Heroism Interrupted: A Cautionary Fairy Tale for Leaders

This page is a script for a video preface to Leadership in Education: How to Play the Hero's Game.

Once upon a time there was a king whose kingdom had fallen on hard times. 

First, a pestilence struck his kingdom and as people got weak with hunger they fell victim to a terrible plague that even killed the queen. 

The king did not yet have an heir so he took the first opportunity to marry a princess from a neighboring kingdom. 

Unbeknownst to them, their misfortune had attracted the attention of a trio of terrible dragons in the mountains above the kingdom. 

After watching the people of the kingdom get decimated by the calamities that befell them the dragons interest was piqued by the grand show of wealth and finery that the wedding celebration brought about.

The dragons began to approach when they saw that festivities were underway. 

Just after the king had exchanged vows with his new queen, Varda, they burst upon the scene. 

The blue dragon struck first by eating the king and capturing the maid of honor, Lady Geniveve. 

The red dragon stole a chest that held the kingdoms most valuable treasures. 

Finally, the yellow dragon snatched the new queen. 

After the panic had subsided the king's regent, the ancient Sir Grenadier, seized the moment to offer the entire kingdom to anyone who could rescue Queen Varda and recover the treasure. 

The drunk 8th Earl of Poselthwaite boasted that he would defeat the dragons and immediately set off to the dragon's lair with nothing but a bottle of spirits and a short sword. 

He boldly walked right down the middle of the valley that lead to the dragon's mountain lair bellowing his boasts all the way. 

Thus, he never saw which dragon brought his end because it swooped down from behind to eat him in a single bite. 

Later, two itinerant knights, Sir Wallace and Sir Monty, stepped forward simultaneously from opposite sides of the courtyard to offer their services. 

They both rushed off trying to be the first to sneak into the dragons' lair. 

Sir Wallace, the first to arrive, discovered the yellow dragon standing guard over the chest and the pair of fair ladies. 

He bravely confronted the beast and was able to get between them. 

Then with his shining broad sword he made a mighty sweeping blow that lopped off the head of the dragon, but, alas, on the backswing … took off Lady Geneveive's head, too. 

Upon realizing his deadly mistake he cried out in aggrieved surprise at his stroke of incompetence. 

But before his cry had echoed back the blue dragon flew down, pinned him to the ground, and prepared to feast on the knight. 

Meanwhile, Sir Monty had been observing the incompetence of his colleague and seized the moment to approach the blue dragon from behind. 

Just after the dragon had dispatched Sir Wallace he was decapitated by Sir Monty, who was careful to avoid creating collateral damage. 

Then the hero freed the young queen, grabbed the chest, and in a rush of triumph they hurried back to the castle as quickly as they could. 

The regent was grateful to the hero for his brave rescue of Queen Varda (though disappointed at the loss of Lady Geniveve) and asked that the chest be opened. 

The lid was lifted revealing that it was filled with plain rocks. 

The regent sadly shook his head in disappointment and clucked his tongue. 

The hero was so ashamed and furious that he rushed back to the dragon's lair only to be eaten by the red dragon, who was clever enough to have hidden the real treasure and set an ambush after discovering the loss of his companions and the chest. 

The red dragon also returned to the castle later that night and boldly recaptured the queen from her tower bedchamber and once again the kingdom was stricken with great dread at their misfortune.

So, the old regent asked once again for someone, anyone who would be willing to fight the red dragon.

Eventually a rather modest looking warrior in dilapidated armor, Reginald, stepped forward. 

The regent gave him a great steed to get him on his way more swiftly and the courtiers whispered amongst themselves that he was doomed. 

Knowing that his chances of success were slim Reginald visited an ancient reclusive monk who lived on the opposite side of the valley from the dragons. 

The monk was moved by the misfortune of the kingdom and the sense of duty that motivated the brave warrior. 

He said that he only had one thing to offer the brave knight. 

It was magic mirror. 

It's magic was to reflect only the gazers greatest fear. 

He gave Reginald the mirror wrapped in coarse cloth and sent him on his way. 

The unassuming warrior found the dragon's lair and came up with a plan. 

By throwing small parts of his armor behind the dragon he tricked it into thinking he had snuck by and gotten inside the cave. 

The dragon chased after the sound assuming the warrior was heading directly towards the treasure, but instead lead him to the hidden trove. 

Reginald hid in a side passage when, after searching in vain for the source of the sound, the dragon returned to the cave entrance to guard the queen. 

Reginald put the magic mirror at the end of the passage where he had hidden and then he once again enticed the dragon into the cave but this time down the dim dead end passage. 

When the dragon looked at the end of the dim passage it just saw a knight sitting with the queen before the treasure chest which was set as if it were a dinner table. 

They were about to eat a large red dragon steak served up on a shiny silver platter. 

The dragon was enraged by this sight and attacked the image with all it's might. 

But, of course, he was actually looking into the magic mirror and so he slammed himself into the wall with such force that he knocked himself out and Reginald easily dispatched him. 

The warrior gathered up as much treasure as he and the queen could carry together on the mighty steed and headed back to the castle. 

But alas, while recovering Queen Varda and the treasure was a great accomplishment, the warrior could not outwit the plague and the pestilence, so everyone got sick and died. 

The End

Now you must be wondering what kind of fairy tale is it that ends such. 

