If I get more, you don’t get less.

By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon

I’ve been thinking about events in Wisconsin and Ohio lately: large demonstrations at the capitol, anger over moves to limit collective bargaining, political maneuverings in the legislature, and demonstrations right here in Oregon supporting the unions in Wisconsin. There’s a lot of energy and emotion around unions and collective bargaining right now.

Collective bargaining is not unfamiliar to me.  I was a member of a union once when I worked in a plant making roof trusses.  I wasn’t in that job very long, though, so my union membership was short-lived.  Not too long into my career in the sheriff’s office, though, I became involved with unions, this time on the side of management.  I guess I had an interest in how organizations work, and how people work together to achieve a common goal for the benefit of others. Since I worked in a public organization, our efforts were to benefit the public.  Not unlike my job now as the Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon. I think my boss also liked the way I approached people coming together to resolve differences, or define their relationship.

I represented the sheriff’s office many times at the bargaining table to negotiate benefits, pay, working conditions and to hear grievances by employees who felt they had been treated unfairly by management.  Through all of these opportunities for conflict and discord I was able to maintain respectful, professional, and downright friendly relationships with the union.  They even gave me a plaque of appreciation when I was reassigned and no longer participated in labor relations.

Who would have thought…?

By John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon, and Susan Middleton

photo: 123rf

We’ve been thinking about how different society is today than it was in the not too distant past. Sometimes I forget it hasn’t always been this way. Two years ago it was a big deal that the United States elected an African-American president. Now, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Politics aside, it seems sort of normal. We have yet to elect a woman as president. I am certain, however, that day will come too.

A little over thirty years ago we put astronauts on the moon. And yet, the chances of electing a president then who was anything but a white male were absolutely zero. So 130 years ago, a woman as a world leader? What are the chances? No way!

Well then, what if there were more handicaps involved than just gender?  What about a woman with no formal education? Or Perhaps someone whose husband died or deserted her, leaving her destitute?

What if this unfortunate woman were fatally injured from a fall on the ice?  Now she dies a nobody. A few friends and relatives hold a simple service at her graveside and she’s soon forgotten.

But that isn’t how this particular story ends.

The King’s Speech – Lionel Logue and the Christian Science question

My colleague, Tony Lobl, just put this timely post up on his blog.  Tony serves as the Christian Science media and legislative liaison for the British, Irish/EU.  You will find this post very interesting and enlightening.

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Tony Lobl

“The King’s Speech” – which officially opens in the UK today – is a marvellous film.   It compellingly, and movingly, tells the story of “How one man saved the British monarchy”, to quote its tagline.

The one man in question is not the fascinating King George VI, played brilliantly by Colin Firth, but his speech therapist Lionel Logue, played just as impressively by Geoffrey Rush.  Logue was an accomplished but slightly unorthodox Australian without paper qualifications who nevertheless single-handedly helped a Prince who would become King (against his own expectations and wishes!) to speak publicly despite a lifelong stammer.

How did he do it?   Relatively little so far seems to be known about his actual technique. However, the movie’s director Tom Hooper had access, just before filming, to archival material uncovered by Logue’s grandson Mark. His film thought-provokingly portrays Logue’s treatment as not primarily focused on the speech defect as a physical deficiency but more as a mental malaise.

Notably in three places in David Seidler’s perfectly paced script the man heralded, in hindsight, as a saviour of the monarchy, addresses the need to lift the burden of fear from the mind of his “pupil”.  (That’s what Logue preferred to call his patients, according to Australian biographer Norman Hutchinson, author of Lionel Logue: The King’s Mentor.)  At one point in “The King’s Speech” Logue says to the stammering Prince “I’m trying to get you to realise that you can’t be governed by fear.”

Health & Melody: God impelled

Posted by John D. Clague, Christian Science Committee on Publication for Oregon

Keith Wommack, my colleague and friend, is the Committee on Publication for Texas.  Some may not know that he is also an accomplished rock musician.  In this video he blends his musical talent with his story: to become a spiritual healer in Christian Science.  I think you will enjoy this short clip.