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Becoming A Leader Who Is Great In the Sight of Man and God

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There have been leaders who were great in the sight of man but not in God’s, and leaders who were great in God’s sight but not man’s, and there have been leaders who were great in both God’s and man’s sight.

In the third category are people from all faiths and nations, who have served their nations and missions without compromising on their conscience towards God.

Dwight David Eisenhower, 1947, Oil on canvas by Thomas Edgar Stephens. As the general who led the Allies to victory in Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower enjoyed a postwar popularity that inspired thoughts in many quarters of running him for the presidency. But the much-revered "Ike," with his politically potent grin, did not initially want the office, and it was not until 1952 that Republicans finally prevailed upon him to seek it. After Eisenhower left the White House in 1961, many political commentators indicated that they had not been especially impressed with this immensely popular President's performance. In time, however, Eisenhower's presidential ratings have risen, in the face of increasing appreciation for his sound fiscal policies and efforts to promote peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union while still maintaining a strong posture against its threatened aggressions. Eisenhower was serving as chief of staff of the United States Army when he sat for this portrait. As the general who had led the Allies to victory in Europe during World War II, he was, like many military heroes before him, inspiring much talk about his White House potential.

Dwight David Eisenhower, 1947, Oil on canvas by Thomas Edgar Stephens. As the general who led the Allies to victory in Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower enjoyed a postwar popularity that inspired thoughts in many quarters of running him for the presidency. But the much-revered “Ike,” with his politically potent grin, did not initially want the office, and it was not until 1952 that Republicans finally prevailed upon him to seek it. After Eisenhower left the White House in 1961, many political commentators indicated that they had not been especially impressed with this immensely popular President’s performance. In time, however, Eisenhower’s presidential ratings have risen, in the face of increasing appreciation for his sound fiscal policies and efforts to promote peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union while still maintaining a strong posture against its threatened aggressions. Eisenhower was serving as chief of staff of the United States Army when he sat for this portrait. As the general who had led the Allies to victory in Europe during World War II, he was, like many military heroes before him, inspiring much talk about his White House potential.

Please note that being ‘a great leader’ should not be equated with being a leader over a great organization or a nation. It is not greatness of position in the government or corporate world that this message is about, but greatness of stature and character of the person who is the leader. A man in great position need not necessarily be a wise leader.

‘Great men are not always wise, nor do the aged always understand justice’, said a great man in the sight of God and man.’1 

A great leader can be an official in an unknown department of a government office, or a school teacher, or a village physician, or a grocery owner. The great leaders in little positions in life are qualitatively just as great in the degree of stature as the great men who lead large organizations or nations. This principle is clearly validated in a parable by the great Teacher.

‘It’s also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master’s investment. The second did the same…After a long absence, the master…came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: “Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner”. The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master’s investment. His master commended him: “Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.” ’ 2 

The men in the parable, although one was given a greater amount of money, were both rewarded equally.

Whether you are a current leader in government or business or in a profession, or a young person aspiring to a position of leadership in the national or corporate sphere or just in your community, you may find the following insights helpful in your pursuit of leadership that is truly ‘great’ in the sight of all.

The great leader will prove to his followers, above everything else about his leadership, that he is absolutely faithful to his people in every circumstance. He will be the last to leave a sinking ship (unlike what happened at the disaster of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia a year ago, as I write this, in which 32 passengers lost their lives; the captain was charged with abandoning incapacitated passengers), whether a literal oceanliner or an enterprise that spans across the oceans, and if there is still a single person left on the deck unrescued, he will disregard the safety of his own life to save that person over whom he is the leader. Would you?

A leader who is great in every other quality but somewhat shaky in his faithfulness to his cause and his people, is less than a mediocre leader. Faithfulness is the single greatest quality for true greatness in leadership. In fact, without faithfulness as the supreme quality of his character,  a man cannot even enter true leaderhood.

Faithfulness is known in the corporate world also as ‘commitment’. And a vital aspect of commitment is the leader’s commitment to providing his followers with a sense of security for their lives. People are not cast off when they do not become necessary for the profitability of the organization anymore. The leader remains faithful to them. I think no other corporate leader has done it as effectively as Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwestern Airlines. Kelleher has been called perhaps the best CEO in America by Fortune magazine. Here’s what he’s says about his employees:

‘Our most important tools for building employee partnership are job security and a stimulating work environment. Our union leadership has recognized that we provide job security, and there hasn’t been a lot of that in the airline industry. Certainly there were times when we could have made substantially more profits in the short term if we had furloughed people, but we didn’t. We were looking at our employees’ and our company’s longer-term interests. And, as it turns out, providing job security imposes additional discipline, because if your goal is to avoid layoffs, then you hire very sparingly. So our commitment to job security has actually helped us keep our labor force smaller and more productive than our competitors’.

That quote is from the most influential article I have ever read on corporate leadership and corporate strategy. It gives vital, indispensable insights on management and leadership that no aspiring leader can afford to miss. If you haven’t read it yet, you may access it by typing in ‘A Culture of Commitment’ in the search box at www.hesselbeininstitute.org.

In contrast to Kelleher’s statement, ‘Certainly there were tines when we could have made substantially more profits in the short term if we had furloughed people, but we didnt’, another statement, that I saw in the media while preparing this message, says, ‘Panasonic to lay off 5,000 employees’.

The Japanese firm said that the people were being cast out of their premises because ‘the move aims at boosting operating profit margin to a minimum of 5 percent over the coming 3 years through lowering labor costs’.