It might be the truth of our own future if we do not learn from those who failed in this story. 

The hero's challenge is first to survive and, then, thrive. 

A hero attains that status by having hard goals that have a major obstacle that prevents just anyone from achieving them. 

But, there are also inherent boundaries to how those goal states must come about and those boundaries create the playing field that defines what game the hero must play. 

In order to become a hero you have to play the right game for the circumstances. 

When the drunken 8th Earl of Poselthwaite shows up to play with dragons using only his dulled wits and a short sword, he fails. 

He did not really understand the game he needed to play. 

If you don't pay close enough attention to the right details of your situation you can inadvertently put yourself in harm's way. 

On the other hand the two knights seem to be playing the right game, but still broke the implicit rules for success. 

Sir Wallace's killing one of the the damsels in distress was a losing move. 

You have to stay within the bounds of the playing field because sometimes thinking “outside the box” is a losing move, not a creative one.

Sir Monty's accidentally recovering worthless stones was also a losing move. 

You have to keep your eyes on the prize, it's just no good to let your success get to your head and lose track of what you have to do. 

And finally, let's consider Reginald.

When he cannot cure the plague and stop the pestilence, he loses, too. 

And when the hero fails, the whole kingdom continues to suffer.

In this case it is a challenge that is simply beyond his ability and resources to handle. 

They were living in the time of knights-in-shining-armor and kings-living-in-castles. 

All the wealth in the world could not buy the public health measures that did not exist for them. 

Today, however, we have everything we need to play and win the heroic game of our time. 

The problem is knowing what the game is and the implicit boundaries that define success. 

The heroes of today are also going to rescue the vulnerable, retrieve a valuable treasure, and provide for health and wellness. 

• The realm in dire straights that my work addresses is K-12 schools. 
• The game is paradigm change. 
• The vulnerable are the children. 
• The treasure is optimal states of mind. 
• And, finally, providing for well-being requires a multi-level ecological perspective on the true boundaries of the playing field.
  
  On the one hand, we know that primary human needs give us one level of the necessary boundaries.
  
  On the other hand, we know that supporting need satisfaction requires us to see how each individual with those needs is embedded in a network of different levels of influence; such as one-to-one relationships, ecologies, organizations, and society. 

You can find out more about how to understand the heroic game of paradigm change in K-12 schools on my web site Teach-Kids-Attitude-1st.com. 

By clicking on the leadership button you will find my explanation of the game and it's boundaries. 

Thanks for watching.

This page is a script for a video preface to Leadership in Education: How to Play the Hero's Game.

Poetry- The Crickets Have Arthritis

Beautiful Spoken Poetry from Sarah Kay

Seeing Compassion

Here's a talk that really helps me envision the moral foundations of governance.

My First Movie: Bones of Contention

This is a one day movie. Noah and I decided to make a movie in the early afternoon, outlined a script, and started shooting. We finished shooting that night after dinner and I edited and scored it, finishing up around 2AM. About 13 hours start to finish. Noah was the cinematographer and he happens to be 10 3/4 years old (or so.) The score has been changed because of copyright issues, but the new one is even better.

Kristina, Richard, and the lady at the Joy Luck Chinese Restaurant were very enthusiastic recruits into the process. Kristina created the prop used at the very end, too.

YouTube Storytime: The Gatekeeper

My telling of The Gatekeeper:

Storytelling on Youtube: Santa's New List

Here's my telling of one of my own stories:

I'm YouTubing

I have finally succumbed to the temptation of Youtube. To kick it off I decided to tell one of my favorite stories:



Here's the text of the story (with a hat tip to Living Life Fully):

One day it occurred to a certain emperor that if he only knew the answers to three questions, he would never stray in any matter.

What is the best time to do each thing?
Who are the most important people to work with?
What is the most important thing to do at all times?

The emperor issued a decree throughout his kingdom announcing that whoever could answer the questions would receive a great reward. Many who read the decree made their way to the palace at once, each person with a different answer.

In reply to the first question, one person advised that the emperor make up a thorough time schedule, consecrating every hour, day, month, and year for certain tasks and then follow the schedule to the letter. Only then could he hope to do every task at the right time.

Another person replied that it was impossible to plan in advance and that the emperor should put all vain amusements aside and remain attentive to everything in order to know what to do at what time.

Someone else insisted that, by himself, the emperor could never hope to have all the foresight and competence necessary to decide when to do each and every task and what he really needed was to set up a Council of the Wise and then to act according to their advice.

Someone else said that certain matters required immediate decision and could not wait for consultation, but if he wanted to know in advance what was going to happen he should consult magicians and soothsayers.


The responses to the second question also lacked accord.

One person said that the emperor needed to place all his trust in administrators, another urged reliance on priests and monks, while others recommended physicians. Still others put their faith in warriors.

The third question drew a similar variety of answers.

Some said science was the most important pursuit. Others insisted on religion. Yet others claimed the most important thing was military skill.

The emperor was not pleased with any of the answers, and no reward was given.

After several nights of reflection, the emperor resolved to visit a hermit who lived up on the mountain and was said to be an enlightened man. The emperor wished to find the hermit to ask him the three questions, though he knew the hermit never left the mountains and was known to receive only the poor, refusing to have anything to do with persons of wealth or power. So the emperor disguised himself as a simple peasant and ordered his attendants to wait for him at the foot of the mountain while he climbed the slope alone to seek the hermit.

