Category: Faith and Art

I had an ah-ha yesterday, one that is going to impact my thinking for quite awhile. The word "Jeffrey" means "peace" or "the peace of God." When I learned that as a child, somewhere inside I took on that word as a kind of mantra, wanting to live out the meaning of my name. Jesus said peacemakers would be called "sons of God." I liked the sound of that. To this day, it gives me a sense of wholeness to be able to say to people "Go in peace" and mean it. I like keeping the peace, and take proverbs about turning aside anger with a soft word pretty seriously. As good as all that sounds, my peacemaking can sometimes be little more than an excuse to avoid reality and/or conflict. Stephen Sondheim says it best in Into the Woods: "Nice is different than good." Peacekeeping can slip into cowardly niceness pretty quickly. For some reason, God has this front and center in my mind these days, and I'm having to change some of how I approach things, saying truth more quickly and forcefully than I'm used to, and it's not terribly comfortable. All I can ask my friends to do is be patient as I figure this out. But truth is where I want to live, holding kindness high as I live there. But Carly Fiorina's statement at the Summit hit me between the eyes: "Truth is the kindest form of management." She meant management in business, but I think it's true in whatever you're managing, including yourself.