Right or Righteousness?

December 10, 2023 / Michael J. Cunningham / Leave a comment

Right or Righteousness?

Right or righteousness. That’s the title of the reflection today. I wonder what the difference is. Do I want to be right, or do I want to be righteous?

Righteousness is one of those words that has been co-opted dramatically by society in recent years. Let’s focus on a couple of definitions to begin with. In the Christian world being righteous means doing the will of God rather than your own. Your will or suggestions may co-incidentally be the same, but you were being driven by a requirement to let God take the lead.

Of course, in practical terms this means dumping your own self-serving requirements into touch, and following the need for the common good, for what would be right, what we think would be right in God’s eyes, and following that cause or course of action regardless of the negative consequences to ourselves.

Being right could be a whole other thing. A typical example might be, we know this is the way that something should be, and it’s the way we want it to be, and it may or may not be righteous, by the definition I just outlined earlier. But we’re going to go ahead and do it. Because we are right, and we know we are right. Or at least we’re convinced enough that we’re right, that we don’t want to leave any room for misinterpretation.

This can work out OK if we have enough authority that no one’s going to question whether we’re right or wrong to complete the task or do our will, sometimes necessary with children, slightly less effective in the adult world. But if we don’t have the right authority, and, God forbid we turn out to be wrong and that can start a whole different series of events to occur. Now we found out that even though we were sure we were right, and we told everyone we were right, and we instructed them to do what was right, by us, and then it turned out to be wrong.

Now what should we do? Admit we were wrong, cover it up, explain to others that they misinterpreted the instructions, or blame someone else. I think we’ve seen all these strategies in use around us in our lives at some point. Being 100% right, or rather being 100% sure that we’re right, can be a dangerous place to be. Certitude has been the predictor of many a downfall. Often our pride, and unwillingness to admit an error, lead us to lose credibility and trust amongst others, and our ability to learn from our mistakes.

I started this reflection by comparing right from righteous or righteousness. But there’s another little interloper in this process as well. Those who are self-righteous. Now while being self-righteous should be self-defining in some ways. It is about being right and righteous at the same time. Which may or may not be possible. I think for the most part people see someone as self-righteous, as someone who is defining their acts or words as coming from a higher source, with the added certitude of themselves thrown in for good measure. When someone accuses you of being self-righteous it’s usually not a compliment.

So where do we sit in the spectrum of right, righteousness and self-righteousness. We have probably all suffered at some point from all three points of this triangle. When we think about this in prayer terms, in our disposition towards God, a mindset or heartset on surrender is the only way that we can come to a righteous decision. And when we do can we proclaim it as being righteous? Without appearing to be self-righteous. Where do others in your life sit on this spectrum? As our sensitivity towards others increases, do we make the adjustments to accommodate their rightness, their righteousness, or their self-righteousness. Something to consider. Right or righteousness.

Both sides of the fence

Is God there … only to disappear from view?

December 1, 2023 / Michael J. Cunningham / Leave a comment

Is God there … only to disappear from view?

Our spiritual journeys take us on many hikes. Sometimes through difficult canyons with loose footings and steep slopes, at other times a walk in the Meadow surrounded by the majesty of nature and those that love us.

For much of this journey, we recognize God’s presence at the times when we are given the gift of Grace and the associated consolations. These may be times of great love, of reconciliation, of being at peace with God and with one another. These are easy to recognize, wonderful memories to fall back into when we’re not feeling so good.

However, as our journey continues, and we have these highs and lows of God’s presence, of dopamine-filled joy, punctuated by lows of sadness; these things tend to smooth out.

Over time during this journey, we begin to notice, sometimes in the very small things, that God is present when we are not having an uplifting experience. A time when we have a “felt presence” of God in our hearts and at our core. It’s as if the store of God’s grace, of inner peace is held within us, gradually being released, and at the same time being restored. Many things can upset this equilibrium. In the secular world it may be described as work-life balance, stress reduction, mindfulness, and other means to keep us in sync with our soul.

A secular world may tell us that the search we are all along is for happiness. Rather I might suggest that joy is the better option. Joy is pervasive whereas happiness tends to be fleeting. But joy does not mean that we are dancing on the streets like Saint Francis in the 13th century. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course.

Joy is a continuous movement towards God, sometimes loud, but often just quietly resident within us. Being exuded to others as they need it. No more no less.

Sometimes when this quietness overcomes us, when we aren’t getting those adrenalin-filled moments of the earlier consolations, we might think that God has left us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For it is here, with the apparent disappearance of God that we start to become one with God. One with our family. One with those around us. One with nature. One even with our enemies. Perhaps the last part is a bit of a stretch.

