Questions make us uncomfortable. We don’t like anybody going around asking questions.

I once worked in a company that was well known for having the best employees in the country. They take pride in their excellent services and they have proof that they’re doing the best in their field. Once, I was asked to comment on the report on a certain project that they were doing.

Guess what happened? They really didn’t need comments. I was told in private by the supervisor that I should not ask too much questions because I might offend those who handled the project. I should limit my comments to a safe minimum.

When we hire new employees, we have two options. To hire those who are good at following routine procedures or those who know how to ask legitimate questions and take initiative. The former is safe and dependable. The latter is creative but may, in many occasions, make us uncomfortable.

Did he really say that?

Globe Telecom President and CEO Ernest Cu’s interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com last week raised a few eyebrows in the Philippine blogosphere. In his attempt to explain Globe’s marketing campaigns amidst the poor economic conditions in the country, Cu’s words came out quite wrong.

“It’s important to know how our prepaid customers think. If you’re a telco, how do you convince a farmer to spend his money on prepaid load over food? And how can you make him choose you over the other telco? How do you keep him spending? That’s where the challenge is.”

“At the end of the day, Globe’s goal is to generate revenues for a continuously growing company.”

Personal Finance Coach Randell Tiongson’s reaction was sharp:

Whatever happened to business ethics, corporate social responsibility or just plain decency? I know that profit is the main reason for business, but this is another issue and it’s absolutely, well… wrong!

Carlo Ople’s advise to Globe CEO? “Mr. Cu, if you have a speech writer, fire his ass!”

Ouch! Maybe it was just a bad analogy but what a terrible thing to say. Either he should hire a PR to do interviews for him or he should start relearning John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, beginning with the Law of E.F. Hutton if possible.

One of the often forgotten part of the Christmas story is the massacre of children in Bethlehem shortly after Jesus was born. Herod heard of the birth of Christ from the three wise men and in a brutish act to protect his position of power in Israel, he ordered the murder of all the young boys in all of Bethlehem to get rid of Jesus. He was too late though. By the time this atrocity was committed, Joseph was already transporting Mary and Jesus to Egypt.

What happened was a classic example of how much damage insecurity can cause in leadership. Herod was threatened by the rumors of a leader who was supposed to deliver Israel from oppression. He ordered the slaughter of countless children just to eliminate one particular boy who won’t definitely be doing anything political in at least twenty years.

Insecurity is a terrible driving force in a leader’s life. When one stops acting like a leader and starts chasing after his rivals, real or fancied, that person’s leadership is obviously in decline.

This week I have been doing a new series on Christmas themed blog posts. Check out the following entries in the past few days:

Excuse me Lord but I’m Quite Busy- This is a devotional based on Mary and Joseph’s experience in finding an inn in Bethlehem. What would have happened if one of the locals had the hospitality to welcome them into their home? I wonder how the people who turned away Joseph and Mary felt when they realized they were inhospitable to the deliverer they claimed to anticipate.

Heaven Needs a New PR- Why was the birth of Jesus announced to shepherds first? Could God have used a better PR? Why would he entrust the news of His Son to a bunch of untrained reporters?

The Street Caroler- You’ll have to read this to know what this is all about. A re-post from my old Friendster blog.

Coming up tomorrow is “When a Portrait Comes to Life.”

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Christian blog carnival lives on. Everyone’s posting about CHURCH on their blogs today. I’ve read at least 90% of all the entries and it’s an amazing read. Some made me smile, others provoked intellectual discussion and one in particular, made me really, really mad. No, not at the amazing writer but at the woman she described in her story. Follow the link and find out why.

You might also want to check my latest entry at Christian Reflections. (In case you haven’t heard, all my devotional blogs are now officially transferred to that site.) I talked about my lame excuses why I didn’t invite people to church. What’s yours?

Don’t miss my entry to the Christian Blog Carnival yesterday. For what seemed like an ironic welcome to the Christmas season, my blogging friend Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley picked the word GRIEF as the topic to blog about on December 1!