Reaching the holy man's dwelling place, the emperor found the hermit digging a garden in front of his hut. When the hermit saw the stranger, he nodded his head in greeting and continued to dig. The labor was obviously hard on him. He was an old man, and each time he thrust his spade into the ground to turn the earth, he heaved heavily.

The emperor approached him and said, "I have come here to ask your help with three questions: When is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?"

The hermit listened attentively but only patted the emperor on the shoulder and continued digging. The emperor said, "You must be tired. Here, let me give you a hand with that." The hermit thanked him, handed the emperor the spade, and then sat down on the ground to rest.

After he had dug two rows, the emperor stopped and turned to the hermit and repeated his three questions. The hermit still did not answer, but instead stood up and pointed to the spade and said, "Why don't you rest now? I can take over again." But the emperor continued to dig. One hour passed, then two. Finally the sun began to set behind the mountain. The emperor put down the spade and said to the hermit, "I came here to ask if you could answer my three questions. But if you can't give me any answer, please let me know so that I can get on my way home."

The hermit lifted his head and asked the emperor, "Do you hear someone running over there?" The emperor turned his head. They both saw a man with a long white beard emerge from the woods. He ran wildly, pressing his hands against a bloody wound in his stomach. The man ran toward the emperor before falling unconscious to the ground, where he lay groaning. Opening the man's clothing, the emperor and hermit saw that the man had received a deep gash. The emperor cleaned the wound thoroughly and then used his own shirt to bandage it, but the blood completely soaked it within minutes. He rinsed the shirt out and bandaged the wound a second time and continued to do so until the flow of blood had stopped.

At last the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for a drink of water. The emperor ran down to the stream and brought back a jug of fresh water. Meanwhile, the sun had disappeared and the night air had begun to turn cold. The hermit gave the emperor a hand in carrying the man into the hut where they laid him down on the hermit's bed. The man closed his eyes and lay quietly. The emperor was worn out from a long day of climbing the mountain and digging the garden. Leaning against the doorway, he fell asleep. When he rose, the sun had already risen over the mountain. For a moment he forgot where he was and what he had come here for. He looked over to the bed and saw the wounded man also looking around himself in confusion. When he saw the emperor, he stared at him intently and then said in a faint whisper, "Please forgive me."

"But what have you done that I should forgive you?" the emperor asked.

"You do not know me, your majesty, but I know you. I was your sworn enemy, and I had vowed to take vengeance on you, for during the last war you killed my brother and seized my property. When I learned that you were coming alone to the mountain to meet the hermit, I resolved to surprise you on your way back and kill you. But after waiting a long time there was still no sign of you, and so I left my ambush in order to seek you out. But instead of finding you, I came across your attendants, who recognized me, giving me this wound. Luckily, I escaped and ran here. If I hadn't met you I would surely be dead by now. I had intended to kill you, but instead you saved my life! I am ashamed and grateful beyond words. If I live, I vow to be your servant for the rest of my life, and I will bid my children and grandchildren to do the same. Please grant me your forgiveness."

The emperor was overjoyed to see that he was so easily reconciled with a former enemy. He not only forgave the man but promised to return all the man's property and to send his own physician and servants to wait on the man until he was completely healed. After ordering his attendants to take the man home, the emperor returned to see the hermit. Before returning to the palace the emperor wanted to repeat his three questions one last time. He found the hermit sowing seeds in the earth they had dug the day before.

The hermit stood up and looked at the emperor. "But your questions have already been answered."

"How's that?" the emperor asked, puzzled.

"Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home . Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me. Therefore the most important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself and the most important pursuit was to help me. Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spent dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him. Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound.

"Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life."

A Lesson From The Ebu People of Nigeria

This is a simple and powerful message for the Mending of the Sacred Hoop from Chris Abani from Nigeria.

In Loco Parentis Revisited

Here is a very moving story that illustrates the moral intent of a school's obligation to act In Loco Parentis:

On February 5, a tornado carved a deep gash across the aorta of our campus: the dormitory complex. Along with the university's president, David Dockery, and another dean, I was among the first administrators to arrive at the disaster, a mere two minutes following the direct hit.

We stopped first at the men's dorms. Nothing could have prepared us for the devastation that we saw in the dim glow of the lightning flashes. Several of our students were trapped under a collapsed commons area. To the side of our view, we could see the rubble of the women's complex.

Click here to read the rest of this story by Gene C. Fant Jr. in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

An Attention Deficit Disorder Story

The following is an excerpt from the transcript of Thom Hartmann's radio show from Dec 7, 2004 (Thom is speaking):

I remember when one of our children was not doing well in school and he was 12, 13 years old, something like it. First year of middle school as I recall. And the teachers were all freaking out, and all, you know, all, you know how it goes. And it was that ADD thing, right? Put him on medication! And we actually tried that for a short while. Didn't seem to do much good.

And so we decided to go looking for a school for him, a better school, you know, a better educational environment. Let's find a place where he can flourish, and there were all, we lived in Atlanta at the time, in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Roswell. And there are a bunch of schools in Atlanta in the phone book, twenty, thirty of them, something like that, that, you know, private schools, many of whom advertise that they specialize in kids with Attention Deficit Disorder or learning disabilities, and so Louise and I went shopping. And what we found was that most people were of the opinion that because these kids were impulsive and distractible and not particularly well structured and organized, they "needed lots of discipline and structure. Let's just slap it into 'em."

