The Pew Findings

Monday morning, March 3, 2008

What has emerged from the think tank at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is as comprehensive a snapshot of religion in American life as ever produced.  The nation’s talking about it.  After sifting through a mountain of data, certain conclusions surfaced.  And they are making headlines.

I got a rather curious call from a long time friend who now resides in Florida.  Dan and I remember well the days we wandered around the streets of the big city back in those gloomy years when Apocalypse loomed heavy on the horizon.  We were classmates in Bible school.  The world as we knew it seemed to be coming apart at the seams.  There were assassinations (a second Kennedy, civil rights leader, Dr. King) that sparked rioting in the streets.  The violence and looting and mayhem went on for weeks, then months.  National Guard troops, in a display of armed force, drove up and down the city boulevards and avenues in their in an effort to keep the peace.  (The police force wasn’t enough.)  In the summer of 1968, our city of Chicago hosted the Democratic Convention.  It was a dark night for American politics.  The films of bloody clashes in the streets and angry speeches inside the great hall are all part of American history; a part that many would rather forget.

For three years straight, we traveled on Greyhound busses criss-crossing the nation with a pack of guys in a men’s choir.   A drive-by we’ll never forget was in Memphis, Tennessee.  Thirty days after the shooting, our driver took us past the Lorraine Motel.  I snapped two photos - one of the balcony where Martin Luther King leaned on the railing as he chatted with young Jesse Jackson and a couple of his colleagues and the other of the small window up the hill on the opposite side of the street, a weathered clapboard house where James Earl Ray found the civil rights activist in his sights. 

But for Dan and me, there were lighter moments, too.  Fifty college age guys in a bus find ways to pass the time.  There was no shortage of creativity.  We still laugh heartily at the memories.

But this time he called just to talk church.  Our conversation sounded strangely like the the results of the Pew research, though Dan had not seen it yet.  Here we are, a couple of Boomers who spent our formative years back then living within the confines of protectionist walls built by our spiritual fore-fathers but wandering outside just long enough to have developed some serious questions of our own.  Those questions still linger to this very day.

“What the heck is going on in the church in America?” Dan asked.  It triggered a belly laugh.  “How much time do we have?” was all the response I could muster.  I told him I’ve spent the good part of four years pondering that same question.

We talked for an hour or so and covered topics like “arena church” and “rock-star pastors” and closed door governance and staff big enough to require HR departments and campuses to rival the community Performing Arts Center.  But our talk went way beyond questions about mega-church.  It had more to do with our place in it.  Where do we fit?

The folks at Pew have made several observations.  American’s “like to shop.”  There is a surprising absence of commitment to a religious community based on generational loyalties.  The ranks of the “unaffiliated” is the fastest growing group.  “Evangelical” churches out-number “mainline” denominations.  Denominationalism is on the wane.  The world of religion in America is fluid, highly competitive and filled up with people who share a short attention span.

All this said, Dan and I agreed, there’s something here we can’t let go of.  Do we have hold of it or does it have hold of us?  We’re not sure.  Either way, we can’t escape it.

I think it has something to do with “call.”

* * * * * *

On this Monday morning, as a leader, you’ve got questions, too.  You see the trends of religion in America from close range.  Where is it going?  Is there a place to live out our calling?

Let’s talk.

Thanks for the call, Dan.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2008

The Pew Report

Atonement

Monday Morning, February 24, 2008

That one of the top Oscar nominees for Best Picture would have as it’s title one of the central themes of Christian systematic theology is quite a curious thing.  Even more curious - the novel on which the film is based was written by an outspoken atheist.

The word certainly can be used in ordinary language without the biblical implications, I gather.  (Atonement: “reparation for an offense or injury” - Webster.)   

In one of the title songs (in the new muscial Wicked), Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West declares, “No good deed goes unpunished!”  Out there in the non-theological world there is this cosmic sense that everything ultimately must come into balance.  Evil is balanced off by good.  Good by evil.  If good outweighs the bad at any particular moment, then something bad must inevitably happen in the same measure and so it goes.  One could also conclude that the opposite of Elphaba’s statement of faith is also true - no bad deed goes unrewarded.

What happens, then, when guilt has nowhere to go?  When forgiveness and reconciliation are impossible?  Where is the balance then?  Ian McEwan contemplates these questions in his highly acclaimed novel (which, I have yet to read).  Christopher Hampton wrote his screen-play (based McEwan’s novel) which contemplates the same perplexities.  Is it simply a matter of cosmic balance, or is there something more?

Young Briony Tallis is a thirteen year old with a rich imagination.  As she wanders around the grand estate outside London as war brews up in Europe with Germany’s crude nationalism expanding rough-shod in all directions, she becomes a keen observer.  Her attempts to synthesize the meaning of the things she sees and hears become an obsession.  But they fall well short.  She is young.  Impressionable.  Unsure. 

She witnesses a crime.  A terrible crime.  (Rape.)  Her conclusions mix all the raging complexities of adolescence into a place of feigned certainty.  But in her heart she knows full well that certain she is not.  Still, with a convincing sense of moral outrage, she accuses the man who jilted her - Robbie - the subject of her young fancies.  He chose her older sister, Cecelia, as the subject of his affections.  She could not forgive him.  Based on her testimony, Robbie is sent to prison, where, she fully believes, he belongs.

