The Trials and Triumphs of Being Born Female: Inheriting the Family Title

Should gender matter? In many cases, an uncontrollable (certainly not by the one who was born) circumstance of birth has such long standing consequences. When we bring our babies home from the hospital, should the course of their lives be already determined because of the child's gender? Apparently, this is a phenomenon that affects royalty and commoners alike.

According to a news report in the Daily Telegraph, "It is a layer of aristocracy unique to Britain, and for more than 400 years the title of baronet has been passed dutifully from father to son.

But now, for the first time, women may be able to inherit the title in England under a proposed change to the centuries-old system.

Four baronets have succeeded in adding an amendment to a Bill making its way through the House of Lords that would let them pass their titles to their daughters.

The legislation had originally been introduced to allow dukes, earls, viscounts and other hereditary peers to pass their titles along a female line of succession. However, it left out baronets, prompting a campaign by the four families.

The Bill is known as the “Downton law” after the anomaly of female succession at the heart of ITV’s Downton Abbey, in which the character of Lady Mary, the eldest daughter of the drama’s fictional earl, was unable to inherit the family seat because it had to pass to a male heir."

In this case, fiction has influenced reality....for the better.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10540898/Ladies-who-could-soon-be-a-leaping.html

The End of Public Civility

There's a popular judge on TV. I've watched her for years, for her straight forward, no-nonsense way. However, she's been grating on me lately. Is it necessary to be so aggressive with people?

As a lawyer, I feel that part of the purpose of court shows would be to educate the people about the law...a little bit. It is not necessary to get into a situation where the judge seems to be fighting with one or both litigants.

One of my children would not watch her. The child thinks this judge is plain rude!

Has she gotten worse or did I just outgrow her shenanigans?

Then there's the story of the "Housewives". I am still trying to find out why school teachers spend their time teaching children how to conduct themselves, only for them to grow up and behave improperly on TV, and be paid for it. Are these people really like this, or are these people acting?
                            

And then there's Omarosa! She's back on Celebrity Apprentice. The girl's gotta pay her bills, right?

Truth be told, nobody wants to watch boring TV. The greater the drama, the more people watch. The more people watch, the more money is made.

The success of these people is really only a reflection of who we are as a society.

They are who we have become. I don't like it.

What Do You Do When One of Your Decisions was Wrong?

Decision-Making

Even the most carefully crafted plans sometimes go wrong.  It is bad enough when these decisions are personal; but worse when they are corporate, or organizational. This is because there are more people involved, and the consequences are public and usually costly. There is great potential for embarrassment  and sometimes more serious consequences. Yet, one cannot ignore such a decision even when it has been proven to be erroneous. That is where strategic flexibility comes in.

According to Shimizu and Hitt (2004), strategic flexibility is the ability to “identify major changes in the external environment, quickly commit resources to new courses of action in response to those changes, and recognize and act promptly when it is time to halt or reverse existing resource commitments.”

 I have devised a four step strategy with the acronym: RACE.

Recognize: This step requires that you recognize the mistake and cease making decisions or taking actions that advance the organization in that direction. There may be the temptation to hide this mistake, but this step also requires that you admit this error to parties that need to know.

Assess: You must assess the new situation, including the facts, changes, both internal and external, and get a status report. Failure to stop and take stock could cost more time and expenses later when it becomes obvious that you have missed critical issues during the process.

Chart: Using all the information gathered in the previous step,  plan to chart a new course. This will take into account all previous plans, new contingencies that led to the present situation, making sure to include ongoing monitoring processes that will ensure prompt response to changes in the external environment.
 
Execute: After an experience where a decision has gone wrong, there may be a tendency to be reluctant to take bold steps in new decision making. However, it is necessary to move forward because the work of the organization must continue. Therefore, armed with the confidence that you have done all due diligence, you must boldly execute the new plan.

Strategic Flexibility: Organizational Preparedness to Reverse Ineffective Strategic Decisions
Katsuhiko Shimizu and Michael A. Hitt
The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005)
Vol. 18, No. 4, Decision-Making and Firm Success (Nov., 2004), pp. 44-59

We are Slowly Losing Ourselves:Marriage

Before the colonialists came, our marriages were a blend of two families. The man's family came in full force. The wife's family cooked and cooked. They wined, they drank, and they got to know one another. Their events became our events, and we were bound together.

Then we got educated. We became Christians, and we Yorubas started calling our traditional marriage the engagement. The colonialists called it marriage by native law and custom. We did worse. We called it "engagement".

Yet we seemed to maintain the crucial parts of the ceremony. We sang, we danced, we ate, we met one another. Our families became one. I personally handled a few of those events for a few family members. It was an intimate experience.

Then, something happened. I don't know how. Maybe we became scared of one another. I don't know.  All I know is that we seem to have yielded the essence of our marriage events over to strangers.  They call them alaga iduro and alaga ijoko. These are usually perfect strangers who seem to have only one purpose: to make as much money as possible for themselves from the participants at the event. The two families, sitting at opposite ends, like people at war, the alagas sing unnecessary songs, create uninteresting distractions, and pass around their bowls for money. The money that used to go to the "wives" in the families now goes to these strangers.  

The reason that the families use a spokesperson is a throw back to our original culture, where the suitor could not go directly to the girl's family, but had to go through a trusted person  known as the "alarina". 

Much as we should keep this aspect of our culture, we must be careful not to debase the event to where there is little or no interaction between the families. 