There was one school we went to where they wanted us to sign a waiver that they could use corporal punishment. The principal had a cane fishing pole, you know, one of those bamboo canes, in his office, in the corner of his office. He said, "See that stick over there?" "Well, yeah." He says, "Kids know it's there you get my meaning, hah hah!" And, you know, I wouldn't be able to succeed in this school. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to inflict this on my child.

And what we found was that the schools that were purporting to be good places for ADHD kids ran the gamut from, on the one hand, the school from hell, to, on the other end of the spectrum, the nazi school from hell. I mean they were, you know, they were like variations on military academies and all this kind of stuff. And some of them were just outrageously expensive as well.

So we ended up putting our son in a, we were looking around at different schools, we finally had given up on all the ADD specialty schools, and we found this school in downtown Atlanta called the Horizon School which was a leftover remnant of the Summerhill experiment in some ways. Part of the alternative school movement. "Summerhill" was a book by A. S. Neill published back in the 1960s as I recall in which they created a school where the kids ran the school. And this school was actually run by the student council in everything except academics. The teachers had final say in academics but the kids had a student council and they ran the school, and they made all kinds of rules for themselves, it was quite remarkable.

And I remember walking into this school. First of all we sat down with the woman who ran the school and I said, "Our son has ADD." And she said, "I will thank", and I was, at that point in time I was in the middle of writing a book, my first book on Attention Deficit Disorder which came out that year, it's called "Attention Deficit Disorder: a Different Perception", it came out in 1992 or 1993. And that book is now, you know, Time Magazine wrote it up, it's sold a quarter of a million copies or something and it's still out there. I still think it's probably one of the best books on ADD that I've written and that I think is out there, actually. And so I was in the middle of doing that, I was real into it, and I said, you know, "Our son has ADD" and she got all bristly. She said, "I will thank you not to use that phrase in my presence again." I said, "Why?" She said, "Because we don't have labels in this school, we have individuals. I will not tolerate any individual child being slapped with a label." You know, I was thinking, "She just doesn't get it." And she said, "And furthermore, we don't want our kids coming to school medicated." And I'm thinking, "He's going to eat them alive".

So then I went out and walked around the school and I remember walking into a classroom. This was seventh graders as I recall, seventh or eighth graders. And it looked like absolute chaos. Kids were not sitting at their desk. They were standing up, they were walking around, one kid was sitting on his desk. There was a kid sitting on the teacher's desk. Kids were running up and marking things on the blackboard. The teacher was having a knock down drag out argument with the kids. And I'm standing at the back of the room and you know, keep in mind, a decade earlier, I'd been the executive director of a program for abused kids that had a school! I was the executive director of a program that contained a school. I suppose you could say I was the principal of the school. And I'm standing in the back of the room, you know, with my arms folded across my chest, thinking, "This is a classroom out of control." This would never happen in a school I ran.

And you know how sometimes when you just listen for a few minutes more, all of a sudden you hear something that completely turns your world upside down, that completely changes the way that you view things. And as I stood there, in this very kind of critical, judging posture, I started listening to what the kids and the teacher were arguing about.

What these kids were arguing with this teacher about was that Einstein had suggested in his theory of relativity e=mc2 that you can't exceed the speed of light. That if you exceed the speed of light, you can get to .999% of the speed of light, but if the value of the speed of light becomes one or one point anything, once you hit or exceed the speed of light, then time becomes infinite and mass collapses to zero. Or is it the other way around? Time collapses to zero and mass becomes infinite. I forget which it was. I used to have memorized the time and mass dilation theories but that was when I was a teenager. Anyway, and therefore it's impossible in the physical universe to exceed the speed of light. You can approach it but you can't exceed it. And if that's the case, these kids were saying, then why is it that Einstein in his own theory of relativity, his oh most famous theory, said e (energy) equals mass times the speed of light squared? e=mc2 (c is the speed of light). How can you square something that can't even have as a value of one? How is that possible? How can you square something you can't exceed? That's, you know, and they are pulling out Einstein's General and Specific theory of relativity and they're talking about his story about being in the train going away from the clock tower in downtown Austria and as the train approaches the speed of light the hands start to slow down and all this stuff.

And all of a sudden, I got it. That all my life, I had thought that education was about pouring things into kids. Yeats's quote. The filling of a bucket. And that what they understood at that school was that education was about lighting a fire. And so we put our son in that school and not only did he do well, but he was doing work two grade levels above his grade level. He was getting As in senior physics as a freshman or a sophomore. He all of a sudden just caught on fire, he fell in love with learning, and all of this with no drugs, which leads us to the question.

You got a person who has a psychiatric illness in a public school that requires medication from a multibillion-dollar industry, but when you put him into an alternative school environment, not only does he not require the medication, but the disease seems to vanish and he does very well. The question is, then, where is the disease? And I have firmly, solidly come to the conclusion that the disease is in our schools. It's not in our kids.

Summerhill on BBC-TV Episode 1, Part 1

Summerhill is a democratic school, the kids make real decisions about the rules and have real options about what they can choose to do, or not. There is a BBC Children's TV production that dramatizes their successful struggle to preserve their educational philosophy against the forces of standardization and autocratic rule over children's lives.