Panasonic, however, was not founded on their present corporate principles. Its founder’s statement still reads: ‘Recognizing our responsibilities as industrialists, we will devote ourselves to the progress and development of society and the wellbeing of people through our business activities, thereby enhancing the quality of life throughout the world’.

Somewhere along the global path of their progress, someone at the helm got a better idea (the company’s slogan is ‘Ideas for Life’), and he decided the best way to devote themselves to the progress of society and the wellbeing of people was to increase their profit margin by laying off employees.

If anyone reading this message knows someone at the top of that company, perhaps you may want to send him a message telling him that the only way a company can perpetually continue to function with profit is by being faithful to their employees. Or you may refer him to this message.

Unfaithfulness to employees in the corporate world, as in corporal affairs, may provide a shortterm benefit of increased profits, but eventually end in bitterness of business.

During his tenure as CEO of Southwest, Kelleher's colorful personality created a corporate culture which made Southwest employees well known for taking themselves lightly - often singing inflight announcements to the tune of popular theme songs - but their jobs seriously. Southwest has never had an in-flight fatality. Southwest is consistently named among the top five Most Admired Corporations in America in Fortune magazine's annual poll. Fortune has also called him perhaps the best CEO in America.

During his tenure as CEO of Southwest, Kelleher’s colorful personality created a corporate culture which made Southwest employees well known for taking themselves lightly – often singing inflight announcements to the tune of popular theme songs – but their jobs seriously. Southwest has never had an in-flight fatality. Southwest is consistently named among the top five Most Admired Corporations in America in Fortune magazine’s annual poll. Fortune has also called him perhaps the best CEO in America.

The second greatest quality needed for greatness in the sight of God and man is mercy.

Mercy is perhaps the most overlooked, the most absent quality in corporate leadership. The policy of Herb Kelleher, not to furlough employees when business is low, is actually mercy in action. Mercy is applicable in innumerable situations daily in the workplace. For the present message, I can only mention a few instances where you can apply mercy.

An employee who is late for work often, or slow of work; instead of taking punitive action, you do your best to go to the heart of the cause for the employee’s apparent tardiness or sloppiness. A worker who messed up a job because he did not adhere closely to your instructions. A follower who backbit you or your organization, or who acted against company policy and did something that could potentially harm you or your organization. This last instance is perhaps where the true depth of mercy is revealed in a leader. It is here that leaders fail the most – they usually fire the one who put them in a dire situation, instead of sitting down with the ‘betrayer’ and finding out what really caused such behavior from one of their employees or followers.

I know of more than one case, where, had the CEO just sat down once with his ‘traitor’ and had a heart to heart talk with him, and listened to his version of what happened, the leader would have acted differently, instead of forever terminating the employee’s association with the organization.

Hear what one of the wisest leaders in history says on the subject of taking to heart everything negative a person hears about those under him.

‘No one in this world always does right. Don’t listen to everything that everyone says, or you might hear your servant cursing you. Haven’t you cursed many others?’3

The third most vital quality for greatness of character is compassion.

A leader who has compassion for his followers comes down from his high office to the floor level where he can feel in his heart and his bones the passions and pains of the least of those he leads.

Compassion goes beyond empathy – the ability to understand another person’s feelings and experiences. Compassion acts on empathy, and does concrete works to ensure the elimination or alleviation of the factors causing his follower’s pains.

Here’s an extreme scenario of an incredulous act by a compassionate leader. One of his female workers, an assembly worker in a multinational company producing the latest gadgets for executives, who had completed a part-time university course, was keen to attend the commencement. But the single mother’s regular babysitter wouldn’t be available on that day, and she couldn’t find anyone else so soon. The boss came to know of this situation from his secretary who was a neighbor to the single mother.

A few hours before the graduation ceremony, the boss and his wife knocks on the apartment door of the mother. They offer to babysit the toddler during the whole time the woman needs to attend one of the most important events in her life. The stunned woman couldn’t believe it, but believes it anyway, participates in the commencement, and comes floating on a cloud back home.

An unbelievably lowly act performed by someone from a lofty position. But for the babysitter – the president of one of the largest conglomerates in the world – it was just a normal day, a mere reflex response of his mind arising from the great compassion in his heart.

‘A study at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management found that compassion and building teamwork will be two of the most important characteristics business leaders will need for success a decade from now.’   Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence 

The final vital quality for greatness is humility. The most beloved leaders in history are also those who were the humblest. The two national leaders that come to my mind are Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi.

Humility among business and professional leaders is rarer to find, but wherever it is found, there is also greatness there. Herb Kelleher is one example. Warren Buffet is another. I think a good measure of this quality is evident in Bill Gates too, but certainly not in some others of his corporate stature.

Humble leaders are not only better loved, but also more effective. This is shown in a study in the Academy of Management Journal:

‘Bradley Owens, assistant professor of organization and human resources at the University at Buffalo School of Management, and co-author David Hekman, assistant professor of management at the Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, asked 16 CEOs, 20 mid-level leaders and 19 front-line leaders to describe in detail how humble leaders operate in the workplace and how a humble leader behaves differently than a non-humble leader.
‘Although the leaders were from vastly different organizations – military, manufacturing, health care, financial services, retailing and religious – they all agreed that the essence of leader humility involves modeling to followers how to grow.
‘The researchers found that such leaders model how to be effectively human rather than superhuman and legitimize ‘becoming’ rather than ‘pretending’.
‘Owens and Hekman offer straightforward advice to leaders. You can’t fake humility. You either genuinely want to grow and develop, or you don’t, and followers pick up on this.
‘Leaders who want to grow signal to followers that learning, growth, mistakes, uncertainty and false starts are normal and expected in the workplace, and this produces followers and entire organizations that constantly keep growing and improving.’   sciencedaily.com 

The greatest way to show humility is by gentleness in dealing with the common people. Gentleness is humility in action. It is gentleness that finally makes an individual or a nation great.

