PALCON 2010 - "Toward A Thriving Future" Presentation

~ Marty

Marty Alan Michelson, Ph.D.
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Moments that make you think

I'll summarize the core of the story here - more for my memory than anything.

On Wednesday Night of this past week I sat downstairs in our church talking with a man who was celebrating his 64th Birthday on that day.

My daughter was upstairs with other teens. She was late in coming downstairs, though I texted her to come downstairs so *I* could go home on numerous occasions.

As I waited for my daughter - and got more and more angry - I heard more and more of my dear friends story. He was living in a tent on public land a few blocks from our church - and was wondering if he could have the mattress located in the hall that someone else had donated. (Mind you, btw, the heat in Oklahoma at this time of year is nearly never below 80 degrees Fahrenheit - and up to and above 100 degrees in the daytime hours.)

Though my disappointment with my daughter grew as she did not come down - it also began to change as I learned about my new friend. He shared his birthday with his daughter - but she has only known that he is her father for about 5 months. She lives approximatley 5 hours away in Austin, TX and he's only spent a few hours with her in her entire life of some 20 years. The story is complicated - but it essentially involves the fact that my new friend has spent, as he said, more than half of his life in prison.

On his birthday he was not with his daughter - and he has never celebrated a single birthday with his daughter in her 20+ years.

I could moralize or judge how/why he has been "locked up" and not been with family. But, as I was prone to get more and more mad *that night* about my daughter being late for *my* desire to get home - listening to the story of my friend softened my intentions for my daughter that evening - and quite frankly, changed me forever.

There is no doubt I'll take more time to be more patient with all of my kids and my wife in the future as I remember and celebrate the fact that we get to be together(!!) - even if sometimes we make each other late!

June has passed in a blur.

So many things have happened in the past month - and I do not have time to reflect or catch up on all of them here. Alas. I want to capture a few snippets.

I have returned from the first of three intensive weeks @ Duke University working with their "faith and leadership" program. I have extensive notes about many good things learned. Since returning I've read Samuel Wells Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics - a great book I'll be using in a couple of future projects about how we enact and embody the Kingdom. I've also read Leadership on the Line by Heifetz and Linsky. Good stuff in this text on adaptive and technical change.

My reading last month of Hauerwas' memoir inspired me to pick up two books by Hauerwas that I had not read - one of which he cites as his personal most important - the other uses a series of exchanges/lectures/dialogues he engaged in with the founder of L'Arche communities - Jean Vanier. Both excellent reads - and I am so impressed with Dukes Center for Reconciliation - a separate deal from the "faith and leadership" program I am working with - but connected and urgent and important! Anyway. God, Medicine and Suffering was an important work in which Hauerwas deals with the failing of any kind of theodicy - and the failures of it as a Modern project. Good read. The second book, Living Gently in a Violent World, puts some of the "feet" and "face" on the task of working with those who suffer in our world. Great books. Intriguing to read how Jean Vanier's story emerged. It has its own "memoir-like" quality to it in his essays.

With my work with Genocide Intervention Network - I earlier in the month of June finished reading the larger review of Genocide (it's 688 pages) written by Samantha Power entitled A Problem from Hell. I learned *much* in this book and see why it became "the Bible" of the GINet "movement." I think I was most "moved" by the consistent, steady, laborious, hard and diligent work of two persons - Raphael Lemkin who worked to establish the word genocide and then give it legal teeth - and William Proxmire who delivered 3,211 speeches in the U.S. Senate every day for 20 years regarding Genocide! Wow! Commitment! Also, Samantha Power demonstrates her own scholarly skill in crafting the stories. Good read.

Along the way - on some flights I took between places and with some family vacation for my parents 50th anniversary! (Delightful!)- I also read two great books on MLK, Jr. One that deals with the "conspiracy theory" (for lack of better term) regarding who/how he was killed - An Act of State. The other text was as important - perhaps at some level more so when it comes to the "person" and "ideas" of MLK - the text is titled I May Not Get There With You, by Dyson. In this compelling work, Dyson demonstrates his credibility as a scholar of MLK's story - but he also deals with how the idea and ideals of MLK have been domesticated and watered-down as he has become an icon of popular culture and popular imagination - instead of being viewed with the prophetic critique he brought to a world that needed to be scolded. (All my terms, not Dyson's.) Much to think about from this text, in particular. I wonder if we don't make null and void the effectiveness of anything we "holiday" into existence. It almost takes the serious magnitude of any event and - while honoring it - begins to marginalize it as well.

I breezed through Malcom Gladwells What the Dog Saw and while I enjoyed it - would not recommend it. I hardly recall any of the specifics he writes about - and only read it a few weeks ago. I don't think the book or writing was bad - it just seemed a handful of "random" topics and nothing that caught my unique attention for its sociological importance.

I skimmed The Checklist Manifesto - that basically convinced me of what I already know and do - maintain checklists to insure I get *most* things done well and on time and orderly in my life. But, a good reminder of the importance of checklists.