The video has been removed. There were 4 episodes in 3 parts each.

Sorry for the inconvenience. If you happen to find out they've been re-posted, please contact me and I will post the links here.

Also, if you find out about a way to buy the movie I would like to know that, too.

Comments on this post series (since I am deleting the rest):

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this; I enjoyed watching it (beats the heck out of Kid Nation!)

I believe Neill's work is more responsible for the homeschool movement than many people know. Philophies when spread by word-of-mouth often lose their sources, but fortunately, not their heart.
Wednesday, 30 April, 2008

Brooks said...

The show is awesome. It explores a very similar subject as my film "Schooled," although from a very different angle. www.SchooledTheFilm.com

I love how creative and playful this one is. It's a very different tone than mine which follows a teacher's personal crisis as he re-examines his fundamental beliefs about traditional education.

But both approaches complement each other quite nicely.
Saturday, 26 July, 2008

Regarding Them: Moral Values for a Pluralistic Society

Prelude to My Story

Once upon a time we were “better than” them.
Twice upon a time they were “better than” us.
Thrice upon a time we are them and they are us, and we put “better than” away on the highest shelf in the back of our closet, practically lost but not entirely forgotten.


My Story

My story begins long, long ago in a faraway place
I think it was just yesterday when we were visiting next door.
Our people thought we were better than them, those Other people.
You know the people I am talking about, those people who are different from us.
The ones who are not as pretty as us, not as handsome as we are, not as strong, not as upstanding, not as smart, and their things are not nearly as good as ours.
And we thought God wanted it that way.

But it is really hard to tell what God wants because
God’s voice is louder than all noises and quieter than silence,
God’s body is bigger than the whole world and smaller than the mote of dust you can only see when the sun shines on it just so,
God points the way faster than light and moves slower than a mountain,
God completely embraces us in the warmest love and gives us the ultimate freedom to be ourselves.
And sometimes we think that our own thoughts and ideas about what is right and good must be God’s ideas, too.
And if everyone agrees then it must be true.

So we looked at the world, and we saw that we were pretty and handsome.
We saw that we are strong and upstanding.
We saw that we had the right answers.
And we got together and talked about how good we are, and how different we are from those people.

But they were still over there and did not seem to be aware that they were at such a disadvantage.
So we went to them and tried to teach them about how to be as pretty and handsome as us, as strong and upstanding as we are, and how to get the right answers.

But they would not change and some of them even disagreed with us.
Most of them saw how good we are, and some were even grateful that we were willing to share but then they mostly went back to their old ways again.

So it was clear to us that they must have misunderstood.
Perhaps, we thought, they are just so very different that we couldn’t really communicate.
We decided that we had to be a little more clever and creative to help them see how to get our advantages.

So we made up a game.
Not just a little game, but a big game.
A game that everyone has to play.
And we got them to play, not because it was our game, but because we showed them how when we all play this game then we might have a lot of fun together.

But since the game was one that everyone had to play all the time, most of us forgot that it was a game.
Of course, the whole point of the game is to teach those people how to be like us and have all the right advantages.
So in order to really teach them, the game had to show them how
our way is God’s way to be strong, upstanding, pretty and handsome.
And whenever part of the game was not quite right, we changed the rules, just a little bit to better teach the lesson that God wants everyone to play the game our way because it is exactly how God made us.

But it is really hard to tell what God wants because
God’s voice is louder than all noises and quieter than silence,
God’s body is bigger than the whole world and smaller than the mote of dust you can only see when the sun shines on it just so,
God points the way faster than light and moves slower than a mountain,
God completely embraces us in the warmest love and gives us the ultimate freedom to be ourselves.
And sometimes we think that our own thoughts and ideas about what is right and good must be God’s ideas, too.
And if everyone agrees then it must be true.

And since we are not God, and do not always know what God really wants we made a game that was not really fair.
The game was made by us to help teach people about how it is to be us.
And we are the best players of our game because we have the most practice at being like us, and know the game better than anybody else.
But if we set up the game to make us win all the time, then those people lose all the time.
And in case you haven’t noticed yet, it is not fun to lose all the time.
Part of the fun of games is the possibility that you could win, sometimes, even if it’s really hard.

Now, God did make a game for us to play, but it’s not the game we made up.
The game God made up is one in which God is the only judge, God is the only one who enforces the rules of God’s game.
For instance, one of the most basic rules of God’s game here on earth is that up is up and down is down and if something doesn’t have support it falls down, not up.

But not all of God’s rules are so easy to figure out,
in fact, we really don’t know what all of God’s rules are,
we don’t even know how many there are.
That’s why we have invented really big games like religion and science.
Both science and religion are games that we play to discover God’s rules for the universe, but science only looks for some of the rules while religion looks for the others.

Religion is a game we play to discover the other rules that science can’t figure out.
In my religious community, Unitarian Universalism,
we say that everyone gets to decide for themselves which game of religion to play and therefore which rules for being religious to obey.
And after they have decided what religion they will practice they are expected to be
respectful of Others,
responsible for their own choices and
resourceful at getting what they need to be a good person.
We believe that each person has to figure out their own way of deciding what God wants.

