In a mirror, dimly

I won a copy of “Principle Centered Leadership” by Stephen R. Covey. The little I read suggested that the author was more than he appeared: your average management consultant seems to display very little by way of faith, yet Covey seemed to have some kind of faith underpinning his argument. A little research provided me answers. First was an article A Closer Look At Stephen Covey And His 7 Habits which lead me to read The Shifting Paradigms of Stephen Covey. As a committed member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Covey obviously would be arguing from a position of faith if that faith had made any impact on his life.

While the underpinnings of Covey’s thought process are somewhat different to my own I still found it interesting to read and think about his 7 habits, and look at the converse of each. Covey points out in the introduction to “Principle Centered Leadership” that the inverse of each of the 7 habits of effective people work out as being habits of ineffective people:

Ineffective Be reactive: doubt yourself and blame others Work without any clear end in mind Do the urgent thing first Think win/lose Seek first to be understood If you can’t win, compromise Fear change and put off improvement

Effective Be Proactive Begin with the End in Mind Put First Things First Think Win/Win Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Synergize Sharpen the Saw

Oh, now this is the kind of blog I want to read on a regular basis: Steve Sjogren has begun blogging! While you are browsing, take a look at the Servant Evangelism website too.

Way to go, BBC! Apparently, the 'lost' Doctor Who show “Shada” is to be revived. Better than that news is that Paul McGann will be returning to play the Doctor! I cant wait!

Babylon 5 season 1, on DVD.

What more can I say? Watching it now, with the 20/20 vision afforded by hindsight, I can see how much of a writer JMS really is. There are hints of what is to come sprinkled among even the earliest episodes. Foreshadowings, as it were.

We watched “Signs and Portents” and “Grail” this evening. One thing I noticed as the story of Babylon 5 progressed was the author’s own spiritual journey became very evident in his writing. Watch “Grail” and see how he grapples with the idea of sincerity: is it enough to be sincere in your search, and is that enough? Does it matter if the object of the sincerity (or faith) is fictional, mythical, not real? The question is left hanging as “an exercise for the reader” (to quote my old text books).

AD: He’s holding 3 users up.
(pause)
AD: Want me to kill him?

Proof that that DBAs (Database Administrators) have ultimate power!

Now there is some spam: messages from “Natural Solutions” saying, “Grow 2 full cup breast sizes”. Just to underscore the point, they sent it to me twice! I wonder if that was meant to symbolize the two cupsizes I could stand to gain? Anyhow, someone needs to do their research: as a guy, the only cupsize I need to or would be capable of growing in would be the cup I drink my Mountain Dew from!

Went to the November meeting of the “Extreme Programming in St. Louis” interest group this evening. The talk was about refactoring of code, and how it cases the codebase of a project to improve over time. I came away challenged - yes, I do use XP practices in work, but if I really believe that they work, why arent I using them at home too? I am still in guilt-mode over that, and, should emerge into a coding frenzy soon … as I go through and wrap Chronicle Lite in unit and acceptance tests. Interestingly enough, that process will cause me to split out and refactor (read: rewrite and improve) portions of the code to make it more amenable to testing. All in all, a good meeting.

Friday Five

1. Were you raised in a particular religious faith?
My parents believed strongly that my sister and I should find out own way in life - that they should model good values, and answer our questions but not force their beliefs on us. They described themselves as “christian spiritualists” - thinking of Christ as a “great teacher” and someone that would “lead the way” into the next reincarnation. If we follow his teachings we get to move on to a higher plane of existence. As for the Christian side of things, we went to church on Christmas morning, and, Easter Sunday.

2. Do you still practice that faith? Why or why not?
No-one in the family practices the strange mixture of “christian spiritulism” anymore. Someone once said that a man cannot serve 2 masters - at some point they do eventually choose one path or another. In our case, we all chose to believe in and follow Jesus at various times during the 1990’s.

3. What do you think happens after death?
It’s a one way ticket, maaan. (drops out of wild hippy mode for a moment). I used to believe in reincarnation but doing a science/engineering degree at university rather destroyed that thought: you cannot keep a cycle going - an upward one, or even an even non-changing one. Conservation of energy would demand an input, and thermodynamics says that entropy would set in. That is, the universe is winding down to eventual heat-death, getting more and more disordered and chaotic. We are creatures of the universe, so how are we any different? It seemed to argue for a downward spiral, if anything.

In my thinking, death is a doorway to another phase of life. We are eternal beings and we’ll determine the rest of eternity based on life right now: for better or worse, we should live life to it’s fullest

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me — practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

4. What is your favorite religious ritual (participating in or just observing)?
Protestant Christian tradition only really observes 2 sacraments: baptism and communion. Communion holds a special place for me as a critical moment of decision. May of 1989 I took comunion for the first time as a statement of commitment to Jesus. It was clear to me, as clear as if He spoke it from behind my right shoulder, that “if [I] start taking communion today, [I] cant stop: this is the moment of decision, the line in the sand, the point of no return.” Baptism is an outward display of something that has gone on internally, a statement to all onlookers that the house has changed owners.

5. Do you believe people are basically good?
No, but I do believe that every human being regardless of gender, born/unborn, sexual orientation, race or religious designation has incredible value inherent in and of themselves, divorced completely from anything they do or say. Human nature (basically) stinks, but that doesnt stop us from beings of great inherent value.

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In other words, while our human nature stank to high-heaven, God still valued us greatly, enough to send His son.