It’s only later that she comes to terms with the awful consequence of her deceitful lie.  And as she ruminates over the news of his fate and that of her sister’s (when they are separated by the prison sentence, they never see each other again), she is overcome by a guilt she can not escape.  The outcome is irreversible.  The moment irretrievable.  It was not some random onset of an uncontrollable outside force; it was her faulty choice.  Her false witness.  Her need for revenge.

So what does she do? 

In an interview¹ with The New Republic, the novel’s author talks about his atheism and the “neo-atheists” who are getting so much attention these days.  McEwan complains that “Atheism” is an uncomfortable label because, as he puts it, “no one wants to be defined by what he doesn’t believe.”  He goes on to make the point that even atheists have moral dilemmas and that these complex human questions fascinate him.

Briony’s quest for atonement makes for a best-selling novel and a powerful film.  I won’t spoil it for you by revealing any more detail.

* * * * * * *

But on this Monday morning, as a leader, you carry around a sack full of heavy stuff, too.  When you run out of fingers on one hand to count up the decades, you’ve had sufficient time to fill it up.  There are plenty of missteps logged in the memory bank to stir up the guilt and the remorse and the regrets and the wish to get another shot at trying it again.

How do I know?  Ha!

McEwan borrowed the term not just from the dictionary, but from the theology books.  It’s too bad he so easily dismisses the God dynamic.  Isn’t that where the real answer is? 

It’s not balancing Elphaba’s scales of chance.  It’s balancing the scales of justice.  The primary assumption raised by the term “atonement” is that a price must be paid. 

And on this Monday morning, be thankful. 

Someone did.

Copyright, Kenneth E Kemp, 2008

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¹ My thanks to Chuck Colson’s colleague, Mark Earley, for pointing me to the New Republic interview in his essay, Theology in the Theater published in Break Point.

Kate

Monday Morning, February 18, 2008

I’ve written about our children; they provide me with considerable grist for the writing mill.  I am, after all, a self-confessed sentimental Dad.  This week was no exception.  Our oldest daughter delivered one more grandchild to add to our burgeoning family.  Of all the weighty issues swirling around our lives these days, little Kate took center stage.

I’m pleased to report - she’s absolutely beautiful.

At the beginning of the week, it took awhile for Kris and Ben to accept the plain fact that Kate was settled in the breach position and had no intentions to re-arrange her comfortable spot.  Last minute efforts to manipulate a rotation proved to be just too risky.

So the good news is that Kate’s delivery was scheduled.  It trimmed away what otherwise would have been hours of hard labor.  I was there at just before seven on Friday morning when the doctor dropped by.   Kris was freshly prepped for her surgery.  Ben stood by, attentive, proud.  He’s a card carrying, devoted, determined dad himself.  That makes us kindred spirits.

I think the doc knew he was going to be working with someone very special.  He looked across the bed at the enlarged woman’s dad and her husband, and I do believe he thought about what he’d be dealing with if he messed up.  But his self-assurance and friendly manner made us all feel confident.  The OB doc smiled and after some brief pre-op banter, he left.  I’ll never forget those quiet moments there with Ben and Kris before they wheeled her into the surgical ward.

Thanks to the prayers of many and the tireless research and good counsel, Kris had a peace that only God can give.  It’s hard to put into words the pride of this father in his daughter; the amazing person she’s become.

A “c-section” is in the “major surgery” category.  So just a short time later while Kris lay post-op on the hospital bed, she worked hard to smile and appear to be in the celebratory mood she knew was real.  But she clearly showed the residual signs of the high impact passage she just crossed through moments before.  (The photos capture it; curbed smiles checked by sharp discomfort.)  The drugs and the trauma to her body took their toll.  In spite of all that, Kristyn was, from the first moments after delivery, an incredibly beautiful Mom.

I heard her say under her breath, “Oh… if I could only escape this body…”

But after a long, well earned nap, the heaviness of the medications wore off, and the benefits of all those marathon runs kicked in.  She bounced back.  The laughter and hugs and tears all flowed easily as all of us welcomed Kate.

We walked into the room, all of us, Dad (the Pied Piper), the three siblings (two brothers and a sister), Grandma and Grandpa, as Kristyn lay waiting, propped up on pillows.  The children squealed to see their Mommy again.  And all of us stood around the infant crib and there surrounded by Plexiglas and a hand written label filling in all the essential stats wrapped tightly in a white blanket was their new little sister, Kate.  Their eyes were wide.  They all reached out to touch her soft cheeks, her pink nose.  The introductions were made; and the two boys pleaded to hold the little bundle while seated on the rocker.  Dad’s video camera captured the moments.

And me.  I just couldn’t stop looking at Kristyn, the woman who delivered all four of the rascals now filling the room with giggles and questions and territorial claims (”It’s MY turn to hold her.”).

And I held Carolyn tight beside me.

She had her eye on Kristyn, too.

* * * * * * *

So on this Monday morning, you’re in full agreement.  The leadership role will inevitably take an occasional hiatus.  The personal stuff trumps the business.  The people in your care need you.