This movement where we begin to blend into nature and those around us God delivers us this change, a change that occurs sometimes so imperceptibly that we barely notice it ourselves, and yet the others around us see and feel the difference.

This Thanksgiving I had the opportunity to visit the redwoods in the northern part of California. I’ve been to the Sequoia Forest in California a few years ago and was colored impressed. However, as I walked through the trails in Northern California, with the redwoods towering over me hundreds of feet above me, surrounding me at a cool, refrigerator temperature, saying nothing but deafening me with their silence I was at one with them, and with nature.

Times like this we receive a glimpse, a glimpse of what it’s like to be in the permanent presence of God. Of the majestic nature of what is creation. What is US. And the US is we. And we are one.

The spiritual nature of all faith paths leads us in this direction. To be at one. To coexist in peace with each other and creation. It is a path that we are being led, one which requires us to listen to the power of silence and what surrounds us. All of what’s around us.

So, if God appears to have disappeared from view it may be that you’re not looking hard enough, you’re not listening quietly enough, or you’re pursuing God in your life as if not already present.

Of course, we know God is omnipresent, so perhaps we need to stop looking, and just be. As God is there, and always will be.

Amongst the Redwoods

An audience with the King

October 20, 2023 / Michael J. Cunningham / Leave a comment

Recently I was asked to provide some guidance on who had influenced me, and who had mentored me in my life. During the writing of that reflection, and since writing that reflection, I realize I missed someone out. In my initial response, I had said that I hadn’t really had one individual who had influenced me significantly as a mentor, but my father had in other ways. So, the mentors or guides that I feel have influenced me the most have been Jesus Christ and Saint Francis of Assisi. However, I digress.

Since completing that reflection, I realized there was someone else. Someone I looked up to. Someone who was a giant in industry. Someone who put his company ahead of himself and anything else in his life. His name is James Meadlock.

He was the founder of a company called Intergraph Corporation, where I worked from November 1984 to 1990. During those six years, the company grew from 173 million to over 1 billion in revenue. We had thousands of employees. And Jim Meadlock had some interesting management strategies. Having come from many years at IBM, Jim knew that a great deal of managers’ time was wasted in planning and determining budgets. For that reason, the company did not have a budget that everyone managed until we reached $400 million in revenue. Jim simply managed the company based on innovative groundbreaking products, attention to the customer, and accountability of product and all managers that we’re working for him. Every week the company held a crisis meeting. Any problem which had been outstanding at a customer site for more than three days was on the crisis list, every product manager in the company was present in that meeting. It was a meeting of accountability. And no one wanted to be on the menu. It illustrated to me, that no problem was too small that affected a customer’s operation.

Jim was available to his staff 24/7. And I mean that literally, he built his home on the campus of the company, so it was very difficult to be at work before him or to leave before he left. He showed commitment. For me as a young manager in my late 20s, just arrived off the boat from England (a plane actually) Mr. Meadlock epitomized American ingenuity, commitment, and doggedness. He would not ask his staff to do any more than he was willing to do himself, but he set an amazingly high bar.

For myself who hadn’t really had much in the way of encouragement or mentoring from my own father Jim Meadlock was someone I really looked up to. I realize now some 40 years later that Jim had actually taken me under his wing.

Well, he could never be really described as a touchy-feely person, when I canceled a project the company had been working on shortly after my arrival, instead of chastising me for the problems Jim gave me a $5000 bonus (in 1984) for the money that was going to be saved by not continuing a project that was never going to be successful commercially. He taught me those hard decisions, even ones that people don’t want to hear, can be rewarded when they are based on the truth.

Most weekends while I was at Intergraph, were spent working in some way shape, or form, we could not do remote working back in those days so it meant that I went to the office, and my long-suffering wife and children missed me many Saturdays and Sundays.

However, being there at the weekend gave me one, wonderful, opportunity. The chance to have some one-on-one time with the King (Jim Meadlock). The important strategic issue that I wanted to make sure was brought to his attention, would be done by me either going to his office (which always had an open door), or meeting him on the premises as he looked around to see how things were going for those there put in the extra hours in.

I realize now these audiences with him were very sustaining. And even though I never knew anything about Jim’s spiritual disposition, I knew he was committed to the company the care of the staff, and moving the needle in the technology space. He was willing to take risks. Big risks. Sometimes they would pay off, sometimes not. But Jim Meadlock taught me to go bold or stay home.

When I would meet him on the road at a conference or event they brought me to his room in the hotel and he and his wife Nancy, and I, shared a meal together. They were my mentors, and perhaps, the parents of whatever entrepreneur sat inside me.

I wonder if you have anyone who has influenced you, perhaps the mentoring was done in an indirect way, I like to think the Jim and Nancy knew what they were doing when they looked after me, and my young family just arrived in the United states. Something to consider for your journey this week.