It was fun and very encouraging for bloggers and readers who supported the carnival. As of this writing, 42 blog posts have been written on the subject of grief by bloggers who came from different parts of the world. I’m sure you you will love the diversity and the similarities of the stories.

The blog carnival is a blogging event held every two weeks by Peter and Bridget who I only met in Facebook and Twitter. For more information of the future topics, click here.

Thank you everyone.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has complaints?
Who has needless bruises?
Who has bloodshot eyes?

Those who linger over wine,
who go to sample bowls of mixed wine.

Do not gaze at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup,
when it goes down smoothly!

In the end it bites like a snake
and poisons like a viper.

Your eyes will see strange sights
and your mind imagine confusing things.

You will be like one sleeping on the high seas,
lying on top of the rigging.

“They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt!
They beat me, but I don’t feel it!
When will I wake up
so I can find another drink?“

Many people blame God for everything that goes wrong with their lives. They think God doesn’t care or He is too busy with God-business that He doesn’t have time for us mere mortals. Others make this an excuse not to believe in God. “If there is a God up there, how could He let this happen to me?”

Whenever I hear people gripe like this, there is only one picture that pops in my mind: a one way street. You could only drive towards one direction and you can’t make a U-turn without endangering yourself.

We get ourselves in trouble not because God doesn’t care but because we are driving against the right direction. Every time we choose to sin, we open up our lives to potential trouble. Sure God can forgive us anytime we ask for forgiveness but sometimes the consequences of that sin cannot be undone.

But what if you didn’t do anything wrong? What if it’s not really your fault that something bad happened to you? In that case, I still think that the highway analogy has another side to it. Maybe you got hit by a reckless driver. Not really your fault but somebody else did it to you.

I know this simplistic traffic analogy doesn’t answer all questions but it helps me process stuff in my head. It helps me believe that when something bad happens, it is not the inventor of traffic lights’ fault. Most of the time it’s just between me and another reckless driver on the road.

I just came across something that sounded funny to me today. It’s in 1 Cor. 1: 22-23. It says that the Jews demanded miraculous signs and the Greeks needed intellectual evidence, but God sent them the gospel of a crucified Savior. This scandalized both of them. Can you see the humor in that verse? People think it’s stupidity, God thinks it is wisdom and power.

Lessons I learned:

1. Don’t put God in a box. Both Jews and Greeks wanted something they feel would lead them closer to God but God gave them something better, something they didn’t know they needed.

2. Don’t reject the gift because you didn’t like the wrappers. Jesus is God’s ultimate gift to save humanity but people rejected Him because they were scandalized with the fact that He was crucified. Many people would have preferred it if He came down to earth riding the clouds, doing aerial somersaults and flashing fire from His eyes. That would have been awesome to look at. But He came in a manger and died on a cross like a criminal. He was not popular among the religious groups. He was not like what most people expected. That’s the reason why they didn’t get the gift He offered.

Few years ago, I’ve had the “pleasure” of going to church with a sweet old lady who was so spiritual she wouldn’t even go to the market unless the Lord told her to. I’m not exaggerating. She considered her daily routines as divine appointments that a lot of times, she simply sounded out of this world. When you ask her how she was doing, she’d say something like, “Oh hallelujah praise God for His unfailing love that enables me to blah blah blah…” At the end of the conversation, you don’t really know her answer, you just get a mini sermon full of high sounding theological words.

It is good to acknowledge God in our daily lives but it is another thing to hide behind Christian jargon when confronted with daily realities. For most “regular” people, over-spiritualizing everything is weird. How can you keep a conversation with someone who tells you about divine guidance when you were just asking for spaghetti recipe?

When Jesus talked about “deep” theological stuff, He illustrated His point with simple things like rock, salt, birds and mustard seed. Some people love to do the exact opposite. When they talk of simple things, they professionalize their talk with complicated words like sedimentary formations (rock) or avian creatures (birds). My journalism professor had a point when he said, “Why write “conflagration” when you can write “fire?” Why indeed!

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