It is gentleness, above every other human quality, that inspires a leader’s followers to be able to grow in greatness themselves. That’s the quality that made an ancient king great in God’s and man’s sight.

‘Your gentleness has made me great’, David, king of Israel, declared to the whole world.4 

There are other basic qualities a leader needs to grow in greatness in the sight of man and of God. But the qualities I mentioned here are the fourfold radicle and primary root of great leadership from which all the other qualities spring from: Faithfulness. Mercy. Compassion. Humility.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

1 Job 32:9
2 Matthew 25:14-23 The Message
3 Ecclesiastes 7:20-22 Contemporary English Version
4 Psalm 18:35

 

 

 

India At Great Risk of A Rabies Pandemic

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Photo Courtesy: InkHong – flickr.com

Courtesy: InkHong – flickr.com

In 2001, an unwise law came into effect all over the nation. Nobody can kill a stray dog anymore. Within the next ten years, India’s stray dog population skyrocketed, with the result that no other country suffers so much from dog bite and rabies. Numbering in hundreds of millions, they bite millions of people every year, and kill around 20,000 people every year with rabies. That number is more than a third of the global rabies toll!

According to a New York Times report on this great menace in India, ‘the stray population has increased so much that officials across the country have expressed alarm’. But still, nobody can euthanize a stray, and the dogs are now rapidly taking over the city lanes.

One of the solutions suggested by a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, although seemly a practical solution, was not taken seriously by the lawmakers. He proposed exporting the strays to China — where dogmeat is in demand — after more than 15,000 people in the state reported being bitten during a year.

Writes The New York Times:

‘India’s place as the global center for rabid dogs is an ancient one: the first dog ever infected with rabies most likely was Indian, said Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.’

The main reason that India is hesitating in doing something concrete to eradicate rabies is because of the special relationship that Indian pariah dogs have been maintaining with Indians since ancient times.

‘While that relationship has largely disappeared in the developed world, it remains the dominant one in India, where strays survive on the ubiquitous mounds of garbage. Some are fed and collared by residents who value them as guards and as companions, albeit distant ones. Hindus oppose the killing of many kinds of animals.’   ‘Where Streets Are Thronged With Strays Baring Fangs’, The New York Times – nytimes.com 

India does not have much time left. Unless it acts with utmost urgency to solve this problem, it is not only exposing itself to increased dog attacks, but to a rabies pandemic that could kill potentially millions of people.

‘More than a dozen experts interviewed said that India’s stray problem would only get worse until a canine contraceptive vaccine, now in the lab, became widely and inexpensively available.
Dr. Rosario Menezes, a pediatrician from Goa, said that India could not wait that long. Dogs must be taken off the streets even if that means euthanizing them, he said. “I am for the right of people to walk the streets without fear of being attacked by packs of dogs,” he said.’   Ibid

Widespread fatal attack of humans by ‘beasts’ is one of the four calamities foretold in the Bible that would destroy a quarter of the world’s population. And the stray dog, unless eradicated, could be the most numerous of such attackers.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

 

A Great Nation Doesnt Send Its Debtors to Prison

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From ancient times until the present generation, there have been nations great in might and wealth and extent, but with a heart as small as the paltry amounts owed by its debtor citizens whom they keep behind iron bars for payment default. Such nations will keep a man locked up for years and deny him contact with his family if he owed someone even just a cent and is unable to pay it back. That’s a fact affirmed by one great Teacher.

‘Before you are dragged into court, make friends with the person who has accused you of doing wrong. If you don’t, you will be handed over to the judge and then to the officer who will put you in jail. I promise you that you will not get out until you have paid the last cent you owe.’1 

 

A mid-Victorian depiction of the debtors prison at St Briavel Castle, England (1858)

A mid-Victorian depiction of the debtors prison at St Briavel Castle, England (1858)

In ancient Greece, bankruptcy did not exist. If a man owed and he could not pay, he and his wife, children or servants were forced into ‘debt slavery’, until the creditor recouped losses through their physical labor.

Bankruptcy is also documented in ancient East Asia. According to al-Maqrizi, the Yassa of Genghis Khan contained a provision that mandated the death penalty for anyone who became bankrupt three times.

During Europe’s Middle Ages, debtors, both men and women, were locked up together in a single large cell until their families paid their debt. Debt prisoners often died of diseases contracted from other debt prisoners. Conditions included starvation and abuse from other prisoners. If the father of a family was imprisoned for debt, the family business often suffered while the mother and children fell into poverty. Unable to pay the debt, the father often remained in debtors’ prison for many years. Some debt prisoners were released to become serfs or indentured servants (debt bondage) until they paid off their debt in labor.

