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You are here: Home / Archives for From the Chaplain's Desk

From the Chaplain's Desk

Don’t Deny Privilege

August 5, 2018 by CMLMD Admin Leave a Comment

COLLEGE PARK, MD –

It is a fact of life – some of us are more privileged in particular regards than others.

It seems we get tripped up on how to grapple with this fact regardless of what side of privilege we fall on.

People who have certain privileges often fall into arrogance and delusions that they are privileged out of their own talent and hard work.

This seems, to me, to be a coping mechanism for not being able to make sense of their privilege and others’ lack thereof. It can also, no doubt, be bald-faced ignorance.

On the flip-side, people who lack certain privileges can often get lost in resentment towards those who have the privileges they do not, and give up whatever agency they do have in their lives to this obsession.

For the purpose of this column, however, I’ll focus specifically on situations where we find ourselves among the privileged.
[Read more…] about Don’t Deny Privilege

We Don’t Do Big Things

July 29, 2018 by CMLMD Admin Leave a Comment

COLLEGE PARK, MD –

We’ve been discussing various topics related to execution and succession lately.

Realizing these two aspects of an effective, improved life entails a great maxim we tend to ignore: we don’t do big things; big things happen.

The follow-up maxim to complete the former is that small things don’t happen; we have to do them.
[Read more…] about We Don’t Do Big Things

No Execution Without Vulnerability

July 22, 2018 by CMLMD Admin Leave a Comment

COLLEGE PARK, MD –

We sat with it last week: there is no success without execution. If we take a step back from that one, we can see that there is also no execution without vulnerability.

Most people do not like being vulnerable, but it is in accepting difficult medicine that we heal from the various forms of illness in our lives.

Many try to cope with the discomfort of the idea they are not independent by feigning imperviousness in relationships, including but not limited to: parent to child, child to parent, spouse to spouse, sibling to sibling, friend to friend, and, ultimately, the son of Adam to his Creator.

[Read more…] about No Execution Without Vulnerability

The Point of Execution

July 15, 2018 by CMLMD Admin Leave a Comment

COLLEGE PARK, MD –

At the end of the day, succession is about execution – having a vision for improvement, planning for it, and responsibly pushing to see it come to fruition.

I want to focus on that execution this morning, specifically the point of execution. Execution in a larger context could aptly be described as a process.

During the general process of executing a plan, however, there is a specific point of execution, a climax, the crescendo of an effort that is the demarcation between wanting to improve and actually improving. [Read more…] about The Point of Execution

Building Capacity for Piety

July 8, 2018 by CMLMD Admin Leave a Comment

COLLEGE PARK, MD –

We’ve been on the topic of filial piety for a few weeks now. Given the importance of getting this aspect of life correct, that seems fitting.

Last week, we left off on the note that we must edify our family structures and give our children an emotional home to fit into.

Without doing so, filial piety will consist of token gestures at best. The fulfillment of parental needs will go unaddressed and families will wither away.

They may disintegrate completely or remain in a ceremonial function – either way, real homes consisting of people who invest in each other will not be the case.

Family structures with defined roles and expectations are necessary for real homes to exist – homes in which a mutually beneficial symbiosis exists between parents and children that makes filial piety something natural and achievable.

[Read more…] about Building Capacity for Piety

A Place to Call Home

July 1, 2018 by CMLMD Admin Leave a Comment

COLLEGE PARK, MD –

Achieving filial piety is a lofty goal. It always has been and always will be. It has never been easy.

That achievement is a product of not just children’s piety, but of their parents’ proficiency at building capacity – capacity for their heirs to flourish.

It is a two-way street. [Read more…] about A Place to Call Home

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