There was a time, I’m told, when family was readily sacrificed in the pursuit of someone’s definition of success.  Even spiritual leaders believed that devotion to a heavenly cause legitimized neglect of family.  Certainly the pursuit of business achievement all too often meant prolonged absence on the home front.

But on this Monday morning, I’m here to tell you that there is no better place to be.  We are leaders, you and me.

And maybe the most important way for us to lead is in that place where the heart grows warm; and the moments that last forever have a chance to get our attention and make their mark.

Copyright 2008 Kenneth E Kemp

Chasing Francis

February 11, 2008

Another one of those changes I’ve encountered since my Rip Van Winkle style spiritual awakening is the emergence of fiction as a genre for Christian books.  Seems like someone has figured out that the mountain of how-to volumes over at the Christian bookstore can be livened up some if you put your message in the context of an engaging story line.  Check it out.  There’s a whole section called Fiction.

My mentor of seventeen years didn’t like fiction.  He told me so.  He became famous for his “book a week” rhythm.  It was no empty claim; he read a book every week for his entire career.  I still remember how painful it was for him when his eyes went.  He bought a contraption that would project the pages on the wall enlarging the print.  He listened to books on CD.  He had an insatiable appetite for books.  Right up until his transition to Heaven at age ninety-one.

But he had no time for fiction.  “Waste of time,” he called it.  I guess I can confess now what I kept to myself in those long conversations I miss so much today.  I like fiction.  There, I said it. 

A long time ago, another friend challenged me to take on James Michener.  Sure his books are hopelessly voluminous; but sure enough, I got caught up in the big landscapes, the sweep of history, the scope of the centuries and the characters who shaped nations and fought wars and built cities and civilizations and when I put down one, read cover to cover, I picked up another.  I devoured so much Michener back then I managed to figure out his formula.  That’s when I moved on.

But in the journey, a whole world opened up.

So when a successful businessman handed me a book of fiction a couple weeks ago and said, “Ken, you’ve got to read this,” I did.  It’s the story of the pastor of a mega-church who, after twenty years, had to admit to himself that the CEO role he played so well publicly was about to crush him.

One of the first real hints of burn-out happened in front of the home theater.  He watched a movie with his youth pastor; Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.  Pastor Chase Falson opened up as the movie credits rolled.  “What a great movie,” he said.  “I loved Truman’s search for meaning in a contrived and shallow world.  He longed for something more.”

Chip, the youth guy, shrugged and said, “I thought it was dumb.”  He thought about it for a moment.  “Yeah, I like Carrey a whole lot more in Dumb and Dumber.”

Falson knew it.  The generation gap.  A yawning chasm.  Dumb and Dumber.

It wasn’t long after that, The Truman Show became his story.  The final trigger - the young daughter of a single mom dies in a random bicycling accident.  After the memorial, in a private room, Maggie, the little girl’s mother, cries out in agony.  “How could God do this?”  Her reddened, weary eyes reflect the horrific tragedy.  She locks her painful gaze on the man who just officiated the memorial of her child.  And Chase runs out of answers.

He melts down on a Sunday morning, thousands in attendance.  Video cameras rolling.  He confesses that he’s empty.  The old easy answers don’t work anymore.  He’s not sure that this mega operation, burning up millions of dollars a year, comes anywhere close to living up to its mission.  He’s finally told the truth.  But it’s going to cost him.

The Elders put him on a leave of absence.  They think a rest will bring him back.  That’s chapter one.

And that’s where Chase Falson’s unexpected journey begins. 

The airplane lands him in Rome.  His Uncle Kenny, an American refugee who left it all behind to become a Franciscan Monk, meets him at the gate.  Father Kenny.

An in a pilgrim’s tale, the weary senior pastor embarks on a new quest - Chasing Francis.¹

* * * * * *

It’s Monday morning, and as a seasoned leader, you can point to those moments in time when everything changed.  They were turning points.  Or tipping points.  Like Chase Falson, you emerged to a whole new world of experience.

In one of God’s mysterious twists, just this morning, just after writing the text above, I listened to the pastor of a large church share some tragic, unsettling news.  A little eighteen month boy, Isaac, the son of new young missionaries en-route to their first tour of service in Cambodia.  The accident occurred in the Denver area.  Isaac’s mom is recovering from a serious corrective surgery.  Two other adults traveling in the car were killed.

Unlike the character in my book, this pastor relayed the hard facts with passion and grace, pain and hope, sorrow and grace.  People were moved to care.  Tears flowed in that sacred place.  No easy answers here.  He invited us to enter into the grief; and there find living water.

Falson’s fictional journey led him to a new and deeper understanding of God’s work in the world… in history, in a far away land, and in an open, honest search for the living God.  The spiritual crisis led to spiritual renewal.

As it has for me.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp 2008

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 ¹ Chasing Francis, Ian Moran Cron (2006, Navpress)

Heliocentrism

February 4, 2008

Ptolemy had his work cut out for him back in the second century.  The night sky fascinated him.  He would start with the only fixed point in the sky, the North Star (as we call it).  Night after night, from his home in Egypt, he would record the motion of the stars and the planets visible to his naked eye.  (Telescopes came later.  Much later.)

