? Truth telling is vital here. One or two people might really value the espoused theory, but does the whole embrace it? Is the vision shared?
  • As we strive to develop our reflective skills, we need ruthlessly compassionate partners who will tell the truth.
  • Truth Telling
    o Learn to Recognize Leaps of Abstraction: these slow our learning when we jump to generalizations so quickly we never test them. For example, coworkers say Laura doesn’t care about people: she rarely offers praise, she stares into space when people talk to her, she cuts people off when they speak, she never comes to parties, THEREFORE her coworkers conclude she doesn’t care much. Without testing the generalizations, they became truth – actually Laura has a hearing impediment. While based on facts, her coworkers drew inferences and they were never tested. Key: We must test generalizations directly. Inquire the reasons behind people’s actions.
    o The Left-Hand Column: This reveals how we manipulate situations to avoid dealing with how we actually feel and think. When we are interacting with people regarding a situation and it is not working (not producing learning or moving ahead), we form a script of our conversation with two columns. In the right hand column I write down what I am saying. In the left hand column, I write what I am thinking but not saying at each stage of the exchange. It always brings forward hidden assumptions. Usually, rather than face the subject, we talk around the subject. Knowing this, how can we both learn? Key: We must honestly look at how we undermine learning opportunities by not being honest.
    o Balancing Inquiry and Advocacy: Most managers are advocates – they fight for their areas and their people! If they don’t learn to push the inquiry skills, they cut off learning. Advocacy without inquiry begats more advocacy. My way is right, my way needs to win – we push and push, while other managers push back with their advocated issues. Escalation. Rather than ask what brings one to their position? Or, Can you illustrate your point? (Questions of inquiry) We get more vehement and more threatened. Key: When we balance advocacy and inquiry, we are open to disconfirming information as well as confirming information – because we are generally interested in finding flaws in our views.
  • The Goal??
    o The best mental model on a particular issue is supported. We focus on helping that person/mental model succeed.