Month: December 2024

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Happy New Year – Lessons Learned


When I saw the picture of this coffee mug on social media, it caused me to reflect on those times in 2024 when those around me challenged my behavior. What caught my attention about the mug is the sense of shock it portrays that we may well be the author of consequences we face that are too easy to blame on others. Responding effectively when confronted about your behavior is a significant leadership skill and a vital interpersonal skill. Staying calm, open, and thoughtful is a deliberate choice when exposed to our biases, misconceptions, or contradictory behavior. I practiced these skills in 2024 with a mixed record of success. So, as I travel into 2025, fully intending to be a blessing and acknowledging that I will continue to find the need to admit error and grow in understanding and grace, I offer these reminders.

Stay Calm and Composed. When challenged, avoid reacting defensively or emotionally. Take a deep breath and take a moment to process what is being said. Christians are familiar with conviction, i.e., the state of being convinced of error or compelled to admit the truth. In this sense, being convicted is not a road to shame but an opportunity to learn. While shame may raise its head, it doesn’t need to derail learning.  

Listen Actively. Pay attention to the person’s concerns without interruption.  There is something profoundly healing in listening empathetically to another person. Of course, that is the challenge when one is the subject of another person’s complaint. Show that you listen through nods or simple acknowledgments like, “I see” or “I understand.”

Acknowledge Their Perspective. Even if you disagree, recognize their feelings with a response such as, “I see how this upset you.” Avoid dismissing their concerns, especially through gaslighting statements like, “You shouldn’t feel that way” or “You have completely misread my intention.”

Take Responsibility. If their concerns are valid, admit your mistake: “You’re right; I could have handled that better.” Throughout my life, I have made plenty of blunders and have been appropriately challenged about the consequences. I never cease to be amazed at how simply admitting my errors deescalates the emotional tension of such encounters.

If you are unsure of the concern’s validity, you might try responding, “I need to think about this more, but I appreciate you bringing it up.”

Clarify and Ask Questions. If something is unclear, ask for specifics: “Can you help me understand what specifically bothered you?”  Asking this question has given me much deeper insight into the impact of my assumptions, sometimes embarrassingly so. But it also opened the door to deeper self-understanding and transformation.

On another occasion, asking questions led me to discover that what bothered an individual wasn’t my behavior directly but an association with a prior experience of the other person. One person on my team with whom I had a regular conflict and was ready to fire over it one day admitted that I had a facial expression that mirrored that of her abusive father. She was triggered and acted out before she could identify the reason. Not only did this create strife between us, but it also often left me completely baffled. We talked about her experience enough to design a safe word that only she and I understood. When I experienced her triggered behavior, I said the safe word to alert her to her reactive responses.

Share Your Perspective (if appropriate). I often engage in difficult conversations with people I know and respect. There are times when it is appropriate for me to share my perspective. However, when doing so, avoid blaming or justifying; instead, explain calmly: “I didn’t realize how it came across. That wasn’t my intention.”  However, here is the challenge: our intentions don’t always come across in our behaviors. There may be times when our intentions are more idealized than actuated. When this is the case, behavior speaks louder than words. So, stay attentive when sharing your perspective and acknowledge quickly if you realize your actions did contradict your intentions and/or your core values.

Apologize if Needed.  A sincere apology can go a long way: “I’m sorry for how my actions affected you. I’ll work on this.” I like to follow up on the apology with a request for forgiveness, knowing that depending on the depth of the offense, forgiveness may not be immediately forthcoming. It may take time for the offended party to extend forgiveness. Then, it may or may not mean that we can reconcile. Remember, forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. They will work in tandem in an ideal world, but we live in a broken world.

Commit to Improvement. Showing that you are willing to make changes verifies your apology and request for forgiveness. Without this commitment, your words are little more than an attempt to mask your behavior. Say: “I’ll be more mindful of this in the future.”

Follow Through. Actions speak louder than words. Make an effort to adjust your behavior moving forward and check in with the person who pointed out your deficiency in the first place to see how you are doing. Follow-through requires you to reflect on the feedback you have received. Make your reflection in prayer and in your mind. Allow the Holy Spirit to deepen the insights you have. This can help you grow personally and improve your relationships.

If 2024 taught me one specific lesson, it was that remaining respectful and self-aware makes a significant difference in resolving interpersonal conflict constructively. Now, to take these lessons into a new year.