He operated under the generally accepted assumption that the earth, Terra Firma, remained stationary.  The points of light in the far distance were set on the surface of a spherical dome that rotated around planet earth; as did the sun and moon.  The planets were somehow suspended in space floating in perpetual motion in cyclical patterns that from the earth look like the looping scramble of cables behind the PC, or the home theater.  Mercury and Venus and Mars and Jupiter and Saturn moved in cycles, strange swirling cycles in complicated but as Ptolemy learned, predictable patterns.

The scientist was obsessed with the journey of these celestial objects.  He recorded their progress night after night, month after month, year after year.  The perplexity of their looping gyrations fascinated him; what emerged was a triumphant work he called Planetary Hypotheses.  His network of “nested spheres,” which could predict the position of the planets in the night sky with remarkable precision, became the accepted view of the universe for the next fifteen hundred years.  To understand the model required advanced academic studies in Astronomy, Mathematics and Physics.

You and I know that Ptolemy’s complicated theory of nested spheres missed a fundamental point.  It wasn’t until Copernicus and then Galileo, that Ptolemy’s “discoveries,” considered to be “brilliant,” the work of a “genius,” were summarily dismissed; placed forever on the trash-heap of discarded ideas.  Galileo’s primitive telescope confirmed it.

It was a simple test, really.  Galileo observed the light and shadow moving across the face of the giant planet Jupiter.  He compared it to Ptolemy’s cycle in the text-book.  Impossible, he concluded.  The only way to explain the movement of the shadows, Galileo proclaimed, is for Jupiter to orbit around the Sun. 

Heliocentism.  Copernicus suggested that Ptolemy was wrong.  Galileo confirmed it.  The earth is a rotating sphere, orbiting the Sun, just like the other planets.

Those who had mastered the complicated concept of nested spheres shrugged.  It was so obvious.  The motion of the planets suddenly became simplified.  They fell into place.  The solar system went from celestial scramble to orderly rotations.  The series of complicated loops were reduced to a series of concentric, symmetrical ellipse. 

It was a paradigm shift.  And a satisfying one.  But it required that humankind let go of the solipsistic notion that the earth was the one stationary point in the universe.  Not an easy concession. 

I met this week with a group we call The Desert Fathers.  One of them told this story of this Astronomical shift in paradigm.  It was Henri Nouwen, he said, who made the point that when we place ourselves at the center, our universe appears to be as convoluted as Ptolemy’s collection of nested spheres.  It’s only when we place God at the center that our world makes any sense at all.

Curiously, the same story was told again when I took my grandson, Kenny, to the Griffith Park Observatory just a few days later.  He passed a milestone just the week before when we celebrated his fifth birthday.  The sign on the Planetarium Kiosk confirmed it.  You can’t see the show if you are anything less than five.  “If you aren’t five,” Kenny told me, “you get too scared.”  As we walked up to the landmark structure perched on the bluff a thousand feet above Los Angeles under a bright blue sky, Kenny walked and talked like a grownup. 

I passed a milestone the same week.  The Kiosk confirmed this one, too.  I qualified for the senior discount.

So with eyes wide, together we watched the spectacular Planetarium show, Kenny and me.  I’m not sure he got the “nested spheres” thing or Galileo’s radical challenge to Ptolemy’s world view.  But he did find out why the under five crowd should take a pass on the presentation.  Under the dome, in high-definition clarity, on an IMAX sized screen, in surround sound, the BIG BANG is truly startling.  Kenny jumped in his high back seat, grabbed my arm and said, “It’s OK Grandpa. 

“I’m not scared.”

* * * * * * *

On this Monday morning, as a leader, you’ll agree with me that the world makes a whole lot more sense when heliocentric becomes theo-centric; God centered.  When BIG BANG illustrates the biblical assertion: “in the beginning… God…”

There’s no better way to re-discover Nouwen’s point than to spend a day with your grandson, particularly a five-year-old who is fascinated by outer space and astronauts and starry starry nights, so full of questions.  So eager to learn.

If senior citizen means more days like Saturday up at Griffith Park hand in hand with a curious grandson, then I’m all over it.

Copyright 2008 Kenneth E Kemp

Some Melodious Sonnet

Monday Morning, January 28, 2008

Rip Van Winkle was the envy of some of his neighbor friends up in the Castkill Mountains of New York just after the Revolutionary War.  Twenty years before, he escaped his irksome wife and the tedious chores back home on the farm, wandered up into the mountain forest, chatted with some odd characters in the deep, dark woods, drank some of their hard liquor and drifted off to sleep under a shady tree.  When he woke up after a nap that spanned two decades, his world had changed.

His wife died.  The farm was sold.  His village no longer hailed themselves as loyal subjects of King George of England.  His Dutch friends, many of them hen-pecked as he had been, envied his transformation - the new life and the new world he awakened to after a twenty year disappearance.  So goes the old familiar children’s tale of Rip.  (Rest in Peace - ha!  I just now noticed that.) 

