A funny thing happened while watching a movie

We watch old movies on our new high def 10' screen. While the marketing machine convinces us that the format and the size of the screen are what matters, what we found is that even with he best setup, we watch old movies.  We'd rather watch low def movies that are really funny than today's trash in the best quality picture.

A while back my family and I were watching the movie, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Zero Mostel.   It’s a hilarious musical and former Broadway hit.  My kids were rolling on the floor laughing.  They enjoyed it so much that they must have watched the movie at least a half dozen times.

And I got to thinking; here we were enjoying a low def movie made more than 40 years ago on a 10’ high def screen.  Imagine the irony.  Picture in your mind’s eye the grainy image of a decades old film projected on a state of the art high definition big screen.  But what did we enjoy more?  The image or the well-written and excellently performed story?  Judging from my kids’ reaction, the substance trumped the image.

I recalled this on another occasion while watching television when an ad for fiber optic service came on.  The announcer worked hard to convince the audience that once they saw every blade of artificial grass on screen they would appreciate the value high definition gave them.

But why should we care?  What value does the incremental image quality bring?  None.  I’d much rather watch a quality classic than a poor movie in high definition. 

It’s another example of how we have been fooled into believing old lies.  In this instance, we have been convinced to pass up our hard earned wealth for image quality, not experience.  We have been fooled into paying for the lipstick on the pig – not the pig, just the lipstick.

These lies are all around us.  We are bombarded with them and pressured into believing them.  Lies like this one – that lipstick on the pig matters; and lies like the Sunday / Monday Paradox, keep us living in a broken world.  Break out of the lies and break free.

Baxter interviewed on Relevant Radio:

Thanks to everyone who expressed interest in hearing my interview on Relevant Radio. For those of you who missed it but would like to check it out - go to their audio archives at:

http://relevantradio.streamguys.us/downloadfile.php?file=MA%20Archive/MA20121121a.mp3

The role of respect in the post election season

This logo embodies how organizations are bonded with respect.

It seems to me that this past election season was abnormally emotionally taxing. Everyone I spoke with Wednesday morning after the election awoke either euphoric or depressed, depending on which side of the political debate they are on.  Every one is convinced that the battle for the culture of our nation rested on the outcome of this election.  They see our broken nation and society and they want it fixed.

However, the more I encounter waste and brokenness in the world around me, the more convinced I am that the battle for changing society is not in the courts, or in the legislature, but rather in each individual heart.  We have first and foremost a breakdown of culture, a failure of heart and spirit, not of government.  Expecting the people in government to fix a failure of heart is irrational at best and an abdication of personal responsibility as worst.

If we treat others with the respect they deserve and expect the same in return, our society becomes much less broken.  My argument in The Sunday Monday Paradox revolves around the preeminence of human dignity: each human person deserves respect. 

Each person deserves respect.   That’s an easy statement.  You might be reading this saying “of course!”  But look at your actions.  When we say things like, “He didn’t earn my respect.” or “She doesn’t deserve my respect.”  We betray the inclination of our heart.

Respect is not something that we withhold for those we judge worthy.  We are called to freely give our respect to every person, for we have all been created in His image and endowed with inherent worth. And in our nation at this moment of cultural crisis, we must regain possession of ourselves and extend to each other the benefit of humility and the freedom of forgiveness.

When you are in control of your self, unaffected by the irrational and emotional arguments from both sides of the debate, you can extend humility and forgiveness.  Otherwise, once you abandon possession of your self, you become animal and base, reacting from fear and instinct.  Without that possession of your self, you not only lose the ability to see through the issues with reason and objectivity, but also to examine your self in the same way as well.  Once that happens, it becomes much more difficult to diffuse your fear.

In practical terms, this means that when we decide not to treat others with respect, we are not only treating them without dignity, but we are also abandoning our dignity as well.  Both become animal.  And as animal, we are susceptible to those who would incite fear for their own benefit.  Without possession of our self, we lose the ability to question “Who is inciting our fear?” and “What are to their motives?” (as a side note, I cite a study done by the Federal Government 40 years ago that predicted the breakdown we are experiencing now.)

How do we break this cycle?  We practice. 

First, we practice humility.  Remind yourself  at each encounter, “I am not as right as I think I am and the other guy isn’t as wrong as I think he is.”  Practice this at each encounter throughout the day and then examine yourself daily asking, “How did I do?” in prayer and praying for strength to do better.

Second, we practice forgiveness.  Remind yourself at each encounter, “Just because we disagree, I must still recognize the dignity of the other.”  And again examine yourself daily asking, “How did I do?” in prayer and praying for strength to do better.

Third, we practice community.  In my book, The Sunday / Monday Paradox,  I illustrate how the untruth at the foundation of all the other lies is, “You are alone”.  This lie takes many forms.  However, in this special season in our nation we must be diligently aware of one particular form of the lie.  Remember that we were never intended to be a nation of rugged individuals, a myth propagated by auto and tobacco companies to generate sales.  On the contrary, at the birth of our nation, Alexis de Tocqueville in his work Democracy in America documented how our early citizens came together after elections.  The minority respectfully allowed themselves to be respectfully governed by the majority.  We work together.  Not, we are alone.

I wrote The Sunday/Monday Paradox to change hearts and to inspire spirit.  Now more than ever we need to regain possession of our self, and once we regain our self, to treat each other with the respect they deserve.  We can eliminate so much waste and improve our lives in so many ways.  But it will be up to you tomorrow morning to begin the transformation.

A few words on forgiveness

Forgiveness defines Christianity. 