In UK, until imprisonment for debt was abolished in 1869, life in the debtors prison was a miserable experience, and the inmates were forced to pay for their keep. Samuel Byrom, son of the writer and poet John Byrom, was imprisoned for debt in 1725, and in 1729 he sent a petition to his old school friend, the Duke of Dorset, in which he raged against the injustices of the system:

‘What barbarity can be greater than for jailers (without provocation) to load prisoners with irons, and thrust them into dungeons, and manacle them, and deny their friends to visit them, and force them to pay excessive fines for their chamber rent, their victuals and drinks; to open their letters and seize the charity that is sent to them! And when debtors have succeeded in arranging with their creditors, hundreds are detained in prison for chamber-rent and other unjust demands put forward by their jailers, so that at last, in their despair, many are driven to commit suicide…law of imprisonment for debts inflicts a greater loss on the country, in the way of wasted power and energies, than do monasteries and nunneries in foreign lands… Holland, the most unpolite country in the world, uses debtors with mildness and malefactors with rigour; England, on the other hand, shows mercy to murderers and robbers, but of poor debtors impossibilities are demanded.’  (Manchester Times, 22 October 1862)

That letter would be still very relevant to many of the leaders of the nations where debtors’ prisons still exist.

Dr Samuel Johnson almost landed in a debtors’ prison in England for not being able to pay a trivial amount.

‘He [Dr Samuel Johnson] was arrested for debt. The man who was the ‘chief glory’ of his age, whose life had been laborious and frugal, could not pay five pounds eighteen shillings. It was by the benevolence of Richardson the novelist that he was saved from that ‘picture of hell upon earth’, a debtors’ prison.’   From the introduction to The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

Modern Debtors’ Prisons

In modern times, several countries still practice the primitive and inhumane system of sending debtors to ‘hell upon earth’.

Greece still practices it, with one change; imprisonment for debts to the government was declared unconstitutional in 2008. Imprisonment, however, is still retained for debts to private banks.

Other prominent countries which still practice to the full extent this ancient system of sending debtors to prison are the United Arab Emirates and China. Hong Kong has long imprisoned debtors from its tradition as a British colony. The first mainland prison sentence for unpaid debts was handed down in 2008. Life imprisonment is possible for non-repayment of debts incurred with ‘malicious intent’.

‘Debtors in the United Arab Emirates, including Dubai, are imprisoned for failing to pay their debts. This is a common practice in the country. Private banks are not sympathetic to the debtors once they are in prison so many just choose to leave the country where they can negotiate for settlements later. The practice of fleeing UAE to avoid arrest because of debt defaults is considered a viable option to customers who are unable to meet their obligations.’   Wikipedia

At present a comparable concept to debtors prison still exists in various forms in Germany. A maximum six months of ‘coercive arrest’ is still practiced for refusal of payment or fine.

In UK, debtors can still be sent to jail for upto six weeks if they had the means to pay their debt but did not do so.

More than a third of US states allow debtors to be jailed for non payment. A year long study released in 2010 of fifteen states with the highest prison populations by the Brennan Center for Justice, found that all fifteen states sampled have jurisdictions that arrest people for failing to pay debt or appear at debt related hearings. To what extent a debtor will actually be prosecuted varies from state to state.

‘In 1970, the US Court ruled in Williams v. Illinois that extending a maximum prison term because a person is too poor to pay fines or court costs violates the right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. During 1971 in Tate v. Short, the Court found it unconstitutional to impose a fine as a sentence and then automatically convert it into a jail term solely because the defendant is indigent and cannot forthwith pay the fine in full. And in the 1983 ruling for Bearden v. Georgia the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment bars courts from revoking probation for a failure to pay a fine without first inquiring into a person’s ability to pay and considering whether there are adequate alternatives to imprisonment.’   Wikipedia. Emphasis mine.

Several countries today still practice the primitive and inhumane system of sending debtors to prison.

India’s prevalent bonded labor system, although officially banned, is a severe form of debtors’ imprisonment. Farmers and their families are held in bondage to their landlords for failure to repay loans and forced to work on their creditor’s lands for just the barest means of survival. This bondage usually lasts the entire life of the farmer, and the bondage is then passed on to his children.

In 1976, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into effect. It states, ‘No one shall be imprisoned merely on the ground of inability to fulfill a contractual obligation’.

May every nation that still sends debtors to prison take deeply to heart this international covenant:

‘No one shall be imprisoned merely on the ground of inability to fulfill a contractual obligation.’

 

Pappa Joseph

 

1 Matthew 5:5-26  Contemporary English Version

 

 

 

New Technology Is Giving Sight to Many Blind

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New-Technology..blind_

After years of research, the first bionic eye is available on the market, giving hope to the blind around the world.

Developed by Second Sight Medical Products, the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System has helped more than 60 people recover partial sight. Consisting of electrodes implanted in the retina and glasses fitted with a special mini camera, the bionic eye, called Argus II, is the world’s first to go on the market.

Other researchers are also developing bionic eyes of their own that would offer higher resolution images with more electrodes implanted in the retina.

According to the manufacturers, the bionic eye is ‘a far cry from restoring 20/20 vision’. What it could do now is provide ‘low vision’ to blind people – which is a remarkable achievement in itself.

Once-sightless patients fitted with bionic eyes can see motion and can avoid stumbling into large objects. They ‘are able to follow a person walking down the street and discern a street curb without using their canes’. They can differentiate between a cup, a plate and a knife. The bionic eye that provides this capability has just 16 electrodes, and researches are now going up to 60. In about 5 to 7 years, they expect the models to have 1000 electrodes, which will be enough for face recognition.

Bionic vision has the potential to help millions of people around the world. However, presently the benefit extends only to people whose sight is impaired because the thin layer of tissue that lines the eye and processes images is deteriorating. But the world is waiting for research to come up with artificial eyes that can give sight to people with any form of blindness.

Whether research eventually comes up with such a device or not, very soon, possibly in our generation, every blind person in the world will receive total sight through God’s direct provision when he comes to rule the earth.