At this stage in my life, in an odd sort of way, I identify with the old storybook character.  (Certainly, I’m not thinking of his marriage - mine is quite an enviable and satisfying partnership after all these years.)  My identification with RVW has more to do with the world of Christian ministry; the church and pastoral leadership and worship and that sort of thing.

I was a card carrying member of the professional clergy some twenty years ago or more.  Then four years ago, I re-activated the credentials and joined up once again.  I took a twenty year leave of absence, immersing myself in the world of business before making a kind of come-back.  I stretched and yawned and rubbed my eyes, stood to my feet, scratched the back of my skull and wandered off the hill, out of the dark forest and back into the village I’d left behind.

I woke up to a new world.  Me and Rip. 

Four years ago, I would have vigorously denied that I had been asleep; unplugged.  I considered myself engaged.  But Sunday after Sunday, same church, same folks in the row beside you and in front and back, same preacher, same ecclesiastical routines and without knowing it, you are lulled to sleep in a familiar, dreamy world of predictable ritual until someone or something wakes you up.  In two decades, especially in this era of ever accelerating rates of change, the rest of the world moves on.

When Rip awakened, his children were grown, his village prospered and the government changed hands.  Since I re-entered “The Ministry” four years ago, I encountered a depth of fundamental change on the order of an American Revolution.  Sometimes, to this very day, I am wide-eyed in amazement; a Rip Van Winkle caught up in re-discovery.

And it has changed me.

For one - I’ve learned to worship.  This Sunday would be Exhibit A. 

Back in the days of the hymnal (I’m old enough to remember those), singing was a mechanical ritual.  (Well, not for everyone.  I remember well one pastor I worked for who Sunday after Sunday stood ramrod at attention bellowing a joyful noise caught up in praise and wonderment as though he really believed the lyric.  And I think it did.  It was an infectious sort of singing; and we got a taste of it then.)

But something happened while I was sleeping.  I hear maybe it started in London or Australia or some exotic place way beyond the neatly manicured suburbs of the U.S. of A.  A new song took hold; maybe it was the generation that followed Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa when Chuck Smith baptized Flower Children at the beach in Corona del Mar when acoustical guitars and tambourines replaced electronic organs and upright pianos.  A new song grabbed hold of the hearts of believers all over the world; crossing denominational lines and ethnic boundaries and even bottled up Lutherans might dare raise up hands lost in the marvel of praise.

Some churches separate the old-timers from the new-comers.  They segregate themselves into separate rooms at separate meeting times.  There are delicate, non-offensive ways of saying it: Traditional vs. Contemporary.  The Hymn Crowd vs. The Chorus Crowd.  (Anyone who calls them “Choruses” betrays their old-school roots.)  And now that I’m awake, there are countless variations on the theme.  We Christians have an enormous capacity for grouping - some call it “Venue Preference.”

So here I am, back in worship.  And the lyrics of an old hymn appear on the screen.  “Come thou fount of every blessing,” and our worship leader draws us in.  The music is first rate.  The musicians so good you forget they are there.  “Tune my heart to sing Thy praise.”  And like a gift too long forgotten, my heart tunes in.

“Streams of mercy, never ceasing…. Call for songs of loudest praise.”  Indeed.

But the next phrase hits me.  “Teach me some melodious sonnet…”

That’s it.  For decades the church prayed in the words of this old hymn that God would by his Spirit inspire a new song.  A new melody.  A sonnet - on the order of Shakespeare and Keats and Shelley in lyric and rhyme to touch hearts, new every generation.  “Sung by flaming tongues above…” just like the first church, caught up the wonder of it all.

There it was.  Right there in the old familiar hymn. 

And as I awake, I see it happening.  And it touches me.  Even me. 

Rip van Ken.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2008

More on Oratory

January 21, 2008

When Barak Obama stirred a national audience with a powerful sample of classic oratory, it stirred something in me to write a few lines in praise of the craft (oratory).  The occasion was Obama’s victory in the first of the national contests - the Iowa Caucus.  My lines churned up some fascinating comments… particularly from those who participate in the world of education where the arts must compete in an arena dominated by a utilitarian crowd who just can’t seem to quantify the value of such things as public speech to their satisfaction.

I never intended to take a political stance.  Instead, I made an attempt to underscore the power of a seemingly lost art.  Now with a week or two past in a rough and tumble national campaign in both parties, oratory takes a back seat to other dynamics.  To date, assumptions surrounding any notion of a “presumptive nominee” of either the blue or red party have pretty well been set aside.  The whole contest is up for grabs.

Melvin B. Tolson wrote an epic poem he called “Libretto for the Republic of Liberia” in 1953.  For it, this young, unlikely African American college professor turned Mayor of a small southern town was named Liberia’s Poet Laureate.  That, along with published works in such prestigious journals as Atlantic Monthly, would have opened many doors.  But Tolson lived in relative obscurity.  Until now.

Tolson died after a nasty cancer surgery in 1966.  But study his influence, and you’ll find that Tolson’s students made a powerful mark in history.  He was honest.  Direct.  Articulate.  And he believed in oratory.  You’ll find his work in the Harlem gallery.  Back at Langsdon College, you’d find him directing the drama team at the Dust Bowl Theater.  When he was at Wiley College, he coached the debate team to a dramatic, surprise victory.

