Monday Morning Meditation #65: Dwell Together in Unity

Now that I have been reading the Psalms for quite a number of weeks, it is amazing the number of times I run across quotations from them or mention of them. Psalm 122, about which I blogged in a Monday Morning Meditation a few weeks ago, has come up no less than four times this week! Perhaps it is a matter of what Jung would label synchronicity, or perhaps it is just that I now notice it more.

This week I continued reading through the psalms until six psalms later I discovered one that is as pertinent to my life, particularly my work life, as it was to the life of the times in which it was written. It is about harmony and peace. So many centuries we have been chasing peace! Here is what the psalmist wrote:

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brethren to dwell together in unity!

Does that sound familiar? It seems like an appropriate wish for this Christmas season.

Reading: Psalm 133

Meditation: Ah, unity! That is a daily goal that I work through -- to get 400+ employees to work together in unity. Sometimes I reach that goal for an hour or day. I know we are closer to that goal in 2010 than we were in 2006, when I inherited this particular division. The division was fraught with factions: Christians vs Muslims, men vs women, senior employees vs junior employees, and, in general, each ethnic group strongly involved in self-promotion. Bickering predominated as each individual employee contended for top rooster position in the pecking order.

Today I don't see these factions very often. Partly this is because the "goodies" are more evenly distributed, with most decisions reached by committee with diligent effort made to making all processes and criteria for selection "transparent." Partly this is a result of the prevalent willingness on the part of all senior managers to sit down with employees, explain the rationale for their decisions, frankly describe where they see brilliance as well as need for acquiring greater skills, and actively mentor all employees on an equal footing in order to develop their professional skills and potential. (Most of the earlier senior managers exhibited reluctance to mentor and speak honestly, frankly, and openly with employees; these managers I have replaced over the past four years with ones who are servant leaders by nature and commitment.) And, finally, partly the more harmonious atmosphere of today is an outcome of the annual reverse evaluations that I hold, in which employees are able to provide anonymous information about what their supervisors, including me, do that hampers them in doing and liking their job. A visiting manpower team remarked two years ago that my division appears bonded to each other; the head of the team said, "I have read that such unity is possible, but I have never seen it in action; I would like to work here."

Still, from time to time, there are serious incidents of disunity that make me despair of reaching the point where all in my division are willing to put aside personal ambition to support each other and the mission. Is that too great an idealism? In contrast to those times when the entire division pulls together in prayer to support someone who is ill or to offer up their own annual leave to support someone out on long-term sick leave without the hours to keep an income going, there are those times when people exhibit some of the most selfish behaviors. I will give two entirely opposite examples.

The first example is a woman who starts psychological warfare against any person who is assigned to her team who has greater job skills than she has. Until her supervisors noticed this, they lost a number of very talented, new people, who decided to leave because of the hostile work environment in which they found themselves. The woman creating that environment was given a warning, which she did not heed. On Monday, she will be told that she cannot stay in this team but must move to another location. Everyone believes that she will probably resign since she has many reasons for wanting/needing to stay in her current geographical location. Whichever happens will be a gift to the rest of the team. Clearly, unity thereafter will prevail. Somehow, though, I cannot help but feel that her supervisors and I have failed her.

The second example is someone on the receiving end of a hostile environment created by an employee very similar to the woman in the first example, but in another location. The abused employee came to me on several occasions. At one point, considering his reputation slandered, he espoused a whole list of retaliations he would like to invoke. I asked him to forgive them. He said he could not. In response, I asked him to remain in my office, deliberating, meditating, praying -- whatever helped, until he could forgive them. An hour later, he was ready to forgive, and he left the office. Still, problems continued. Part of the problem was his lack of humility. We discussed that. He wanted to make a plan for learning to be humble. I told him that it was hard but easy: consider everyone else more important and put them all first. He began to do this, but the rest of the team, with whom I also met, could not, as a group, overlook the past. Because they were many and he only one, they would provoke each other to torment him upon occasion. Ultimately, I moved him to another team, where he is happy. His old team, however, indignantly accused me of playing favorites with him. He should have been left with the team, they said, so that they could torment him more. (Well, "torment" was not the verb they chose, but it does describe what they would have done.) Again, I feel that I have failed my employees, both the team and the individual, even though I know have unity and harmony in both cases. Neither "side" ever learned to work together, to love each other as children of God regardless of whether or not they liked each other.

I understand the reasons for God wanting us to leave together in unity. However, helping that happen in the work place, either as a supervisor or as a team member, is clearly not easy.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to repent all the ways in which I have failed to help my employees achieve unity, to thank God for being with me and my colleagues as we strive to build unity among ourselves and with Him, to praise God for the wonderful vision He has of the ways in which we should and could live together (we are the ones who "blow it"), and to ask God to help me remember that unless He is with me, my efforts are in vain, whatever it is that I am doing. I may not be able to create unity, but He can. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.