namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

In the weekend I downloaded and listened to the free audio download of Seth Godin's new book Tribes.

(You have to sign up with Audible.com and use their proprietary software to get the free download)

I'm working on the follow-up to my bestselling book "On Leadership". It's called "On Rulership".

The extended title is "On Rulership and the Volunteer Varnashram Society".

Don't try to be a person of importance, try to be a person of value

- Albert Einstein

What we are seeing is a bunch of people who have failed to be of value, but still insist on being important.

Their focus was wrong. Don't try to be an enjoyer - strive to be a servant.

I'm not personally familiar with the situation, and all newspaper reports give a slanted version of reality.

However, reading a couple of pieces in the LA Times I get a sense of the root cause of the meltdown of the major financial institutions of the US economy.

My thought this morning:

Preachers should be compassionate. Administrators should be just.

When mercy replaces justice in a land, the people are left unprotected by the rule of law.

One of the great things about our modern political systems is that they are based on the idea that everyone should be protected by the rule of impartial law. There are no favorites, no elites who can act with impunity.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- George Bernard Shaw

Of course you can be sensitive in how you do it - but at the end of the day there has to be an uncompromising core.