But it is really hard to tell what God wants because
God’s voice is louder than all noises and quieter than silence,
God’s body is bigger than the whole world and smaller than the mote of dust you can only see when the sun shines on it just so,
God points the way faster than light and moves slower than a mountain,
God completely embraces us in the warmest love and gives us the ultimate freedom to be ourselves.
And sometimes we think that our own thoughts and ideas about what is right and good must be God’s ideas, too.
And if everyone agrees then it must be true.

Did you know that all people everywhere on earth play ball games?
But, the kinds of games they play with balls are all different.
All people play with balls but they all have different rules for making their ball games fun.
Thus, balls are a universal tool for making fun games.
Those three things I mentioned a moment ago;
respect, responsibility, and resourcefulness,
are just three of the hundreds of tools that all religions agree are necessary for making good people.
All those tools are called virtues.

Virtues are taught in every religion on earth.
Virtues are not the rules of the game of religion,
they are the absolutely necessary equipment that you need to play the game.
How each religion practices each virtue may be a little bit different,
but what all the virtues have in common is that they are the ways that we take care of ourselves, our families and friends.

“Better than” is not a virtue, it is not even a vice which is the opposite of a virtue.
But it is a tool that we use to compare things.
“Better than” is an important tool, because without “better than” we would not be able to tell which water is better for drinking and which food is better for eating and which tool is the best for the job at hand.
“Better than” is a tool that is necessary but it is one that we have to be careful about how we use.
It can be hurtful to compare people in some ways, so we need to take another look before we compare people to make sure that the comparison we make is going to be helpful and not hurtful.
“Better than” should be about how to take care of ourselves and Others, about how to have well-being for everyone, without exception.

But, when I looked at just one of those people,
(you know the people I am talking about, those people who are different from us,
the ones who are not as pretty as us, not as handsome as we are, not as tall, not as young, not as nice, and their things are not nearly as good as ours)
I saw a little girl who got a cut on her finger.
And her cut finger hurt her just like mine did when I cut it once.
Her blood was red just like mine was when I bleed,
and when she cried, her tears were wet, just like mine.
In that moment when I looked at her I saw comging out from inside of her the dearest and most personal things in every human life; pain, blood, and tears.

Seeing her in just that moment I saw how all those things that are usually hidden inside her are exactly the same kinds of things that I usually have hidden inside me.
I have pains that help me remember the hard things that I have to face and make me who I am.
I have red blood that helps me to remember the sacredness of life and remember the mixing of blood that all the fathers and mothers, and the grand mothers and grand fathers before them, have passed down to make me who I am.
And I have water in me, like the salty tears in my eyes, that help me remember that the earth is mostly covered in the same kind of salty water.
And how the water flows out of the sky, down the mountains, through the rivers and lakes to us
then through us continuing the journey to oceans and
eventually returning to the sky again to start all over.
And that water inside me also makes me who I am.

When I remember all those special things that are inside her and me both,
I realize that she is not really that different, after all.
She is not really one of Them, she is one of Us.
And when she and her people remember that, too, then we are them.
And that is how God wants it to be.

But it is really hard to tell what God wants because
God’s voice is louder than all noises and quieter than silence,
God’s body is bigger than the whole world and smaller than the mote of dust you can only see when the sun shines on it just so,
God points the way faster than light and moves slower than a mountain,
God completely embraces us in the warmest love and gives us the ultimate freedom to be ourselves.
And sometimes we think that our own thoughts and ideas about what is right and good must be God’s ideas, too.
And when everyone, and I mean all of Us and Them,
When everyone agrees
then
it really is true.

Postlude to My Story

Once upon a time we were “better than” them.
Twice upon a time they were “better than” us.
Thrice upon a time we are them and they are us, and we put “better than” away on the highest shelf in the back of our closet, practically lost but not entirely forgotten.

But now the time has come when we have a project to complete and the tool for the job is to compare our options and decide which is “better than.”
The project is how to unify the voices of all humanity to bring about a global harmony that resonates with all creation.
The challenge is to create opportunities for all beings to have wellness.

We have today an unprecedented ability to recognize and honor the wellness of our global ecology, our society, our organizations, us as individuals, our cells and even the molecules that make us up.
With this powerful opportunity for insight across vast scales of magnitude we also have the powerful responsibility to honor this more-than-human world in which we were given existence.

My call to you today is to join me in reviving “better than” as a tool for the transformation of our society from one in which we compare ourselves with each Other by the outward shells of behavior, custom, and circumstances
into a society in which we know we are united by our pain, by the blood we hold sacred and the water that flows in and through both us and our one and only planet to keep us connected and alive.
I ask for your help in transforming our “better than” habit from a tool of oppression and hurtfulness, into a tool of hope and reconciliation.

Let us use the universal language of virtues as both the starting point and end point for understanding the Other’s actions.
Let’s work together to reserve “better than” for comparing the results of our own actions with the well-being we were planning to promote, while giving the Other guy the benefit of the doubt.

I think that God would want it that way.

But remember that it is hard to tell what God really wants because
God’s voice is louder than all noises and quieter than silence,
God’s body is bigger than the whole world and smaller than the mote of dust you can only see when the sun shines on it just so,
God points the way faster than light and moves slower than a mountain,
God completely embraces us in the warmest love and gives us the ultimate freedom to be ourselves.
And sometimes we think that our own thoughts and ideas about what is right and good must be God’s ideas, too.
And when everyone agrees then it really is true.