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Election 2024 – Picking Up the Pieces

Commentary about the 2024 presidential election focuses a lot on the polarization in American politics. But what were the common themes, even between widely divergent extremes?

Michael J. Sandel’s synopsis of issues identifies two themes of discontent: the fear that, individually and collectively, we are losing control of the forces that govern our lives and the fear that the moral fabric of community is unraveling around us.[i]

What drives our shared sense of lost control and unraveling moral fabric? Pew Research noted that a majority say special interests dominate the political process, which is flooded with campaign cash and mired in partisan warfare. Elected officials are widely viewed as self-serving and ineffective.[ii]

  • Members of Congress are widely seen as mixing financial interests with their work. About eight-in-ten Americans (81%) say members of Congress do a very or somewhat bad job of “keeping their personal financial interests separate from their work in Congress.”
  • Americans feel major donors have too much influence. Large majorities say big campaign donors (80%) and lobbyists and special interests (73%) have too much influence on decisions made by members of Congress.
  • Most say the cost of campaigns keeps good candidates from running. An overwhelming majority (85%) holds the view that “the cost of political campaigns makes it hard for good people to run for office.”

How do we address our shared sense of loss? The question is particularly difficult because behind any attempt to discuss policy or the assumptions behind policy are the deeply negative views of those on the other side of politics.  If we cannot accept the humanity and good intentions of those who differ from us on how we define or address the problem, then the hope of constructive conversation evaporates. This was my experience in the pre-election, where my questions and concerns were rejected as invalid or worse.

So, are we at an impasse? Will we simply devolve into another oligarchy, or endure a long decaying democratic death spiral? Where does faith play a role in all this? Faith has found expression, though not always helpful because – I speak to Christian voices in particular – we cannot agree on a starting point.

What is the appropriate starting point? Here, Jewish scholar and rabbi Shai Held offers an interesting perspective in his discussion of the role of lament. He begins with a conviction that I find shared by all parties of the Christian social engagement.

Side by side with gratitude lives protest, a deep and unabashed conviction that the world as it is is a very far cry from the world as it should be, and a demand that the gap between them begin to be closed.[iii] 

This conviction that the world and the US form of democracy are broken is the shared view. So, where does protest find its voice? The political protest we witnessed by Republicans and Democrats in this election cycle, each accusing the other of being the destroyers of democracy, is clearly ineffectual. Mutual accusation only feeds the fire of polarization.

What struck me in reading Held’s thoughts was that lament is a protest against the status quo. Using the events of the Exodus as a model, Held pointed out that the publicly processed pain of Israel’s suffering under Egyptian enslavement unleashed a new social imagination—declaring their situation to be intolerable and unsustainable planted the seeds of a different kind of society.

It seems we could agree to practice lament. Why start with lament rather than the more evangelical starting point of repentance? I am not sure we understand our role in our current situation. The mutual denigration engaged by the right about the left and vice versa suggests that we should start by expressing our fear, loss, and grief over the situation we find ourselves in. In lament, we can engage God in the unexpected ways God seems to show up historically. We can share lament and, in sharing lament, find the vulnerability and exposure before God we need to engage in repentance. Lament can plant the seeds of a different kind of faith community.

Held offers additional insight that seems pertinent to that part of the church I am most familiar. He writes:

If faith is about life – about real life, and not some spiritualized ideal thereof – then there has to be room for anguish. As long as life contains both joy and sadness, weal and woe, liturgy must continue both praise and lament. If all we are ever allowed to do is praise, then what do we do with our sorrows, our hurts, and our disappointments? If all we do with our pain is silence it, then we run the very real risk that our religion will depend on developing a “false self,” one that does not mean what it says and is afraid to say what it means. It’s vital that we grasp this point: being honest with God, even when life hurts, is not a rebellion against faith but a manifestation of it.[iv]

So, let’s be honest with God about our fears, our anxieties, our hurts. Let’s voice this lament and its inherent protest of the status quo together. Let’s see what God’s intervention looks like and be humble enough to accept the change deliverance invites us toward.

[i] Michael J. Sandel. (2022) Democracy’s Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 10.

[ii] Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics; Accessed 12 Dec 2024.

[iii] Shai Held. (2024) Judaism is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 50.

[iv] Held, 68.

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A Different Kind of Community

Janice and I recently heard a message that spoke to some of the issues believers face in being like Jesus in a context that has often confused cultural norms for being a disciple, and Christian nationalism for faithfulness. It was refreshing to hear this pastor cut through the noise with a call to something different. This will encourage you.