He was an educator who transcended the ordinary expectations of a college professor.  His passions embraced the unmasked expression of truth.  Langston Hughes, another poet, said this: Tolson is “no highbrow. Students revere him and love him. Kids from the cotton fields like him. Cow punchers understand him … He’s a great talker.”

A great friend and mentor to Tolson was James L. Farmer, Ph.D.  Dr. Farmer was the first African American from Texas to earn a doctorate (Boston University, 1918).  Their friendship grew at Wiley as the debate team went off on an unprecedented winning streak.

It’s no surprise that Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey collaborated on a feature film based on the debate team’s ascent from the depression era small town where the tension of racism was a way of life to the high profile victory that stunned the academic community - and the watching world in 1935.

Critics give The Great Debaters high marks, in spite of the liberties taken by the film’s creators.  The movie version strays from the facts on several levels.  For example, the themes of the debates are contrived and the final contest took place at the University of Southern California, not Harvard.  But the essence of Tolson’s persona his captured in a powerful performance by Denzel Washington.  The same can be said of Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Farmer, Sr.  I can’t help but see a link between that discussion of oratory a couple weeks ago and the commanding message of “The Great Debaters.”  Perhaps Obama has taken his oratory cues from Denzel Washington.  And Forest Whitaker.  And the others in this powerful cast.

“Debate is a blood sport,” proclaimed professor Tolson.  Words… the use of words, the context of words, the delivery of words… have a powerful effect.

They can launch the civil rights movement.  They can clean up corruption.  They can challenge injustice.  They can inspire what is best.

* * * * * *

Last Saturday morning, in a small town a few hours north of here, I followed a young Tolson protégé around a campus on the eastern slopes of the Sierras.  He’s a high school teacher (with a doctorate) and the creator of a thing he calls Playhouse 395.  They are mobilizing the town for a sizable production of The Music Man.  (It’s a follow-up to their most recent highly acclaimed presentation of Annie.)

Tolson’s students went on to achieve enormous goals.  Same with my new friend up north.  His students have been introduced to a whole new level of achievement and possibilities.

On this Monday morning, you are a leader, too.  Maybe more than you know, your influence touches lives.  You inspire.  You open doors.  You paint a picture of what can be.  You help them over the hurdles.  You help put the past in proper perspective.

It’s your life.  It’s your actions.  It’s your initiative.  It’s your words.

It’s your oratory.

Copyright, Kenneth E Kemp 2008

Passages and Buckets

January 14, 2008

I was cornered yesterday by a fifty-eight year old man named Terry who heard that for twenty-five years I had been a financial advisor.  He launched a speech I’ve heard many times.  “I suppose I need one of those,” he sighed, “but I have no idea how to choose the one that’s right for me.”

Then he complained that many claim to be financial advisors and most of them, it seemed, come with a self-serving agenda that has little to do with the real needs of the client.  Mostly their advice benefits the advisor, he postulated.  So what’s one to do?  It’s a jungle out there, I said flatly.

Just that morning, he continued, he and his wife had an animated conversation over the whole issue.  She thinks there is undone business.  He thinks they are doing just fine.  Point/Counterpoint.  So it went.  The longer they talked, the higher the heat.

“What’s the undone business she’s thinking of?” I asked.  Oh, it had to do with things like portfolio management and estate planning and retirement issues, he said.  She’s not confident that he’s got it under control. 

This is hardly an unfamiliar tale.  It made me glad, frankly, that my career as a financial advisor is behind me.  I smiled and commented that it appeared as though he was a competent do-it-yourselfer; that he can manage his portfolio just fine on his own and that the living trust documents are readily available on the Internet for free and that he must be up to speed on the tax consequences of his choices.  But then a more interesting issue came up.

Earlier, he heard me tell about a friend of mine who had little time for church, was happily retired and living what appeared to be a very good life.  I asked him one day, “What are you doing that brings your life purpose and meaning?”  A simple question.  But I’ll never forget the long silent pause.

Looking back, it was clearly a turning point for my friend.  Since then, he’s realigned his priorities.  Made some firm commitments.  Today, his life is way more than rounds of golf and aimless airplane hops (he’s a private pilot).  He is making a difference in ways that have surprised him and the people who care about him.

Terry thought about that story, and then he made a fascinating confession.  “Yep,” he said, “I think I’ve got the nuts and bolts of this retirement thing pretty well in hand… but that other stuff you talked about…”  Clearly he was referring to the purpose and meaning thing.  His sentence drifted off into temporary silence.

“If you were to ask me the same question you asked your friend,” he paused again.  He looked back at the chair he’d been sitting in.  He pointed to the chair.  “There I sat, just today, age fifty-eight, and if you’d asked me that question, uh… well,” he scratched his head.  “I flat have no answer for you on that one.  I don’t know what to say.”

“And that’s the big one,” I said.

“The big one,” he nodded.  I smiled.

Then he told me more.  He’s got some “health issues.”  He’s a new grandfather.

(Mortality is closing in, I thought.)