‘Energize the limp hands, strengthen the rubbery knees. Tell fearful souls, “Courage! Take heart! God is here, right here, on his way to put things right and redress all wrongs. He’s on his way! He’ll save you!” Blind eyes will be opened, deaf ears unstopped, lame men and women will leap like deer, the voiceless break into song.’   Isaiah 35:3-7 The Message

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

 

Fight in the War Against Noise in Your City

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‘I heard a story once about the white noise caused by Niagara Falls. A long time ago, a bunch of spring ice jammed up the river so much that the falls stopped. The silence was so deafening that it woke up everyone living around the falls.’    w5.montreal.com

Courtesy: Ujjwal Kumar

Noise pollution is causing more damage to the balance of human life than people generally realize.

Noise affects both health and behavior. Unwanted sound can cause annoyance and aggression, hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, and other harmful effects.

Chronic exposure to noise may cause noise-induced hearing loss. There is no great difference whether noise-induced hearing loss is brought about by outside (i.e. trains) or inside (i.e. music) noise.

Older males exposed to significant occupational noise demonstrate significantly reduced hearing sensitivity than their non-exposed peers. A comparison of Maaban tribesmen, who were insignificantly exposed to transportation or industrial noise, to a typical U.S. population showed that chronic exposure to moderately high levels of environmental noise contributes to hearing loss.

High noise levels can contribute to cardiovascular effects and exposure to moderately high levels during a single 8 hour period causes an increase in stress and vasoconstriction leading to increased blood pressure as well as to increased incidence of coronary artery disease.

Noise can have a detrimental effect on animals, increasing the risk of death by changing the delicate balance in predator or prey detection and avoidance, and interfering the use of the sounds in communication especially in relation to reproduction and in navigation. Another impact of noise on animal life is the reduction of usable habitat, which in the case of endangered species leads to a speedier extinction. Noise pollution has caused the death of certain species of whales that beached themselves after being exposed to the loud sound of military sonar.

Governments until the 1970s viewed noise as a ‘nuisance’ rather than an environmental problem. In the United States, there are federal standards for highway and aircraft noise; states and local governments typically have very specific statutes on building codes, urban planning and roadway development.

Noise laws and ordinances vary widely among cities. An ordinance may contain a general prohibition against making noise that is a nuisance, or it may set out specific guidelines for the level of noise allowable at certain times of the day and for certain activities.

In UK, thousands of confiscations have been authorized involving the removal of powerful speakers, stereos and televisions.

In the US, Portland, Oregon, instituted the first comprehensive noise code in 1975. The Portland Noise Code includes potential fines of up to $5000 per infraction and is the basis for other major US and Canadian city noise ordinances.

In Nigeria, the Lagos state government, in response to the public outcry, renewed its war against noise pollution in the state. It issued a stern warning to various religious groups, music studios, video clubs and others to reduce the noise level in their activities or face the wrath of law.

Noise pollution is a major problem in countries like India during the festivals of Diwali, Navaratri and Ganpati. The Government of India has regulations against firecrackers and loudspeakers but enforcement is extremely lax. Awaaz Foundation is an Indian NGO working to control noise pollution from various sources in Mumbai through advocacy, public interest litigation, awareness and educational campaigns since 2003.

A Qantas Boeing 747-400 approaching runway 27L at London Heathrow Airport, England. The houses are in Myrtle Avenue, at the south east corner of the airport. Photographer’s note: I know this aircraft looks as though it was inserted in a graphics program but the picture is genuine. Aircraft pass close to Myrtle Avenue every 2 minutes when 27L is in use, so getting shots like this is easy. Photographed by Adrian Pingstone.

A Qantas Boeing 747-400 approaching runway 27L at London Heathrow Airport, England. The houses are in Myrtle Avenue, at the south east corner of the airport. Photographer’s note: I know this aircraft looks as though it was inserted in a graphics program but the picture is genuine. Aircraft pass close to Myrtle Avenue every 2 minutes when 27L is in use, so getting shots like this is easy.  Photographed by Adrian Pingstone.

Some Suggestions for Noise Reduction

Roadway noise can be reduced by the use of noise barriers, limitation of vehicle speeds, alteration of roadway surface texture, limitation of heavy vehicles, use of traffic controls that smooth vehicle flow, which reduces braking and acceleration, and redesign of tire.

Roadway noise includes signal noises – car locking beep, horns, truck backing up. Another severe noise source are ‘the aural terrorists who ride motorbikes that shake people awake or who drive a car with a [sound] can attached’.

Aircraft noise can be reduced by using quieter jet engines. Altering flight paths and the use of runways has benefited residents near airports.

Industrial noise can be addressed by the redesign of industrial equipment, shock mounted assemblies and physical barriers in the workplace.

‘The mechanisms at work that can cause noise need to be clearly identified, understood, and modeled. In the battle against noise, computer modeling has an important role to play. It makes it possible to identify the sources of noise, model their behavior, predict the way in which the sound carries, and test solutions to reduce noise. When a new product is designed, whether it be a vehicle, a tool, or a household appliance, simulations like these help find ways of reducing noise in early stages of the manufacturing process, sometimes even before a prototype is made.
‘There are many areas of research specifically dedicated to fighting noise pollution. One such field of study is the characterization and development of sound-absorbing or damping materials. Another pertains to complex situations like multisource (planes, trains, cars, etc.) and multisensory (noise and light, noise and vibrations, etc.) exposure. This type of research frequently needs to include other aspects associated with noise such as mechanical and safety factors. But above all, they also need to include the human factor–how we perceive noise. Research is underway to clarify the definition of annoyance, a highly subjective notion linked in particular to culture and education, and to determine its characteristics using reliable indicators.
‘Lastly, the battle against noise involves describing and planning the urban acoustic environment. And Europe has taken a keen interest in the matter: the 2002 European Directive makes it compulsory to draw up noise maps for large cities and major routes of transportation, whether it be road, rail, or air. The number one priority is to inform and create a public dialogue about this issue, in order to lay out comprehensive urban traffic maps.’   National Center for Scientific Research – www2.cnrs.fr