Finally, Switch - How to Change - another book I skimmed. Essentially, make small incremental changes by Directing the Rider (rational ideas) , Motivating the Elephant (our emotions) , and Shaping the Path (changing environment. The book can be summarized in that nutshell - or perhaps by clicking to this review.

Phew. I'm caught up on my reading for now. I think.

Oh, wait - No. I also "audio-read" The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I very much enjoyed what I learned and how I experienced the characters in the story - both in the story itself, and in the narration (voice inflection, etc) of the readers. I think a few issues in the book seemed potentially anachronistic as more current positions of "feminists" were read back into the 1960's. But, how can I know! I *did* feel like I could better appreciate civil rights issues - and women's issues - as a result of the reading. And that can't be bad.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

Mine is doing lovely.

Thanks for asking.

Stanley Hauerwas' Newest Book

My wife bought me an Amazon Kindle a few weeks back. (She orginally bought me one 2 years ago - and now a 2nd. The first one she bought new and it was hard for me to accept. I'm not good at receiving gifts in the first place, and I'm even "worse" at receiving gifts that cost someone money. I have so little need for things. So, after great use of the first Kindle over a summer, I sold it to get money back. But, she worked out a great deal to get me a new-used one a few weeks ago - and the story that goes along with the purchase indicates that I had to keep it!) The beauty of the kindle is the ability to get new books instantly and before they go into regular distribution. It was a delight, then to receive Stanley Hauerwas newest book, Hannah's Child - A Theologians Memoir.

After I started reading, I could not put it down. I was first introduced to Hauerwas by my best theological and pastor friend, T. Scott Daniels. We had the privilege not only of teaching together but of learning together and of living together in the life if pastoring/preaching. My best academic years (to this point in my young career) were with Scott because of the friendship that was enculturated between us - that allowed for something more synergistic to happen with our students over the course of their academic careers.

I mention Scott because one of the things I so enjoyed reading from Hauerwas' story is how his story is so profoundly shaped by the friendships that he has had over the years. Additionally, while his story is different from my own - being able to read through his life's story as it connected to his painful first marriage and raising his son alone had so much connection and "resonance" with my own first marriage and raising my own girls alone.

I can not share too much here in this review - because my point is not to think that I will ever have the clout or "significance" that Hauerwas has had - and my life's story is very different than his. But I can say I come away from his story realizing profoundly how much life I still have to live - personally and professionally.

I realize how much I can still write - and learn to write by writing essays more frequently. I realize how blessed I am to already have such a wonderful wife in my life now who supports and helps with more than she should. I realize that my life's story must be connected to others - others in faith and in ministry.

I'm excited to know that in a few days I'll be at Duke Divinity working with others in Church and Faith Leadership issues - and later this summer at Oxford working with others in Hebrew-Christian relations. And, in other ways I have other projects going in - from Eupan Global Initiative projects - to Genocide Intervention projects (I was with Dr. Tom Coburn's Field Representative just today, again.)

Back to Hauerwas. I am so thankful to know that all lives are complex and good can emerge.

I will learn to be a better writer, by writing. I will give more specific focus to reading that I will do. And, I will learn to give thanks to God for the years - not lost - but the years to be discerned in my future for and toward a better world - personally, professionally, and globally. Toward eupan.

**

Here is the review I posted to amazon.com:

I became aware of Hauerwas through a professional colleague in the late 90's. While my area of expertise is in Bible more precisely, I have not had direct reason to read all that Hauerwas has written. Like many others, though, I've heard Hauerwas present papers at professional meetings or other events and knew him to be quite a "character" and I wanted to "hear" his story - especially since he connected it to such a great story from Hebrew Scripture with reference to Hannah and Samuel.

What a delight to read this text. It is precisely what it claims to be - a memoir. What most resonated with me as an individual reader is the fact of Hauerwas's honest portrait of his life's story - particularly the intersections of his work as a student, as a colleague figuring out how to navigate professional/academic guilds, and his life with Anne and Adam, his first and their child. As a student, he was just moving forward and searching - but not out to prove anything, it seems. As an academic, in his own story, he notes how green and crass he was, turning people off and not pleasing all but being honest. In particular, I valued how his life as an academic took place in conversations with so many other academics - the persons with whom he worked that shaped how he thought and what he read and how he come to converse and lecture on various topics. In his life with his wife, he notes the difficulty, pain and ambiguity that came with being married to someone who would later have psychotic breaks that he and Adam tried to manage and live with and through. And, of course, how being the son of a bricklayer and, by his own testimony, a bricklayer himself wove itself through his life's story.

I found the memoir to be hopeful for for those who might be in academia or theological colleges/seminaries - those younger or older in complex marriages - those new to academia or young in it. Hauerwas's story testifies to the reality that a person can't manage or create a perfect life to become a "Stanley Hauerwas" - each person must simply live life with integrity. Mature and grow with your own life's story.

Hauerwas's story is personal and memorable.

The book is not a must read for many people - but for those in theological/philosophical work within "the academy" - this memoir offers much personal and anecdotal wisdom for thinking about one's own life and profession.