Regarding Them Commentaries:

Regarding Them Commentary: What About Objective Reality?

Regarding Them Commentary: What About God?

Regarding Them Commentary: What About Morality?

Santa's New List

Santa’s sitting in his office proudly reviewing a press release about how his operations have finally entered the twenty-first century with the launch of a new NASA-style mission control computer system for making his list and checking it twice.

Just as he is about to put his seal of approval on the release he sees a note slide under his door and hears someone running down the hall. When he reads the note it turns out to be a hand written warning that there could be serious problems with the new computer’s integrity.

Santa is very concerned because he has invested immense amounts of time and energy in this system and hates the idea that he might deliver coal to the wrong stockings. He decides to head to mission control to check on the system directly. Upon arrival he can tell things are not going well.

The Chief Mission Control Specialist is going through an emergency check list on all systems. The young elves who run this elite space-age operation took the 60's NASA geek image seriously so over their green tights they wear white button down shirts with pocket protectors in the breast pocket. Every elf in the room has visible sweat rings emanating from their armpits as they are all frantically pushing buttons to double check every single system or running around to manually cross check the data. There is constant low level din punctuated periodically by shouted reports to the Chief Mission Control Specialist that a particular system is "A-Ok" or "30% operational" or whatever.

Santa puts on his best game face with a warm and reassuring smile of concern as he checks in with his Chief-Elf-In-Charge. But, his Chief-Elf-In-Charge is red-faced and looks like he's about to pass a kidney stone.

Santa figures he’s seen it all, so he plays it cool. "What's the situation, Sparky?"

Sparky, the Chief-Elf-In-Charge is a young 500 years old and has only been at this job for a few years since the last Chief-Elf-In-Charge (who was over 1000 years old) quit in protest as soon as the list checking computer system was approved. So, Sparky takes a deep breath after his Chief Mission Control Specialist finishes giving him a quick status report.

"Well, Santa, it looks like we've got a problem."

"Is that right, Sparky? Is it the computer?"

Sparky replies, "Well, sir, it may not be the computer. We're currently running every diagnostic in the book and several that aren't because the data that we're getting is, um, bizarre."

"What do you mean by 'bizarre,’ Sparky?"

"Well, sir, when we decided to develop the computerized list checking system the programmers were ecstatic that they would have a chance to work with real world systems instead of the usual gaming stuff. So, they decided they should collect real time data to accurately capture the actual complexity of day-to-day living and then run that data through a few well chosen culturally correct morality filters to sort the data and then crunch the resulting numbers to arrive at a clear and appropriate decision about who should receive coal in their stocking instead of presents. Everything was fine until they went to test the system last month.

"What they found was that the system seemed to work very well, except for one small glitch. You see when they do this kind of initial systems test they compare their test output decisions with a control set of data from the old system..."

"Sparky, cut to the chase."

"Well, sir, the old elves from the List Checking, Twice Bureau pointed out that while the computer did a good job with stuff like your basic lying, cheating and stealing, it was completely missing the ability to detect when children would say one thing but actually do another without an outright lie."

"Since hypocrisy is so much more subtle than lying, it had been overlooked in the original design so the input systems had to be redesigned and the programming reworked, which put everything badly behind schedule so when they launched the whole system this morning they went live without having tested the hypocrisy sub-system thoroughly."

"So, you think there is a problem with the hypocrisy sub-system?"

"Well, not exactly, sir."

"Come on, Sparky, I'm a very patient man, or so the legend has it, but you're pushing it aren't you?"

"Sorry, Santa, Sir, I just can't believe the data we're getting."

"So what's the data, then?"

"Well, the programmers for the hypocrisy sub-system had to come up with a way to quantify the hypocrisy in a way that would allow them to calculate each transgression, so they asked the old elves in the List Checking, Twice Bureau for how they dealt with hypocrisy.

"The old elves told the programmers that when they judged hypocrisy it was important to estimate the relationship between the hypocrisy of the society and the hypocrisy of the individual. 'It is a fact of human nature,' they said, 'that the individual cannot be expected to have any less than their fair share of the hypocrisy of the whole society.'"

"Yes, I remember back in the day how it was such a guessing game, at best." agreed Santa.

"So, you see, sir, this means that our computer has to calculate not only the hypocrisy of the individual, but the hypocrisy of the whole society, in order to be fair. And we now have the advantage, for the first time, of calculating a precise ratio. And true to form, the list team came up with a brilliant solution and also discovered that the burden of hypocrisy is a weight on society."

Just then the Chief Mission Control Specialist Elf ran up to the Chief-Elf-In-Charge and frantically whispered a report in his ear and showed him a series of printouts that were on the clip board in his hand.

"Ahhhh, I see.... Ohh? But... Uh-huh," said the Chief-Elf-In-Charge as he heard the report. Finally, he turned back to Santa with a dire look on his face. "I'm really sorry to have drawn this explanation out, but I think it is very important for you to understand the situation completely and I have just gotten the final report on the computer diagnostics."

"And?" said Santa.

"Sir, the computer is working fine, even better than expected actually."

"But, you say that as if it’s not good news?"

"No sir, that means that our data is correct and that the number of people who are saying one thing and doing something different this holiday season is rising extremely fast. The trend is so strong that the whole of human society is going to implode as soon they reach hypocritical mass."

