Vacation and Politics

There are lessons to be learned from staying at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. We have stayed in enough of them now to have learned a few of these important lessons, ones from which we might all benefit.

Firstly, money is relative. Resort employees make less than $10.00 per day. They work 10 hour shifts, six days per week, with one 20-minute meal break. Because the average wage of their communities is less than they make, their hard work makes earns them significant financial status in their communities.

Secondly, contentment flows across levels of service. The management of  resorts realize that contented employees better serve guests. They know that guests are made happier when they have happy service. Therefore, the management at the resorts goes out of its way to make employees happy. There is a strong investment in employees and a great deal of trust placed in them.

Thirdly, a high bar results in greater feats. Expectations get met when they are lofty but achievable. We saw on our recent trip to Cancun the head of hospitality services chewing on one of the cooks, who was being forced to remove from the buffet dinner a food item that did not reach the standards expected by the management. The standards are high, but practical. As long as they are clearly articulated and openly communicated, those standards result in a sense of pride and achievement. The young cook was obviously upset over having to remove the food item, but I bet he does that dish better the next time he is asked to serve it.

Fourth, teamwork is everything. No single person is responsible for successes or failures. Everything is about the team. In Cancun, the management works with the staff in order to continually raise the bar of expectation and service, asking as much of their management skills as they do of the staff performance. Difficulty in any level is a team issue and must be addressed on a team basis. The young cook just mentioned reflected on the management, and it was up to all members of the team to ensure improvement.

Finally, care and concern are key. There is a personal investment in team members that crosses levels of responsibility. They know about one another. They know spouses, families, histories and challenges. They work with each other to offer the best possible outcome, no matter what is going on in any one's personal life. One person compensates for another, even if it means that someone has to go out of her or his way.

The bottom line of these lessons is pretty clear. In order to provide the best of goods and services, there must be an investment in persons that crosses levels of authority. Happy employees render happy service. Content persons share contentment with others. Good pay helps, especially in an environment where every tip is shared and every compliment or complaint is a team matter. No person is out there on his or her own.

I have been thinking about these lessons in the current political arena in this country. It just makes me sad. And afraid. I wish we could hear a candidate somewhere promise the kind of teamwork and unity that I saw in the Mexican Yucatan. Given the current polemical political climate of United States politics, perhaps it is too much to ask, too naive, too simplistic, too practical. It breeds discontent, anger, frustration and unhappiness. What is it that Einstein said about insanity?      

Vacation

Carl is away from the Shiloh Insider for a few weeks, as he and his lovely spouse, Lisa, celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary in Mexico. Carl does not have his cell phone. If there is something important, call the Church office, 937-277-8953, and talk to Jay or Ashley. If you absolutely need to communicate with Carl, he will be checking emails twice a week. You can email Carl at crobinson@shiloh.org .

If Carl wins the Publishers Clearing House $10,000/month for life and the prize crew comes to the house in his absence, let them know that he will be back the following day! Have a great early Lent!

Lent

Lent commeth.

Originally a period of education, in preparation for new membership in the Church at Easter, Lent has transitioned in recent decades to represent a time of penance and plea for forgiveness. It has moved from preparation for a positive inclusion, albeit an orthodox one, to a season of focus on faults, weaknesses and sinfulness.

It is time that we tied these two things together in some creative and imaginative ways.

Each of us acknowledges, I think and hope, that Church membership does not make one right, perfect or sinless. Look around. No one is ideal. Look in the mirror and take honest stock of weaknesses, faults and idiosyncrasies. We are not right, perfect or sinless. The shear fact of the matter is that, despite our membership, we are often wrong, imperfect and sinful.

We could move through Lent as an occasion for making ourselves feel terribly. It has been done far too often. We could recite sins, faults and foibles until we grow blue in the face. We could demand resolutions or sacrifices to be made in order to make us feel better about our wrongdoings, or that liturgies be recited, like incantations, that magically repair what is, at core, pathological in us. We could spend periods of silence and meditation, where we concentrate on our innate humanness and our flawed nature.

To do so would simply make us feel badly about ourselves. To claim that the ritual incantations and sacrifices render us healed, better, more right, more sinless, more perfect is silly. The issue is not that the incantations and rituals don't work. It is that they are wrongly focused. Do you see it? Do you perceive the seasonal misdirection here?

Lent 's focus has far too often been on ourselves. Lent has become a season of fixing ourselves, healing innate sinfulness and natural, human flaws. It, like so much else in the Church, has been about us, we, me and I. In fact, that is why many, particularly in the past, had joined churches. They had been led to think that there was something wrong with them that only the Church could fix. That flaw is overcome in humanity only by God, and the institutions that represent the sacred.

What if we were to see Lent differently? What if we were to see it as the season of walking with Jesus to the Cross of his own sacrifice. The subject of that spiritual sentence would be Jesus Christ. Its object would be every other, those served by the sacrifice that Jesus Christ makes. Lent is not about him. It is not about us. It is about every person. It is about the sacrifices that we make for others, not for ourselves.

If we return to the notion that Lent is time of preparation for entering (again) into the Church, what if that entry meant serving others instead of overcoming our own faults, weaknesses and sins? What if Lent were about being a Church of sacrifice for others, building others up and empowering them in whatever context they find themselves.

Sinfulness, and our Lenten concentration on our own sinfulness, is deadly. It kills the mission of the Church. Instead, if Lent could be about a walk with an imperfect, sinful, uncertain savior to the service of every living being, past, present and future, then we could begin to move the emphasis from ourselves to serving those around us who suffer and struggle. Lent could be about them, just like the ministry and mission of Jesus Christ was and is about them.