[Opinion] The Good News

The set-up for the story is always the same.

There’s coercion, envy, false accusations, an artificially whipped up mob, a person turned into a scapegoat and a trial without representation, on trumped up charges, geared toward a predetermined outcome.

Then there’s an execution by a regime a downhill slide from a once great republic, with once great ideals, that has become inherently monarchal, brutal, and undemocratic.

There are manipulations, machinations, and deceitful dealings by people who care more about power and religion than relationship with the people they are claiming to serve.

And then, at the end of twelve hours, it’s supposed to be all over.

But then, a radical claim that’s never again been claimed by anyone else since that time in the history of the world, is made three days later. The scapegoat is said to be alive, walking around, not seeking vengeance, or destroying those who destroyed Him. Instead, He’s talking about peace, forgiveness, and preparing His bewildered and scared followers for even greater things to come.

And then, body and all, He disappears; leaving behind a world filled with followers, disbelievers, empires ruled by men who seek power and recognition above all else, and leaders who seek power and religion more than relationship.

Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is the most powerful story told in human history.

There are many reasons for its power, but at the bottom of it, is the radical idea that a man can be killed for saying all the things out loud that people think in their hearts about how the world—and our relationships should be—and then can be filled again with new life, and then leave the Earth, body and soul, of His own volition.

This is a story that many, many people reject. This is a story that many, many people find too unbelievable to be believed. This is a story that many, many people have argued with, fought against, or sought to co-opt for centuries.

But it’s a story that won’t go away.

And today, on Good Friday in the Christian world, Believers in the power and message behind, underneath, and through that story, would do well to take some time to meditate on what that story really means around their worldview, their decisions, and their lives.

I know that I will.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[Podcast] Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow – The Earbud_U Minute

The King James Bible explains Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus in Acts 26:14 this way:

And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Modern translations of the Bible have changed the word “pricks” to “goads.” But the meaning—that it is unwise to rebel against authority, particularly Heavenly authority— resonated deeply for the Apostle Paul’s audience in the court of King Agrippa when he was explaining his conversion from Judaism to Christianity.

In addition to the spiritual point, the idea that people (as well as bovines) have to be pricked to alter their course and change their ways is as old as time. Or, at least as old as the Greek proverb from which the wording of the proverb originates.

People in conflict sometimes enjoy the outcomes that they experience through engaging, or avoiding, or accommodating, the conflicts endemic in their lives. When a difficulty arises in an individual’s work or family life, people respond in ways familiar to them and others, following established patterns and mouthing lines in a script written long ago and repeated so often, that it’s not new to anyone involved. When a disagreement between two people happens, they both respond in ways that are “baked in” to their biology and psychology—and then they wonder silently why the outcomes are similar all the time.

American culture celebrates a rebellious spirit. After all, the Founding Fathers rebelled, and all the way from then until now, rebellion, rioting, “speaking truth to power,” and all of the other iterations and manifestations of refusing to go along with any authority have been lauded and honored in American culture.

This is not a recent development. Marketers, novelists, and filmmakers (nonconformists all) were the people who created the image and mass marketed the message that sameness, uniformity and conformity was a negative rather than a positive.

But, think back to the beginning words of the proverb “It IS HARD for thee to kick…”

Rebellion leads to conflicts, wars, and disruptions as power structures at cultural, societal and even familial levels are overturned and democratized. But once the flame of rebellion is lit and stoked, it swells to a brush fire that consumes everything in its path—and its wake. We recall the legend of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

For peace builders, rebellion begins with questioning the underlying assumptions that society has around peace, conflict, resolution, and reconciliation.

But it IS hard to manage, mediate, negotiate and facilitate the fires of rebellion, once they are lit. Saul turned Paul realized this. So did King Agrippa. And we would be wise to recall the deeper meanings and consider the hard ramifications of the old lesson, in our modern, fractious times, as well.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

[ICYMI] Jezebel’s Without a Blog

Outside of Western mysticism, or Hollywood entertainment, there isn’t much talk in the wider world about the presence, or influence, of demons, or evil spirits, anymore.

And if a person or organization does address them, they are immediately cast as a retrograde individual with little contemporary understanding of psychology, sociology, social justice or basic science.

And yet, the cosmopolitan modern civilization that we have built, actively acknowledges that there are positive spiritual elements to some of the work that peace builders perform in the restorative justice space, the mindfulness space, and even in the space where emotional intelligence crosses over into social work.

And yet we struggle to assign and define a negative spiritual element to the damaging consequences of traumas, conflicts, disputes and disruptions.

We collectively, actively acknowledge that there is an entire world outside of the world that we experience through our five natural senses, but we struggle to identify the nature of that world within the comfortable scientific realms of psychology, sociology, or biology.