On the personal level, you as a city resident can ponder initiating several actions within your power or influence to mitigate noise in your community or even in your home (remember,

The world is getting louder by the year and there is great need for noise busters to rise and join the crusade to bring peace and quietude to the world.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

 

Show Mercy to Those You Are Keeping Behind Iron Bars

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Children imprisoned in the Bannu Jail in Pakistan. According to Wikipedia, the conditions in the jails in Pakistan are deplorable; most of the prisons are more than 100 years old.

Children imprisoned in the Bannu Jail in Pakistan. According to Wikipedia, the conditions in the jails in Pakistan are deplorable; most of the prisons are more than 100 years old.

Until a new world order emerges – which will surely emerge if there is a good God somewhere in the universe waiting to usher it on earth – there will always be criminals in every society, and there will always be prisons to contain crime and restrain the criminals.

The alarming truth is that, only a fraction of people who deserve to go to jail are behind iron bars today. I don’t mean the murderers and the terrorists and such supercriminals. I mean the lesser criminals, who are spending a few months or a few years in their cells for crimes ranging from embezzlement and robbery to wifebashing and social menacing – any of those acts considered grave enough to justify a prison sentence.

I think less than one percent of one percent of such criminals are caught and incarcerated. 99.9 percent of such criminals are walking free in our midst as our ordinary neighbors, colleagues, fellow commuters, fellow citizens. I personally know not just a few, but many such ‘criminals’ who would have been sentenced to long terms in prison had they been caught. All of them are ordinary people, of no real harm beyond causing a little undetected damage to society now and then.

The point is, if you exclude the rapists and the killers and the kidnappers, the prisons are filled with people who are not a danger to society and who do not deserve to serve time in the same way or same place as the deadly criminals. These people should be shown mercy. A new way to bring such criminals to justice should be urgently conceived and implemented by all conscientious governments.

As for the deadly criminals, they are our fellow humans. They have turned beast because of circumstances, or upbringing. They cannot be released into society until there is evidence of their reformation. However, in administering justice, mercy should never be overlooked. Mercy in the cases of criminals who cannot be let out into society lest they endanger more lives, can be shown through a reformed prison system.

Mercy is not bound by the limits of criminality. Mercy can be shown at any level of lawbreaking. How this mercy can be shown, without compromising on public safety, is one of the core messages of this website.

My message, ‘Punish the Criminal, Not His Family Too’, covers the first and most important aspect of mercy to prisoners. Please read it, and see if you can use your influence to contribute in some small or significant way to initiate a great reformation in your country’s prison system.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

 

Stop the Genocide of Babies Or Prepare for Genocide

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Stop-the-GenocideLet’s see what this baby is doing:

Her hands are busy exploring and interacting with other parts of her body. She feels a hair stroke on her cheek and makes protective movements to avoid it. She then makes graceful stretching and rotational movements of her head, arms and legs. She also makes hand to head, hand to face, hand to moth movements, with her mouth opening, closing and swallowing. Her swallowing increases with sweet tastes and decreases with bitter and sour tastes.

She is a good listener too. She hears her mother laugh, and she immediately makes a movement in delightful response. She hears music, and the pleasant sound causes changes in her metabolism. ‘Brahms’ Lullaby’, which she has been hearing several times a day, is having the effect of producing faster weight gain in her than voice sounds played on the same schedule.

Her vision is so sensitive that even when her eyelids are closed she detects the location of a needle approaching her and she shrinks away from it. When the needle keeps coming and nicks her, she turns and attacks the needle barrel with a fist.

Then she feels another baby nearby, and have no trouble locating her twin lying close by. She touches the other baby’s face and holds her hands.

She dreams a lot and makes a lot of rapid eye movement and facial movements in synchrony with the dream itself, manifested in markedly pleasant or unpleasant expressions.1

Then, suddenly, the baby experiences terror and excruciating agony as forceps grip her body and she is decapitated and the rest of her body dismembered by an abortionist.

All that the baby had been experiencing till she was destroyed is now scientifically established facts.

A baby in the womb experiences everything that a newborn baby does.

And yet, according to WHO, every year in the world an estimated 40-50 million women faced with an unplanned pregnancy decide to have an abortion. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day.

In the USA, where nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, and 4 in 10 of these are terminated by abortion, there are over 3,000 abortions per day. 22 percent of all pregnancies in the USA (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. I don’t have the statistics for the other countries. But I have for the whole world.

As I write this, since January 1 this year until today [June 2, 2013] – less than 6 months – more than 17 million babies have been dismembered and cast into incinerators or thrown away as trash. Just today alone, more than a hundred thousand little lives would be forcepsed or poisoned to death around the world.

The Creator, who made these aborted babies in his own image and likeness, and who loves them more than you or I can ever love our own children2, has heard every silent scream of the infants being torn apart. He has seen the ashes or the dismembered body of every child that was burnt in the incinerators or cast into the trashbin in an abortionist’s clinic. And their Maker is not going to wait much longer.

