Confession is Good for the Soul

"Vice president Joe Biden called it a badge of honor, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it was one-sided, and the others remained silent." International Business Times reported today.
Whatever we feel about subject of torture, it isn't good.  It's downright grief inducing. The Senate Intelligence Committee report has been released, and it feels to me like a good confession. You can read it on the site of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture-- NRCAT .
Confession is the act of saying out loud something that needs to be said, of telling the truth about something that was formerly hidden.  It's the way of releasing a burden into God's purview.
We can't deny that 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were violent and degrading. We can attempt to justify them, but all such justification feels sordid. We can't pretend that such behavior doesn't matter, no matter who the perpetrators are.  Retaliatory motives lurk behind most of the violence in our world.  Confession--telling the truth, in so far as it is able to be known--is a good first step toward healing the world of violence.  An old hymn says "Jesus calls us over the tumult Of our life’s wild, restless, sea; Day by day His sweet voice soundeth, Saying, “Christian, follow Me!”
The final verse is the prayer "By Thy mercies, Savior may we hear Thy call, Give our hearts to Thine obedience, Serve and love Thee best of all." Would that such obedience drive away all violence and fear and transform us--a prayer, not just a wish--for the world.

Weeping Angel, Stanford University

competing with non-consumption

I had given up on the business press in the past few years, since moving out of the B-school circles into those of the church.  But a parishioner gave me a copy of Harvard Magazine, July-August 2014 issue, not the B-School mag, but a semi-independent  publication, with Harvard U ties.  The cover article describes Clayton Christensen on innovation, from his book The Innovator's Dilemma, which made him a best-selling (in business press circles) author. His theory of  'disruptive innovation' gave a whole new vocabulary for describing market innovation and the phenomenon of entrepreneurial success based on disruptive thinking.  Basically, disruptive innovation describes the phenomenon of innovators gathering around the needs of people whose needs are not being served by established businesses who make and market established products.  Innovators find ways to pay attention to those who are not consuming; they figure out how to compete with 'non-consumption.'
Christensen started a consulting firm Innosite--that works with established companies seeking to defend their core businesses and at the same time foster innovation. From the article: "It's hard to do both," says David Duncan, a senior partner at Innosite..."As successful companies get bigger, their growth trajectories flatten out, and they need to find new ways to expand. But that will look different from what they did in the past. Most are so focused on maintaining their core business that when push comes to shove, the core will almost always kill off the disruptive innovation--the new thing."

How to protect the innovators? Duncan again: "What can work is to separate out the disruptive entity, protect it, and let it operate by a different set of rules than the core business." 1,001 New Worshiping Communities...we hope your are protected and given the latitude by our beloved denomination to operate by a different set of rules.  You have my vote!
A jump to the church is more than obvious.  Disruptive innovators in the church figure out how to bring their Christian message to people who haven't heard about it, without the expensive, difficult process of building church buildings and staffing them with full-time, graduate school trained clergy.
His more recent book, How Will You Measure Your Life?, was the subject of the insert that first piqued my parishioner's curiosity. Christensen is a Mormon and the book describes the intersection of his life's work and his faith. I'm sure that Harvard Magazine had some soul-searching of its own to do in calling attention to Christensen's faith, but kudos to them for taking it seriously.  Christensen can move easily between Latter-Day Saints and the business world, maybe a bit too easily, but his linkages give us food for thought.  Thanks, Bill, for the reference.