The Gatekeeper

Once long ago, two young travelers met at a crossroads. They had each come from opposite directions but discovered that they were both intent on heading south towards bigger towns that would have better opportunities for young men like them.

The young man who came from the west lamented the poor state of his home village. He said the people there were all stingy and mean. He said they were loose in their morals and that too often they gave into the sensual pleasures of eating, drinking, dancing, and carousing all together.

The young man who had come from the east sympathized with his new companion and lamented that while his town didn't seem to be as bad as that the truth was that there just weren't enough honest girls his age, jobs that suited him, nor the means to find his good fortune in life.

By and by they came over a hill and saw before them down in the valley a town. It was a town bigger than either of their villages had been and had a nice wall around it, meaning that it had to be more prosperous than their undefended villages. Seeing this good sign they quickened their pace a little. As they approached they both looked carefully for signs that would tell them what kind of townsfolk lived there. The young man of the west pointed out everything he saw to his more reserved companion. He noticed some garbage and litter and thought that might mean they were untidy. He saw some people begging and thought they might not care to take care of the poor people, he saw a rowdy looking bunch of teenage boys and thought the town's parents might be too indulgent with their children.

The young man of the east just nodded to acknowledge the comments and kept his observations to himself. As the main gate into the town came before them in the distance the fellow from the west concluded his monologue by saying, "I'm not sure about this town, it has a nice wall but, really, it might not be any better than at home. My dear departed grandmother used to talk about when she was young and traveled about with her father who was the cloth merchant. She said that if you ever have any doubt about a town like this the thing to do is ask the gatekeeper. Gatekeepers know almost everyone in a town and the old ones have been around long enough to spot folks that belong in a place even before they know it themselves."

At last they reached the gate and there sitting next to the gate on a worn old wooden bench was an old old man with a grey beard who looked like he was a tree that had rooted in the rocks of a mountaintop and been weathered by a thousand years of rough and stormy winters. As he snoozed in the warm sun of that calm spring day he was grey, roughly wrinkled and bent over but eternally peaceful in his respite.

The young man of the west cleared his throat loudly and said, "Excuse me old man, but are you the gatekeeper?" Just when the youth had excused himself the gnarled old figure had snapped his eyes open, squinted up a little as he gave his grizzled head a quick shake, then he stood up confidently and with a grace that is normally only expected of much younger men.

The old man stood still and silent for long moment giving the two travelers an appraising look up and down before he replied, at last, "Yes, I am the gatekeeper. What is your business?"

The young man of the west took in a deep breath and then launched into an extended explanation of how he had left behind his poor depraved village in search of the town that would make him happy and contented all the rest of his days. He topped it all off by saying, "So you see old gatekeeper I am on a quest to be a good citizen but I require a town in which I can be in the company of other good citizens. I ask you, who are wise in these matters, is this the town for me?"

The old man let his gaze linger on the young man of the west for a long moment then he suddenly turned to the young man of the east and asked "What is your business?"

Before answering he glanced at his companion to see an expression of surprise and no small amount of annoyance, but seeing that his compatriot was not going to speak the words of discomfiture that played silently over his uncomprehending lips, he said very simply, "I have also left my home village to seek a place of opportunities, to meet honest people and find my good fortune."

The old man nodded silently and sat back down on his bench. He turned to the young man of the west and said, "I think, young sir, that you will find in this town too much of what you left behind. Alas, we in this town are frail and flawed human beings with not enough goodness."

To which the young man of the west immediately replied to his companion, "Ahhh, didn't I tell you as we approached that this town might not be any better than at home! Now you have heard it from the wisdom of the ages and there can be no doubt. Come along my new found friend, I have heard that the next town is twice as wealthy as this with an even greater wall to protect it. Surely the people there must be truly good to be so blessed!"

However, the young man of the east was not ready move on so he thanked the other young man for his company and wished him well in his travels. Anxious to be on his way to find the town of good citizens that would make him happy and content the rest of his days he left with a bemused look and a shake of his head at the foolishness of anyone staying in a town known to be as depraved as this one.

The young man who had come from the east then turned again to face the old man sitting on the bench beside the gate that led into town and asked, "Pray tell me, wise old gatekeeper, is this town right for me?"

The old man invited the weary young traveler to sit beside him on the well worn bench. After they had settled into comfortable positions looking back up the valley watching the other young man disappear as he turned onto the road leading south, the old man said slowly, "I think, young sir, that you will find in this town too much of what you left behind. Alas, we in this town are frail and flawed human beings with not enough goodness." He paused and looked over at the young man, who just waited patiently for the old man to continue. "Young man, if you choose to live in this town you will indeed find what your heart truly seeks, even amongst us frail and flawed human beings with not enough goodness. If you are willing to work you will find opportunities. If you are honest and true you will find honest people. If you take advantage of the opportunities and treasure the honest people you find, then surely your good fortune is to be discovered here."

The two men sat together for a long time and talked about many things before the young man left the old man to enter the town and begin his new life in search of his good fortune. He returned often to visit with the old man. It turns out the old man had inherited the post from his father, but had never married and his last apprentice had gone south in search of a more prestigious gate to keep. One day the young man became an apprentice to the old gatekeeper and soon after took the job when the old man finally died.

In the end he found that the old man was right, he found exactly what his heart was truly looking for even in the midst of a town full of frail and flawed human beings with not enough goodness.