Thus, we identify people as having behavioral and personality issues and problems, but we too often neglect the long-term, hard work of nurturing their spirit, in favor of the easy, short-term work of medicating their biology.

Nowhere is this more evident that in the church, where high conflict people exist. High conflict people—in the natural, biological sense—have issues that cannot be remedied through just “talking it out.”

There is plenty of writing and theological research around the area of Jezebel spirits, named after the queen in 1Kings 9-37, not the 4th wave feminist blogging website. But when the Christian conciliator attempts to bring knowledge of this spirit into the secular world of workplace conflicts, they run the risk of being laughed out of the room.

At best.

So, here’s the rule for the Christian conciliator: As with a high conflict individual, recognizing a Jezebel spirit’s presence in a secular workplace, should be kept as a private diagnoses, rather than a public proclamation.

In the church however, an open acknowledgement may be required of the presence of such a disruptive and conflict generating spirit—along with the realization that some people behave in the manner of high conflict individuals.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79

[Advice] The Struggle is Real

As Christians, we struggle with two competing forces: The World and The Word of God.

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The world celebrates “getting ahead” by ignoring, discounting or even overthrowing earthly authorities that have been set-up in high places, who are gambling with our money and our livelihoods, and then shrug off the consequences of those decision as corporate, governmental and nonprofit “best practices.”

The Word of God celebrates “getting ahead” by acknowledging that an omniscient, omnipresent, God can’t be placed in a box, that authority is endowed upon men–not by or through men, but by and through that all knowing God–and that faithful service—particularly to people, and institutions, we do not agree with (or even personally like) is the way ahead.

Now, this last part of the Word of God, is demonstrated throughout the Old Testament in multiple books, but most prominently in the book of Daniel. Daniel served four kings (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus) as well as he could; but, he never abandoned his faithfulness to God, nor did he abandon telling any of the kings the truth about their rule, even when it lead to uncomfortable and life threatening consequences.

This last part is important.

In a conflict, or dispute, in the Church and elsewhere, Christians often begin any conversation with us around conflict resolution or engagement with, “How do we tell the Truth to each other in love?” This is the wrong question for many reasons, but the primary reason is that the question assumes that Christian love and Biblical Truth are somehow mutually exclusive. It also presumes that faithful service can either be rendered with one, but not the other.

Most conflicts in the church won’t result in Believers being thrown into the lion’s den, threatened with death, separated from their families, or even being outright killed. Most unresolved contemporary church conflicts, will result in loss of position, hurt feelings, loss of face and general uncomfortability.

But, this is far below the cost of telling the Truth in love. But this cost can only be paid, if the truth teller is operating in the Holy Spirit and is serving with faithfulness, with their focus on God, rather than having their focus on earthly representation of that authority.

And by the way, if the Christian is serving a secular authority, in an organization, or business, this goes double for them.

The Truth is the Truth. But let’s not mix up the truth of the world around “getting ahead” with the Truth of God’s Word, around being in service to authority.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Christian Peacemaking in a Fallen World – Bully Edition

Bullies are everywhere it seems.

Uprise

They are at school. They are at work.

Have they always been around or are we only now becoming sensitive to their presence and their impact?

From Donald Sterling to the workplace bully to the disaffected school shooter, modern Western culture seems to be turning up more and more of the disaffected and the dysfunctional.

Eventually, the societal call will come to violate the inviolable in order to ferret out and better address the impacts of bully pathology.

The conflation between the everyday bully and the societal scourge will become easier and easier as time progresses and peace will become harder and harder to attain.

There will be less understanding, less forgiveness and the road to reconciliation will be even tougher.

The hard work of #BuildingForTheFuture is just beginning…

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

Would You Rather Be Right or Be Reconciled?

A Christian approach to peacemaking revolves around three behavioral encouragements that are very simple to talk and to write about, by very hard to practically accomplish.

Peace is not the Absence of Conflict

  • Believers are encouraged to confront first one at a time, then in two’s, then in the sight of the church.
  • Believers are encouraged to confront in love and to seek understanding first, rather than judgment.
  • Believers are encouraged to avoid confronting in the law first (via litigation) and to instead confront in the Spirit.

Think about how often we get into conflicts—in the workplace, in our families, even in our churches—and how rarely we exercise the first step of positive confrontation.

The initial step is hard, confrontation, because we would sometimes rather be right, than be reconciled.

But when we favor “rightness” over reconciliation, we do not allow the better angels of our nature to truly work on our hearts.

Would you rather be right, or be reconciled?

[See: KJV Matthew 5:21-26; Luke 17:3-4; Romans 12:18; Matthew 18:15-17]

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: hsconsultingandtraining@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/
HSCT’s website: http://www.hsconsultingandtraining.com