But more important; significance is closing in.  We laughed over our high energy pursuit of high octane performance back in our forties when we were convinced that we had all the tools to be sitting in the top spot.  And laughed more about how most of that just doesn’t matter anymore.  We’ve crossed the line.  We don’t care so much about success as we care about significance (to borrow a phrase from Buford in Halftime).  But what does that mean?

I understand Nickolson and Freedman have a new movie in the theaters.  I like the story line.  Two guys, one (Edward Cole - Jack Nicholson) fabulously wealthy, the other (Carter Chambers - Morgan Freeman) a working auto mechanic.  The first has burned through several marriages, the other still happily married to his childhood sweetheart.  Both heard their oncologist announce the same conclusion: it’s cancer.  Inoperable, pervasive, terminal.  Cancer.

Ed and Carter find each other in a hospital room.

The movie becomes a pursuit of undone business.  Two strangers.  Two separate world-views.  Some of it, I’m told, is the standard stuff of extreme adrenaline.  Some of it, the need to see far-away places.  But ultimately, it comes down to the reawakening of the relationships that really matter.  Before they “kick the bucket.” 

So they call their wish list - “The Bucket List.”

* * * * * * *

It’s Monday, er… Tuesday morning.  You are a leader.  The New Year brings new perspective, built on lessons learned, from successes that firm up the foundation and mistakes that have lingering consequences.  It‘s a changing world. 

And for you it signals one more turning point.  It’s yet another passage.

You may not be thinking about kicking the bucket - but if you’re like me, you have a bucket list.  Like my friend who probably won’t be talking to a financial advisor any time soon, you are probably considering the things that go well beyond nuts-and-bolts all the way to the stuff of significance.

It’s a New Year.  Why wait?

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2008

In Praise of Oratory

Monday Morning, January 7, 2008

Many would say that oratory is a lost art.  The humanities have taken a beating the last thirty or forty years.  Colleges and universities were conquered long ago by utilitarians who view higher education as a means to an economic end.  The disciplines that thrive are those that prepare their students for high paying jobs and assurance of upward mobility.

Try telling your parents’ friends that you are a history major.  “Well, what are you going to do with that?” will be the inevitable question.  Or an English major.  Or a philosophy major.  Or worse yet, a theology major.  Liberal Arts, once considered to be the primary purpose of higher education, are marginalized by a consumer oriented culture, to our detriment.  But once in awhile there is a break-out, high profile performance that reaffirms the value of the core, too often forgotten, disciplines.

This week, we had a shining example of the power of oratory.

Not that the Liberal Arts department necessarily produces orators.  Fine oratory is a combination of many disciplines.  It can be compared to the skills of a concert pianist, for example.  Music can inspire, transport us to new heights of awareness, express our deepest longings and hopes and fears, can capture our imagination and stir up powerful motivations and determinations.  The musician who can take us there is years in the making.  The pianist, in our example, spends countless hours on technique; overcomes all the temptations to move on to something else in life; connects with a series of teacher/mentors who guide, cajole, prod, kindle and infuse belief; finds joy and wonder in every new level of achievement.  Then, for a distinct few, finely tuned technique combines with a depth of spirit, and the music soars, and us along with it.

Public speaking (oratory) can have a similar effect.  But these days, it seems as rare as a piano concert.  Sure, many folks will take to the microphone a deliver a speech.  But not many.  It’s well known that most of us would rather submit to a root canal without pain killer than stand up before a group and attempt intelligible utterance.   So the simple attempt, as wobbly and aimless as it comes off, wins praise.  Those offering it are simply relieved that someone else is doing it.

It can be argued that the most influential leaders are skilled orators.  For good or ill, they capture something of the major themes, the high aspirations, the deepest yearnings, the eminent hopes, the lofty dreams.  Their speech becomes the embodiment of those hopes.  And masses are moved to action.

I have wondered why more people don’t think about these things.  The technology for the delivery of the spoken word has never been more pervasive.  But what content is poured into this massive delivery system?

I’ve grieved over the ineffectiveness of some of my favorite leaders to stand and deliver.  Some of the problem, it seems, is that those who have the greatest opportunity to speak spend the least amount of time honing the skills.  It’s like a concert pianist who skips practice to watch movies.  Who suffers in the end?

And once in awhile, we witness a performance that reminds us of the amazing power of oratory.  Obama’s speech¹ after his remarkable win in Iowa may well be the tipping point in the race to the White House.

Other candidates seem to settle for stream of consciousness banter; peppered with slogans and sound bites conjured up in the conference room.  Speeches become a recitation of bullet points and policy positions.

Where would Winston Churchill’s name appear in the history books without his towering oratory?  Would FDR be remembered at all if not for his powerful voice?  Ronald Reagan is now venerated as the Great Communicator.  Why?  The man could deliver a speech.  (It didn’t hurt him to have Peggy Noonan writing his lines.)

The most memorable moment for our current President was when he stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center with a hand held megaphone.

Joe Klein² compared Obama to another orator when he contemplated Obama’s opening line in the aftermath of his Iowa victory - “They said this day would never come.”

Klein wrote, “I suspect he was thinking bigger, back to Martin Luther King - and King’s dream that someday his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

* * * * * * *

It’s Monday morning.  You are a leader.  You are caught up, as I am, in the race to the most powerful office in the land.