‘The Lord answered, “Could a mother forget a child who nurses at her breast? Could she fail to love an infant who came from her own body? Even if a mother could forget, I will never forget you’2

The nations that are allowing this infant holocaust are going to pay a terrible price in genocidal scales. They have allowed the little ones to be destroyed, and so now just before God restores his rule on earth and stops the mass slaughter of the innocents, he will withhold his protective hand when endtime events sweep through the nations and cause the genocide of hundreds of millions of parents and government authorities who are responsible for the horrific deaths of uncountable number of children.

 

Pappa Joseph   

 

1 Based on clinical facts presented in the article ‘The Fetal Senses: A Classical View’ by David B. Chamberlain, PhD. Article can be assessed online – just enter the title in your search engine.
2 Isaiah 49:15 Contemporary English Version

 

 

 

How Nations Are Educating Their Children to Destruction

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Photo Courtesy: niko_Proust - flickr.com

Courtesy: niko_Proust – flickr.com

The nations today are educating their people to disbelieve in God and to disobey his laws. That is the single most tragic consequence of the educational system in every nation that teaches its citizens from kg to phd that they are the evolutionary offsprings of slimy creatures that finally evolved into apes which ultimately devolved into the more dangerous species, man.

Even when schools in the West taught their little ones to trust their apenine and asinine origins, they, until the 60s, were also teaching them to pray in school to the One they officially didn’t believe in. Until the actions of a few atheists caused the US and other nations with a similar culture to clamp down on this hypocrisy by banning prayer in school, completing the evolution of man into absolute atheists.

The consequence of banning God in the American school was terribly calamitous. God does not enforce his protection on institutions that do not want him there.

On June 25, 2012, the American nation celebrated its 50th anniversary of the prayer ban in its public schools. It was on this day in 1962 that the US Supreme Court first ruled that prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. The common prayer, which the children had been praying daily in school until then, read:

‘Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our nation.’

Since then the nation has reaped the consequences of eliminating God from the schools – a dramatic increase in crime, venereal disease, premarital sex, illiteracy, suicide, drug use, public corruption, and other social ills. A report entitled ‘America: To Pray or Not to Pray’, produced by Specialty Research Associates, gives some statistics:

A.  Young People
1.  For 15 years before 1963 pregnancies in girls ages 15 through 19 years had been no more than 15 per thousand After 1963 pregnancies increased 187% in the next 15 years.
2.  For younger girls, ages 10 to 14 years, pregnancies since 1963 are up 553%.
3.  Before 1963 sexually transmitted diseases among students were 400 per 100,000. Since 1963, they were up 226% in the next 12 years.
B.  The Family
1.  Before 1963 divorce rates had been declining for 15 years. After 1963 divorces increased 300% each year for the next 15 years.
2.  Since 1963 unmarried people living together is up 353%
3.  Since 1963 single parent families are up 140%.
4.  Since 1963 single parent families with children are up 160%.
C. Education
1.  The educational standard of measure has been the SAT scores. SAT scores had been steady for many years before 1963. From 1963 they rapidly declined for 18 consecutive years, even though the same test has been used since 1941.
2.  In 1974-75 the rate of decline of the SAT scores decreased, even though they continued to decline. That was when there was an explosion of private religious schools. That could have an impact if the private schools had higher SAT scores. In checking with the SAT Board it was found that indeed the SAT scores for private schools were nearly 100 points higher than public schools. In fact the scores were at the point where the public schools had been before their decline started in 1963 when prayer and Bible reading/instruction was removed from the schools.
3.  Of the nation’s top academic scholars, three times as many come from private religious schools, which operate on one-third the funds as do the public schools.
D.  The Nation
1.  Since 1963 violent crime has increased 544%.
2.  Illegal drugs have become an enormous & uncontrollable problem.
3.  The nation has been deprived of an estimated 30 million citizens through legal abortions just since 1973.

Another report, from Time and Newsweek magazines, show that suicide rate among US teens has risen 118 percent in the last 15 years while drug use has risen almost 90 percent since 1992.

I have given the sick state of America’s educational system as an example of what happens to any nation when God’s protection and blessings are forbidden to be asked for in schools. Tragically, what is happening in schools in America is being replayed in other nations such as UK, South Africa, Canada and such countries that once held up prayer as the first activity before anything else in school.

A nation can continue to be protected and grow in greatness only so far as it looks to the Great God as its only Source of every blessing.

The only way a nation can educate its children to a great future is to teach them first to honor and obey the immutable spiritual laws – summarized in The 10 Commandments – and then to teach them the laws in physics and other subjects.

America was founded on the prayers of its founding fathers who feared God and kept his commandments. Thus an ardent community of a few hundred Godbelieving refugees grew to become the greatest nation in history. And now, without God’s laws being taught in its core educational programs, we see a shocking reversal of trends. Every year the statistical figures of children falling victim to violence and vulgarity in schools is shooting up at a phenomenal rate, and the rate will continue to grow exponentially each year…unless there is a nationwide turning of the people’s hearts to their God again.

Take to heart what George Washington, one of the founding fathers of his country, said about those leaders today who suppose that they can educate a young generation to a prosperous future by banning God in their schools:

‘Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports – And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion – reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.’

 

Pappa Joseph

 

 

 

Punish the Guilty But Not Their Families Too

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Photo Courtesy: publik15 – flickr.com

Courtesy: publik15 – flickr.com

In 2003, US Supreme Court justices struggled with the question of whether inmates have a constitutional right to visits with friends and family. The state of Michigan had imposed stricter visitation policies to ‘better protect visitors and to stop the smuggling of drugs and weapons’.

