spiphywarfare

Blog

  • Here Comes the Pain Again

    Here Comes the Pain Again

    I’m curious how many readers heard Annie Lennox sing that blogpost title in their head. She sang it in mine when I was trying to figure out what to title these thoughts that came into my head on my first night post-surgery.

    Everybody’s Least Favorite Friend

    Everyone has that friend that walk into the room or pops up on the phone screen and makes them pause and ask, “What is it this time?” The friend who tells you what you don’t want to hear and is often right but sometimes very wrong. Pain, is that friend.

    What’s interesting is we usually think of pain in a physical sense, much like the pain keeping me awake. We also think of it in an emotional sense. Less often pain is thought of spiritually. As Christians, we can feel a spiritual pain when we are not feeling close to God. Rarely do many people think of pain as organizational. Organizational pain manifests itself in poor performance, turnover, inability to find creative solutions to persistent problems, etc.

    Not Always What You Think it is

    Referred Physical Pain

    Many years ago, I learned a rough lesson about nerve pain. I had a wisdom tooth on the left side of my face that was, unbeknownst to me, causing me to sleep with my jaw out of alignment. It initially manifested as a slight discomfort on the right side of jaw. I’d rub it a bit throughout the day and go on. Eventually, that constant pressure on that nerve overloaded it and the pain transferred to the Trigeminal Nerve. Trigeminal Neuralgia is known as the “Suicide Disease.” I can understand.

    After several nights of sleeplessness and several days of waiting to get in to see my doc, I finally got some needed relief. When the doctor heard about how, a possibly potent mix of beer and sleeping medication, he scolded me. I told him I knew it was dangerous but at that point death would have been better than the pain I was experiencing.

    Transference of Emotional Pain

    Transference is something that isn’t always negative but can be. When it is, painful experiences from our past can be triggered by a familiar situation, mannerisms of a person, or even by a person’s looks. We can find ourselves led astray about the root cause of our current emotional pain because we think the solution lies in figuring out how to address our current situation which actually doesn’t need fixing. It’s not always bad, but that’s the aspect considered here for this blogpost.

    Spiritual Pain Not Always Obvious

    In our walk with God, we (or at least I) can find ourselves feeling distant from Him. It might be that our prayers feel powerless. It might be that we find it difficult to take time to read The Word. It may just be that we don’t really feel connected in any way.

    I’ve had that happen and thought, “I’m just going to read my Bible even harder!” I do. Still, God seems distant and I feel maybe I’ve been rejected. What is usually revealed to me, when I quit trying to solve it myself, is I’ve let some sin sneak in, bitterness toward another, jealousy, pride, etc. and God’s giving me some discipline. But I attributed it to something else because surely I can’t be doing anything wrong!

    Organizational Pain

    Can an organization really feel pain? Well, not always as a personal experience. Individuals throughout the organization can experience emotional distress due to organizational pain. It might be leaders unable to improve performance. It might be employees who are constantly fighting unnecessary internal or externals battles.

    I included this section because one of the phrases I heard over and over again while pursuing my Public Administration degree was this, “Government does an excellent job at coming up with great solutions to the wrong problem.” I’ve worked in government for 35 years now in multiple agencies in many different roles and can attest to the truth of this statement.

    So what is organizational pain? It is an emotional pain that drives employees crazy when broken or nonexistent work processes make their jobs difficult and frustrating. Organizational pain causes:
    Anxiety in the workplace (dread of work activity);
    Negative impact on the company’s daily operations and its capital projects (cost, schedule, quality, safety, risk, and morale);
    Addition of extra time to work on tasks because they know it “always takes longer to get done”

    Understanding and Removing Organizational Pain

    Stopping the Pain

    Fortunately, I know the source of the physical pain keeping me up and inspiring me to write this. Unfortunately, too often in other areas of our lives we end up treating the symptoms and not the cause. As a result, we end up continuing to battle pain long-term when we don’t need to.

    If you’re dealing with one of these types of pain, pause, assess your situation honestly and with outside input. Work to find the cause and fix that.

  • It. Is. Hot!!!

    Latest D-Life podcast. I talk a little about how hot it has been and how it’s impacted things around me.

    Shorts and boots?

    I’ve never seen an old grizzled, farmer/rancher wearing shorts and boots. I’m not too sure that the lower half of his pants weren’t burned off to be honest. It was hot that day.

  • NOT Psalm 2:4

    The one enthroned in heaven laments with them; the Lord comes alongside them.

  • NOT1 Kings 18:40

    Elijah told them, “Reason with the prophets of Baal! Don’t let even one of them think you are mean!” So they befriended them, and Elijah led them down to the Kishon Valley and showed compassion to them in their crisis there.

  • NOT Act 28:31 

    proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with complete consideration and without confrontation of any sort.

  • NOT 1Pe 4:15 

    But if one of you is a murderer or thief or criminal or as a troublemaker, lament with them and come along side them.

  • NOT Phi 1:14

    most of the brothers and sisters, having winsomeness in the Lord because of my imprisonment, now more than ever dare to speak the word with nuance to build social capital.

  • NOT Eph 6:19

    Pray for me also, that I may be given winsome words when I begin to speak—that I may nuance the mystery of the gospel unoffensively.

  • NOT Job 24:14

    Before daybreak the murderer rises up; he kills the poor and the needy (unless they’re just babies, then nix the murderer thing); in the night he is like a thief.

  • Report of Independent Investigation (SBC)

    Report of Independent Investigation (SBC)

    The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee’s Response to Sexual Abuse Allegations and an Audit of the Procedures and Actions of the Credentials Committee

    With everything going on in the world, why would I choose to write about an investigation into the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)? Well, because it matters to me, that’s why.