I have nothing against people who have to use strangers, but the essence of the event must not be lost.  Our culture is what makes us who we are. It is what makes our loved ones do what they can to see to the success of our marriages. It is what creates friendships that last a lifetime.  

If we throw our culture away and try to be "educated" and become like other people, no matter how much we try to be them, we are still imitators, fakes.

Let us value and preserve what is ours, or we lose ourselves, forever.

Do Christians REALLY believe that the BIBLE is the Word of God?

I know many Christians say they believe the Bible. They believe what the Bible says about itself. They claim that they believe it IS the word of God.

What I have found out though, is that most have never read it completely. Most do not read it everyday. Most do not try to remember it, unless it says something they really like.

Pastors and teachers, who claim to have been called by this same GOD, are usually no different. Most have never read the whole Bible. A while lot do not read it everyday, and many make excuses for why they are not obeying it.

Here is the question: If it really is the Word and Will of the Supreme Being, why do those who claim to be Christians fail to treat it as such? Many will read their favorite authors three times before they read their Bible.

If there was a place where God Himself showed up everyday like clockwork, would you know make every effort to show up too? Wouldn't you want to know all there is to know about Him? Would you let other people tell you about Him and what he said? I seriously doubt it!

Well, there is, and He does.  It's in the Good Book. Read it, meditate on it, live it.

Church Leadership: 20th century style

Leadership.  Everybody wants to be a leader.  This is not a bad thing at all.  Church members want to be leaders, church leaders want to lead more people and larger empires. The more buzz words we can throw around, the better. So, we buy the books, watch the videos, and  attend the seminars. We compare our leadership programs with one another.  We want more, more, and more. 

The problem with this scenario is that these are people who are leading or seeking to lead a flock of Jesus Christ. We have the Bible. We claim that it is the Word of the Supreme Being. All knowing. All Powerful. The Only Wise God. yet we go in search of the wisdom of men! That is a contradiction in lifestyle. 

We are not running companies. Even if we were, there are enough Biblical principles to help with that. We must return to God's Word for every need in our lives and our churches. If the Word of God is insufficient, we should stop serving Him. 

When Jesus left the earth, He gave us the Holy Spirit, to teach and remind us of all things. The Bible says He has given us all that pertains to life and Godliness. Do we truly believe these things? Do we serve Him with our mouths, but all the time struggle really hard to be like the world? 

Do we realize that He says. love not the world nor the things that are in the world?

The church is the church of Jesus Christ. He leads, we follow.  Matt. 28:18, Matt. 23:10, Eph. 4:15,  John 10:11,14,16. He is the Shepherd. We are the sheep. When a sheep stops following the shepherd, it gets lost. It goes astray. 

The world is different from the Church. In fact, they are diametrically opposed to each other. Yet it is difficult to tell the difference today. The world is not trying to be like the Church. Rather, it is the Church that is trying very hard to close the gap. We have Church leaders who take their cues from other "bigger" church leaders. church members who worship at the feet of their leaders. The words of Jesus, the One who died for the Church, are left within the covers of the Book. Is the Bible the Word of the Almighty or is it not? If it is, we must begin to look to it for guidance. if we think it is not, we must get out of the pulpit.

There are enough leaders in the Bible to learn from:

Moses: Education, humility, delegation.

Joseph: Foresight, Frugality/savings

Daniel: Forthrightness, Conviction

David: Welfare, Boldness, 

Solomon: Wisdom, project management

I am sure smarter people than me can come up with more.

Do you want to know what Jesus, the Christ, The Creator, in whom lies all the knowledge, the Alpha, the Omega, the Good Shepherd, the Living Word, The Wonderful Counselor,has to say about leadership? It is SIMPLE:

"Whoever wants 2 become great among u must be ur servant, & whoever wants 2 be 1st must be ur slave— just as d Son of Man did not come to be served, but 2 serve, & to give his life as a ransom for many."

And He said, by the holy Spirit in I Peter 5: 2-4:

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

The problem is that many of us want our accolades here. We want the praise and honor here. We want the rewards here.  Brethren, to be a minister is to be a servant. As many of us as teach God's Word must recognize that it is a PRIVILEGE to be used by the Almighty. It is not an opportunity to lord it over people and use them, and fleece them. 

You want to be a leader? Serve.  Serve with joy, gladness, and be happy that He has found a place for you in His Kingdom. Stop "beating/fleecing the sheep."

And if you go to a church where the pastor does not have a servant's heart, prayerfully seek another.

Return to the Word.

"Breaking the Yoke of Singleness"

There's this thing where preachers ask singles to come for prayers to "break d yoke of singleness", is that even Biblical? Is singleness a curse? Was Jesus not single? Was Paul not single? Did God not deliver Israel by Miriam whose marital status was irrelevant? Do they not understand I Cor. 7? Those evenings that Jesus spent visiting Lazarus his friend, surely, He could have spent one of them casting out the demon of "singleness" from Mary and Martha, two grown women living with their brother! There's no stigma to a child of God, single or married.

When will God's people recognize the freedom that Jesus paid so dearly to give us? When will we realize that Kingdom living frees us from our cultural bondage, fears and our caste system?

As in other things, singles must trust God, stay busy, & stay away from fearmongers who look for enemies where there are none. If God brings you a mate, praise Him. If not, don't spend whatever time He's given you chasing after another human being. Marriage is not the Pearl of Great Price. Jesus is.

He just might surprise you.