At the center of my book, The Sunday Monday Paradox, I remind my audience that at the heart of love lays three values – charity,humility and forgiveness.  Remember, forgiveness is showing charity and humility to others even when, nay, especially when they fail to do so for us.

Jesus + put forgiveness at the center of our faith.  When He instructs us how we should pray, He reminds us that we are in relation to one another and that we are called to forgive.  It’s not a suggestion.  It’s a commandment.  If we are to expect forgiveness, we MUST forgive.

Other major religions focus on the individual or omit forgiveness.  As a result of their imperfect nature, humanity plunges into a never-ending spiral of grudges and conflict. 

When we fail to forgive or imperfectly forgive, we introduce such waste into the world.  We harm creation and we damage ourselves; we cut ourselves off from Divine Mercy and divorce ourselves from our Creator. 

Yet with so much at stake, forgiveness comes so difficult. 

If this world makes you weary and you feel you’re swimming upstream on the way to nowhere, look at the way you’re swimming.  Examine yourself and how you forgive.

Generally, I think I’m able to forgive easily and completely.  And such burdens have been removed from me and as a result, so has much stress and anxiety.  But that has come over many years.  And still, there is one person who I have not forgiven.  Even after many years, and unknown to him, I try and I try but without success. I feel the waste my lack causes me as a result.  To let grudges and judgment affect my actions is to lose self-possession.  So I’ll pray for help and try again.  I hope you will too.

In Him +

Lessons from the ninth grade…

Jesus + defines love

I teach a faith formation class to ninth grade high school students.  I find ninth graders fascinating.  These children are on the brink of adulthood.  You can see their minds racing, grasping for answers, and asking questions.  Over the course of the academic year, we explore the basics of Christian faith following the Nicene Creed.  And when we talk about God, we talk about love.  And so I pose the question to them, “What is Love?”

At the center of my book, The Sunday Monday Paradox, I remind the reader what love is.  The word has been taken away from us, redefined, misused, overused and dissolved so that it means everything and nothing at all.

But if we re-explore love, we find at its heart of love lies three values – charity, humility and forgiveness.

So when we say that God is love, we say that God is charity, humility, and forgiveness.  And when He tells us that He created us in His image, He tells us that He created us to put the needs of others before our own (Charity), He tells us to value the works and ideas of others (Humility) and He tells us to keep on putting their needs before our own and recognizing their dignity even when, nay, especially when they fail to do so for us (Forgiveness).

Jesus + died on the Cross to show us the meaning of love once, for all time, and for every one.  As I tell my ninth graders, He did not allow Himself to be crucified for a warm and fuzzy romantic feeling.

For my ninth graders, particularly the girls, I put them in the context of the statement.  When a boy tells her that he loves her, challenge the words.  Will he put her needs before his?  Does he recognize her dignity?  Does he forgive? 

If this world makes you weary and you feel you’re swimming upstream, how have you defined love?  Because the way you define love defines how you live your life.  Re-examine your definition of love.  Does it align with what Jesus taught us?  The closer it does, the lighter our burden.

In Him

My new book ... but His truth

My new book is a practical exploration of seven fundamental falsehoods taught to us by the world around us.  In The Sunday Monday Paradox and Six Other Lies That Keep Us Captive, I explore these seven lies.   My new book is a fast-paced argument that exposes these lies and explains in a straightforward manner how the truth told to us by Jesus Christ provides the map to a better world, to living a better life.

I wrote The Sunday/Monday Paradox to change hearts.  The more I watched the struggle for a culture of life, the more I became convinced that the battle for changing our culture is not in the courts, or in the legislature, but rather in the human heart. 

I start my argument illustrating the brokenness of our world, emphasizing how the brokenness results not from Creation, but from human behavior.  I illustrate how human behavior causes waste – wasted time, lost savings, lost jobs, broken lives – that force us to work harder to overcome.  I then turn the focus of my argument from the headline catching mega crooks who have betrayed their community on a grand scale to each of us who cause waste in small but important ways.

I then provide a brief look at organizations and how to understand them, not the MBA models which ignore the human person, but on his unique explanation based on his decades of experience and observation.  With this foundation, I build his argument for the importance of recognizing the dignity of the human person and the role a culture of respect plays in the relationship between those persons within an organization.

Using my two decades of business experience and citing case after case of real life examples, I explore and dismantle each of the lies to which people cling to defend their decision to compartmentalize the values they learn on Sunday.  First, I show that the first lie, “Sunday morning values have no place in our Monday morning world.” is built on six lies, which I proceed to examine and disprove.  The six other lies are:

·       The purpose of an organization is to make money.

·       Improving the performance of an organization requires technology and automation.

·       Christian values are counter-cultural, counter productive and difficult to implement in an organization.

·       Christian values hurt the organization, and are a sign of weakness.

·       Human beings are simply animals, with no relationship to the divine; a means to economic ends.

·       You are alone.

Finally, I explain the important role faith plays in helping us live Sunday morning values more fully in our lives.

Accepting these lies hampers our ability to live fulfilling lives.  Many people accept them.  Knowingly or unknowingly, they live by them and even propagate them.  Yet, there is a lot at stake.  In a time when many people propagate secularism, relativism and humanism and seek to replace a culture of life with a culture of death, in a time when Christian values are assaulted from all sides, and when our very dignity and relationship with the divine lies at stake, every person must choose to participate in standing against the lies that seek to strip us of our dignity.

This book is a must-read for people whose hearts are open and who want to help change the hearts of others.  It is for those who want to explain the relevance of Christianity in today's world and for those who are ensnared in the lies of the world and struggling to escape.

Learn more about The Sunday Monday Paradox at www.bringChrist2work.com.