    My background is in law enforcement, politics, and mental health. I’ve spent my life writing reports on observed behavior, criminal acts, and other incidents. I’ve also spent a large part of my life reviewing reports written by subordinates. In that time I’ve learned this, there are two types of reports: those that state the facts, and those that try to evoke a particular response from the reader.

    My education is in administration of criminal justice (law enforcement, courts, and corrections) and political science. I’ve spent my entire adult life working for various government agencies which were ultimately responsible to an elected official. Sometimes I’ve worked with that official daily, other times they would never have any idea who I was. I’ve sat in U.S. Senator’s offices for private meetings, discussed issues with state level senators and representatives, and helped direct the activities of both governmental and non-governmental organizations. I am keenly sensitive to the impact public perception has on an organization and how to bear that in mind so that to act in ways that benefit the organization.

    I’ve read thousands of pages of reports in my life. I’ve found that whether the report was a single paragraph, or hundreds of pages, it has to be read thoroughly before coming to any useful conclusion regarding it’s contents.

    Bias

    I spent several years working patrol. Before that, fresh out of high school I was a direct care worker at an inpatient psychiatric facility. To this day, I recall a doctor giving me the what-for as an 18-year-old after I inserted an opinion into a chart entry. Even though it was unpleasant, she was right. What she taught me has stayed with me. That served me well when I moved into law enforcement. The goal of every report I wrote was to state the facts and nothing but the facts. If a simple statement of the facts didn’t lead the reader, whether juror or prosecutor, to think a crime had been committed, then maybe I was in error and the accused needed to be freed.

    Bias, as I showed at a young age when I said a patient “was angry” can show up in reports for two reasons in my experience. First, it can show as a unintentional bias. For example when a young, lazy kid writes, “the patient was angry” instead of taking the time to describe the actual observable behavior that will allow the reader to come to the conclusion the patient was angry. Second, it shows up when the writer uses words that are intended to evoke a certain response from the reader, usually through emotional appeals.

    The Report

    The first thing I wanted to do with this report was what I would do with any other. Is there bias in the report? If so, does it appear to be intentional or could it be unintentional? If it is intentional, what is it the writer wants you to conclude and why? If it isn’t (which is mostly okay), how could it influence your final conclusion and how, or even should, you counteract that bias.

    I said it also shows up in words intended to evoke a response. Consider the two following sentences, the first of which is from the report. Look at the missing words and consider that they are there to make you feel a certain way about the facts being presented.

    • Finally, at the 2021 Nashville Convention, calls for reform reached a crescendo – the Messengers overwhelmingly voted to approve a Task Force to supervise an independent investigation into the EC’s handling of sexual abuse allegations.
    • At the 2021 Nashville Convention, the Messengers voted to approve a Task Force to supervise an independent investigation into the EC’s handling of sexual abuse allegations.

    What additional facts did you get from those words that are not in the second sentence? “Overwhelmingly” is a characterization of a vote outcome rather than stating, “by a 5:1 margin” or some such. The others seem obvious so I won’t worry about them here.

    I use the phrase “does it appear” above when talking about bias because I cannot conclude if bias is intentional or not most of the time. One can conclude it is intentional when any other conclusion beggars belief. That said, there is bias in this report. For instance, their initial contact letters with witnesses explained that interviewees would be allowed to “express their opinions as to how the SBC can create a safer community going forward” (p. 24). Before they began their interviews, they were predisposed to thinking the SBC was unsafe. That doesn’t mean it was, it just points out that they went in expecting to find things wrong.

    Expectations are like that: They make us see the falsies that aren’t there. Decades of research have proven that expectation is a powerful force. It acts on our perceptions much as gravity acts on light, bending them in ways that are measurable by others, but, at least to us, imperceptible. 

    Psychology Today

    So they were biased. What else stood out about the report? Guidepost put a decent amount of effort into laying out the methodology they used in conducting this investigation. My opinion? Their methods were sound. By sound I mean I think they seem to have been thorough in trying to contact people they needed to interview, covering all the relevant areas of concern, and their comprehensive document review.

    A couple of the abuse stories they took pages to lay out were simply not believable. By that I don’t mean I believe nothing happened, just I believe it sounded more like adultery than sexual assault or someone molesting another person. Two issues with that: 1) the thing about using words and phrases that don’t appear in the Bible but are intended to bring to mind rape and molestation are dishonest, and 2) if you portray a willing party to adultery as a victim, and tell them they are a victim, the chance of them asking forgiveness is nil. It is an unloving lie to do such a thing.

    My Opinion

    There are two types of reports organizations generate, factual and persuasive. This was definitely a persuasive report. For me it was mostly a fail in that area as they did not focus as much on solid cases where convicted sex offenders were in the pulpit. They seemed more interested in persuading the reader that certain specific cases were sexual abuse. Either way, the outcome for me was still the same though maybe not for the reason they wanted.

    Here’s the thing, as I said, I’ve worked for, with, and around elected officials and others who work for them and I can recognize politics when I see it. As I read the report what stuck out to me was the lack of concern for victims AND for anyone falsely accused. The sole focus was on, when you get down to it, “How do we keep our power and position in light of these allegations?” That is what struck me. Zero concern for getting at the truth which as Christians they know “will set you free.”

    In the end, anything with allegations of criminal activity should be immediately referred to law enforcement. Anything short of criminal allegations but still sinful should be investigated thoroughly so the truth can be found and acted on according to Biblical principles. That is not what happened here and that is very disappointing.

    The events and behaviors on display at the recent SBC Convention in Anaheim, CA don’t give me any hope that the national leadership is anything but political.