Martha my dear

Pardon the reference to a McCartney Beatles song! Haha.

Martha is such a relatable character in this gospel. Trying to be as hospitable as possible, Martha almost misses the point of her hospitality: to spend a more intimate time with her Guest.

Sometimes, we spend doing jobs for the sake of appearing busy. Scholars and experts have termed this phenomenon “bullshit jobs”, where the task being performed is not actually contributing to the mission of an organization, but rather, it is created and performed only as a formality or for an appearance of necessity. Maybe because of politics or other reasons not exactly related to an organization’s mission fulfillment.

Our workaholic and hustle culture may distract us from the truly essential, like how Martha was almost distracted by chores when the whole point of authentic hospitality is spending meaningful time with one’s guest.

The challenge here is that Martha thought that what she did was necessary. All the more we are prone to fall into the trap of BS jobs or needless workaholism or hustling.

Incentives, routine, and norms may be helpful at first, but without finding time to pause and reflect, we might be inadvertently missing signals from our conscience or from our Higher Power that our actions may drift away from our actions’ initial intention.

At the risk of inappropriately citing the song (and yes, I know Martha in Paul’s context is a dog), I end my reflection with these lyrics:

“Take a good look around you
Take a good look, you’re bound to see
That you and me
We’re meant to be for each other
Silly girl”

(… Paul’s lyrics have a knack for fitting a religiosity context, ala Let It Be, eh? Haha!)

—
Luke 10:38-42. Martha and Mary

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 198: JULY 17, 2022]

Inheriting traditions and building on them

The tragedy is when we think of traditions and rituals as givens that we have to comply with. We only look at the surface – what actions to be done, what formulas to be recited.

When I was younger and more naive, “breaking tradition” seemed to be sexier, fitting for the mindset of an angsty teenager seeking himself. But as I tried to hone my own writing skills and got to be more intimate with doing research, I realized the importance of reviewing and analyzing the context – the goal of literature and practice reviews.

Many times we see books in our favorite stores that use the same catchy buzzwords: grit, resilience, artificial intelligence, blockchain, NFTs, etc. But sometimes, these content are just fluff; or worse, they are well-disguised BS that is only written to “generate content” and “engage audiences”, without respect to the hard work of reflecting on an initial insight, validating it, then articulating it in its most meaningful version.

Honestly, tempering one’s idealism with pragmatism and realism seems like a being a “sell out” at first, but if we reflect on it, we are not supposed to live life taking extreme sides towards “-isms” that are being shoved our minds through the bytes we devour. In critical realism, we view the world as composed of structures, culture, and agency of humans interplaying with each other to produce phenomenon. No single person can radically change the conditions of life, and therefore, there needs to be respect and synergy between these structures, the cultural context, and the people who act with these entities to really have an authentic attempt towards change.

“Helping things happen” is such a profound message. Even if we look at basketball and the lens of the NBA, we may have glorified hero ball like how Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant played, but the best players of today’s generations “help things happen” by drawing the best out of teammates, started by Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki (and his remarkable 2011 championship), LeBron’s Magic-MJ hybrid, and Stephen Curry’s transcendent shooting and gravity.

It’s quite ironic for me that social media has made personalities and influencers more… haha, well, influential, but at the same time, our initial dreams for social media was to facilitate coordination, community, and connection, to help each other help things happen.

This has been a lengthy reflection, but our responsibility is to really carry the weight of our tradition, re-articulate its spirit, and modify those that go against longstanding morals and virtues due to the changing context. Isn’t this what a “living tradition” means?

—
Matthew 12:1-8. Something greater than the temple is here

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 196: JULY 15, 2022]

Do authentic learners and children have a difference?

I think what makes children blessed is their “innocent curiosity”. In a way, children seeks answers not to verify preordained narratives, but to satisfy their natural desire to learn more about the world.

Sometimes, people who claim to be intelligent or learned give up innocence in exchange for mindless judgements and assumptions. In our bid to project that we seem to know more, we abandon humility. Worse, we embrace a BS way towards “learning”. It becomes an appearance or a status symbol rather a real devotion to insight and flourishing.

I do not think that authentic learners and children differ in terms of having that natural desire to know; an innocent or benevolent version of curiosity. Learners who “project” intelligence are those who are furthest from divine revelation, because with every twist of truths and baking a fluff of half-truths, we feed our ego but starve our soul.

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Matthew 11:25-27. “… hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children.”

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 194: JULY 13, 2022]

The crosses we bear are not supposed to be excuses

We have the natural tendency to assign blame to external factors. This is understandable because it is discomforting to take the blame when things go wrong. It is easier to fool ourselves with an excuse rather than to take a sober look at ourselves and realize, “maybe I am the problem all along.”

When we are late in physical meetings, we blame the traffic.

When we are late in digital meetings, we blame the internet connections.

When we do not do our tasks well, we blame our poor mental health.

There are times when we have to deal with inconvenient truths as the crosses we have to bear. This requires a critical kind of self-understanding – appropriately attributing to ourselves what is within our control; and recognizing external forces or bad luck but not letting it become a crutch or an excuse that restrains our development.

The crosses we bear are not supposed to be excuses. At the same time, they are not also meant to be a distorted kind of “badge”, like how being a workaholic is being glorified. They are meant to make us pause, reflect, and exercise our creative thinking and feeling to achieve our goals in a way that is unique to us and the cross we carry.

Maybe, in a sense, the way we carry our cross provides a challenge-opportunity for us to become better versions of ourselves.

—
Matthew 10:34-11:1. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.

[DAILY GOSPEL INSIGHTS AND REFLECTION FOR MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION 192: JULY 11, 2022]