I’m not endorsing Obama’s politics.  There are issues of disagreement on several levels.  But I am moved by his ability to deliver a moving speech; one that may actually have historic consequence.  And I’m left to wonder if, perhaps, this tidal wave of support coming from all corners is the result of his ability to articulate a powerful message as he recaptures what for most of his fellow candidates continues to be a lost art.

I heard two such speeches on Sunday mornings.  Actually, they were sermons.  Both speakers brought the preparation and skill set of a concert pianist to the task.  And both impacted a significant group of people.

You and I have opportunities to speak.  We are leaders, after all.  Let’s not be casual about the high potential of those opportunities.

There’s a world out there, hungry for something more.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2008
 

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¹ LeaderFOCUS, July 26, 2004  (My musings on Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention)² TIME Magazine, January 4, 2008

Serenity

Monday Morning, December 31, 2007

Some words, just by their sound, carry a certain appeal.  Serenity is one of those words.  Serenity is a place of quiet; of peace; of contentment.  A walk in the garden or alongside a still pond with a swan floating by.  Lots of color.  A gentle breeze on a balmy afternoon.  Ah, serenity.

We describe a face as reflecting the serene when it exhibits an inner peace; tranquility.  It’s a rare find in our high pressure, fast-paced world.  Most faces betray the stresses of a day filled with high expectations, staccato decision-making, information overload, the shrill of relentless demands and the screech of tires squealing as they start and stop and peel around the bend.  Serenity seems like a distant, unattainable dream.

And so we close out another calendar year, us leaders.  I wonder how much serenity we’ve known in the last twelve months.  Some, I hope.  Probably not enough.

Reinhold Niehbur, the son of an evangelical pastor, along with his brother (Richard), pursued the ministry as their father did.  One thing they took from their dad was an unyielding commitment to build a bridge between what they believed and the real-life conditions of the world they lived in.  So when, as a young seminary graduate, Reinhold took a church in Detroit during the Roaring Twenties, he saw the conflicts in the work-place of his blue collar auto-workers.  Violence, and strife and poor working conditions created all sorts of social ills.  Niebuhr challenged Henry Ford to consider the needs of his people.  It was straight talk.  Ford yielded.  The workplace improved.  The church grew.

The Ku Klux Klan wielded influence in Detroit, too, spewing racial hatred and bigotry into the streets and on the assembly lines and even in the political process.  Niebuhr exposed the Klan, which worked best in secret.  He wrote stinging critiques and preached powerful sermons proclaiming a God of justice and a gospel of peace.  His church and his influence grew more.

Later, from his post as a seminary professor, his influence stretched into Europe.  A young Dietrich Bonheoffer studied Niebuhr’s writings and sat in on his lectures. When Hitler rose to power and Bonheoffer opposed him, Niebuhr’s influence gave him a theological foundation and moral strength.  Later, a young seminarian named Martin Luther King, also an evangelical preacher’s son, developed his life mission in part, by exposure to Niebuhr and his work. 

 

Niebuhr is complicated.  There is much to disagree with.  But his efforts to live out a Christian faith in a world of conflict, political strife, economic injustice and corruption set a high and compelling standard.

In 1942, Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, ran across an anonymous prayer attached to an obituary in the New York Herald Tribune.  He was so taken by the powerful message in the simple words that he had the A.A. office reproduce the lines on hundreds of small cards; distributed out of the famed Vesey Street offices to all the A.A. groups in Manhattan. 

“With amazing speed,” Bill later wrote, “the [prayer] came into general use and took its place alongside our two other favorites, the Lord’s Prayer and the Prayer of St. Francis.”

Once it was published, the simple prayer gained national attention.  As the U.S. Government made plans to provide a written copy to every GI in the armed forces fighting in both the European and Pacific theaters, the hunt began to find its true creator.

Soon, the author was identified: The Rev. Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr.  He wrote the supplication as a “tag line” to a sermon preached in his Detroit church:

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

While there remains to this day, some doubt as to the authenticity of the attribution, no one has successfully offered an alternative, though many have tried.

No matter who was the author, the prayer expresses a powerful longing in the heart of every true believer.

* * * * * * *

It’s the last Monday morning of 2007.  You are a leader.  It’s time to say goodbye to another year… a year that brought successes and surprises and disappointments and rewards. 

The Serenity Prayer, as it is called by many, is an invitation to reflect on that tug-of-war that pulls us in both directions just about every day.  We’re stuck with some realities over which we have no control.  We need serenity to let it be.

In contrast, we’ve got opportunity and freedom and responsibility to take action; to say yes.  To say no.  To commit.  To decline.  To embrace.  To let go.  To affirm.  To deny.  To initiate.  To refuse.

Niebuhr’s prayer sums it up.  Folks in recovery know it well.  Funny (don’t you think?) how we obsess over the things we can not change.  Funny, too, how we step back from the very decision-making that could make all the difference.  We need serenity in the first instance.  And courage in the second.

And most of all, we need wisdom to know the difference.

In 2008, may God give us all three. 

Serenity.  Courage.  Wisdom.

Copyright Kenneth E Kemp, 2007 - Posted in Melbourne, Florida