The restrictions applied to visits by minors who weren’t an inmate’s child or grandchild. Former prisoners, unless they were immediate family, were also no longer allowed to visit. Inmates with two substance abuse violations in prison could have visitation privileges taken away altogether.

Now this message is not about prisoner visitation rights, which is what the supreme court was pondering. Let every right be taken from prisoners, if necessary, but no human court has the right to impose restrictions on the members of a prisoner’s family. It is the rights of the families of the incarcerated people that the courts should be pondering.

Until God intervenes in human affairs and abolishes the prison system altogether with a far more effective way of meting out justice, millions of people will have to languish for long years, many for their entire lives, behind iron bars. These are people who have family members –spouses, children, parents, siblings – just like people outside the prison walls do. They have the same emotional and physical needs like any free people. The Great Judge of all humanity has not granted any human court the authority to deny these needs to any person, even if he is a deadly criminal.

Obviously, dangerous prisoners cannot be let out to visit their families. But families should be allowed not just to visit their beloved one in prison, but to interact with him or her to their total satisfaction. This means, above all, that governments should allocate far more funds for construction of prisons that incorporate family accommodation for every prisoner with family.

Every prison should have a section where at least the prisoner’s immediate family can stay with him or her every day, if they so wish, or for as many days as they desire. This will ensure that even as the prisoner does time, he is not deprived of his time with his family. And any person who deprives another person of his intimate life with his family will be condemned with a greater condemnation than that which landed the prisoner in jail.

Photo Courtesy: Judy Baxter - flickr.com

Courtesy: Judy Baxter – flickr.com

Governments that are ready to show this mercy, not to prisoners, but to their families, will find mercy in these sooncoming endtimes. But those authorities who deprive wives and husbands, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, of their God-given right to live with their family member, ‘it would be better for them’, in the words of a great prophet, ‘if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea’.1 

Governments will have to devote much money and effort to find practical ways to bring about his revolutionary change in prison life. They have to devise ways to ensure this right of family members is not abused. But, if they really want to, they can, because they will have the support of the One who keenly desires reformation in the world’s justice system and who will guide any willing government to devise merciful ways of dealing with wrongdoers.

The Great Judge waits for a man in authority today who has both the compassion and the boldness to help initiate, in whatever small way he possibly could, a great transformation in his country’s prison system.

 

Pappa Joseph

 

1 Luke 17:2

 

 

 

Which Is The Greatest Nation on Earth Today?

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Which-Is-The-Greatest

The greatest nation on earth, not in might or wealth or size, but in the caliber of its national soul, is the one that most earnestly governs its people with the same four vital qualities of its great leaders. These four qualities, as mentioned in my message, ‘Becoming a Leader Who Is Great in the Sight of Man and God’, are: faithfulness, mercy, compassion, humility.

A nation, represented by the government and its leaders that rule the country, is, above all else, faithful to its citizens in any situation, inside the country, or outside.

The degree of faithfulness is seen in the extent of its citizens’ sense of personal freedom and their sense of security in society. This, I know, may seem like a platitude, since every government claims its aim is to provide its citizens with a sense of security and personal freedom. But a greater nation is recognized by a greater sense of wellbeing in its citizens.

I have seen the common citizen walking around in repressed fear and a sense of general helplessness in one country, while the average citizen in a neighboring country goes to work with a stride that bespeaks his confidence and pride in what his nation is doing for him.

A country’s responses to the needs of its citizens traveling or working abroad, is one of the surest indicators of the faithfulness of a nation to its people beyond its borders. A great nation takes great care of its children abroad. But what a blemish on a nation’s character when its representative – its embassy – in another country takes a slow or lackadaisical response to its citizens who are in trouble there.

I do not wish to embarrass any nation’s leaders or people by giving the many instances where embassy officials, who represent their nation, showed indifference towards the needs of their fellow citizens in a foreign country. Every embassy official should take the utmost care in guarding his motherland’s reputation by guarding his individual dealings with the expatriates of his country.

A nation is great also by the extent of the mercy it shows to its erring citizens. Nowhere is its mercy more revealed than in its prison system. My messages, ‘Show Mercy to Those You Are Keeping Behind Iron Bars’ and ‘Punish the Guilty But Not Their Families Too’, takes a heart look into this aspect of a nation’s character.

The next two criterions to judge a nation’s greatness is how compassionate and how humble are the hearts of its leaders. It is the compassion and humility of leaders such as Gandhi and Lincoln that roused the hearts of an entire nation and changed the course of their people’s destiny towards a greater future. My forthcoming messages will delve deep into these two vital aspects of personal and national greatness.

Where does your nation stand in your own evaluation of its greatness? The evaluation criterions I have given in this message is based on principles of individual and collective greatness revealed in a book of practical wisdom given by the Creator so nations and individuals can find true greatness. The nation and its leaders that govern by these principles will reap the joyous fruits, but the nation and its leaders that ignore them will surely suffer the bitter consequences, generation after generation

‘He makes nations great and then destroys them; he makes nations large and then scatters them. He takes understanding away from the leaders of the earth [who disdain God’s laws] and makes them wander through a pathless desert. They feel around in darkness with no light; he makes them stumble like drunks.’1

Greatest is the nation that acknowledges its Creator and heeds his laws in all aspects of its governance!

‘That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as pillars, sculptured in palace style; that our barns may be full, supplying all kinds of produce; that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields; that our oxen may be well laden; that there be no breaking in or going out; that there be no outcry in our streets. Happy are the people who are in such a state’2

 

Pappa Joseph

 

1 Job 12:23-25
2 Psalm 144:12-15