“Inclusive Meritocracy”

I attended a Toastmasters speech contest this morning and arrived a bit early at the site of the contest. It is a building owned by a bank and used for training and along one wall was banners that are intended to encourage and inspire employees. Most of them were generic but one stood out as very different. It read – “Inclusive Meritocracy” and that kind of phrase hooked me at once.

One might think that those two words would not work together. Inclusive is just that everyone is included. On the other hand meritocracy indicates a system where the most intelligent or talented rise to the top. So how can they work together? Well that bank believes that all of its employees have the skills and talents needed to rise to the top and if they exhibit loyalty and initiative then the bank will reward them with promotions. It does not matter what their background may be or their gender they can prosper in that bank.

The question is was that particular banner simply a slogan or is it for real. I have just got to check that out.

A Good Reputation

A good reputation is something to cherish and hard to rebuild once damaged.

Some people are like the man who said, “I was converted 40 years ago and I have been a Christian off and on ever since.”

Every day by our actions and our words we either ad to or shred our reputation in the society in which we live. One slight slip can reduce to ashes a life’s image that took so long to build up.

It is not only our own reputation we affect for when you talk about or make judgments about other people your are dealing with their reputations. We need to be vary careful not only about what we do to our personal reputation but be fair toward the reputation of others.

Gossip can tarnish unfairly the reputation of a person and cause a lot of grief. An old saying before speaking about another person is “Is it true, is it fair? If in doubt don’t say it.”

Healt Insurance Ad

I just saw a “Helath Insurance” created ad on TV warrning against the proposed health care bills in congress and using scare tatices showing a government bureaucrat getting between the paient and doctor saying you can give that treatment.

The big problem, and I speak from personal experience, is the my health insurance company is telling my doctor that I can’t have a treatment unless I am willing to pay 100 percent of it. They are already doing what they are trying to scare us with. How dumb do they think we are. They pulled that trick several times before and they think it will work again.

Well it won’t work with me. I am writting my congressman but telling them to give us good health care insurance that covers everyone. The money grubbing insurance comapnies can suffer the consequences of years of abuse of the American public.

Still here

I am posting here again for my friends

Keep Connected Live

I have been disappointed with my blogs here on blogger and at word press after Journaspace died. I checked out the new journalspace but it was like word press. I also checked out Keep Connected Live when it first started and it too was like word press.

Then my journalspace friend Westy, who designed my layouts, said how much KCL was feeling like the old journalspace. She said that Matt was working  hard to make it so. Well he is married to Evil Furry so he has encouragement. So on Westy's recommendation I checked it out. Wow Matt is doing a great job with it. So I set up two journals there and Westy said she would fix my layouts soon.

KCL was running slow and then the server people thought it was getting too big so they dropped it. Glory I thought it is like JS with its crashes. BUT Matt worked overtime to get it back up on a new faster server and it is flying high now.

When Westy gets my layouts done I will be moving to KCL at http://keepconnectedlive.com/

http://jspastor.keepconnectedlive.com/

Come visit and join up it feels great. Matt has a free access and a pro access for a small cost and I feel that he needs all the support and encouragement so I signed up for the pro access. 

Starting A New Ministry

I have been busy the past two weeks starting a new ministry. A few months ago, as Mayor of Bellemeade, I was visiting with the Chief of the Lyndon Fire and Rescue District. They are responsible for the City of Bellemeade.  I mentioned in passing that I was once the chaplain for a Volunteer Fire District in Missouri. He said that he wanted to start a chaplaincy program and asked if I would help.

I agreed and am now the Chaplain for Lyndon Fire and Rescue. This is a ministry that I have enjoyed in the past and I now have some time to give to it.

Secret

We are still in the process of repairing our back yard from the fallen maple tree. The limbs dug some deep holes in the yard and I filled them in and planted some grass seeds.

A few days later my wife said. "You need to plant some more grass those seeds aren't coming up."

She would not make a good farmer waiting for seeds to germinate takes time. Now we are getting tender green shoots of grass. Sometimes what we see on the surface lies to us. We see a barren patch in the ground where we planted seeds and think that nothing is happening but God is working in secret as new life underground opens the seed and roots start down into the ground.

God sometimes works in secret in our souls as well. Seeds of faith get planted and even to us it seems that nothing is happening. In the secret places of our hearts, soul and mind ideas, hopes and dreams are taking root. Then in an ah ha moment they burst to the surface in glory. Then we know it and others see it and a change has taken place.