Hope & Hopium, or Where are the Princess Bride & Westley When We Need Them? Part I

As someone who played soldier through much of his childhood, it's a little embarrassing to admit how much I love The Princess Bride. Now it's true that I had much more admiration for Ulysses than Achilles and was much more interested in developing cunning than brute strength.

There is so much to admire in the characters of The Princess Bride. The courage of The Princess Bride, Westley, and Inigo Montoya. The cunning of Westley. The wisdom of The Grandfather. 

On the flipside, like Vizzini, I have often been too smart by half, and as inarticulate as The Impressive Clergyman. Like Prince Humperdinck, I have overplayed my hand and come to regret it.

I would love to live in a world where virtue is usually rewarded and vice punished. I visit such worlds in fiction, but they seem further and further removed from my understanding of reality.

Though this will seem an aside, when I bought a Volvo, I suddenly noticed there were a lot more Volvos on the road. This was in the early 1970s, and Volvos may have come more popular in my community. However, I suspect that the larger cause for my change in perception was my purchase.

I do sometimes question to what degree my newly acquired sense of the evil in this world is a consequence of the ministry that has called me. Have things gotten that worse, or is it merely that my perspective has changed?

While I make no claims to objectivity or omniscience, I definitely come down on the side that says that things have become much worse and will become even worse than they are now. We are making the planet increasingly inhospitable, and we are likely to make it uninhabitable. 

Finding My Voice, Part 2

Okay, I don't expect to have it this bad. I do know climate scientists to have received death threats, but I am only likely to receive the curses of an annoyed reader.

No, what is held me back is fear of loss of reputation and/or employment. When I worked for the federal government, I regularly attended what I jokingly referred to as one of my bosses schools of diplomacy. My sense of injustice was often stronger than my discretion.

After I retired and started to prepare for the ministry, I had peers, professors, supervisors, and the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee to please. Life became a little easier once I was in final fellowship, but the habits of a lifetime are not easily discarded.

In both my careers, I liked to observe and assess the present and to predict and to prepare for the future. That's why I became a planner in the first and a justice advocate in the second.

However, you might say that I've been a court prophet in both my careers. It's safer and more lucrative to be in the court than in the wilderness, but it's hard to be entirely forthright when part of your job description is to please royalty. Even fools, whose job it was to tell the ruler unpleasant truths that everyone else was afraid to share, sometimes had their heads chopped off. While I never worked for the Red Queen, I did have a boss who often threatened to cut me off at the knees.

Now I'm entering the wilderness, or the wilderness is entering me. No person or organization has quite the hold on me that I once felt. Because the main challenges of prophecy aren't insight: They are compassion and courage.

In the Emperor's New Clothes, Hans Christian Anderson points to how an innocent can see clearly. However, most of us do not remain innocent beyond childhood and many of us don't even have that luxury.

And maybe even encourage courage is a wrong word. Many people whom we view as courageous do not think of themselves as being so. It's not all false modesty. Sometimes the most "courageous" actions occur without thought or through a feeling of compulsion to do the right thing.

After a lifetime of semi-obliviousness, a little over 10 years ago, I came to realize how catastrophic our future is likely to be. I have spent these last years honing my Chicken Little routine. Of course, the difference between me and Chicken Little is that the air is burning, the seas are rising, and the land and water are being polluted. Yet very few want to hear a story of doom and gloom, and even fewer are willing to take effective action.

Finding My Voice, Part I

I started this blog to guide Unitarian Universalist ministerial candidates through the fellowshipping process. Much of the material here is useful for anyone preparing for an interview.

My ministry has evolved from a focus on organizational development and human resources to one that's focused on climate and environmental justice. It is taken many years for me to find my voice as an environmental justice minister.

Though I have a reputation for being quite outspoken, I have been timid and tentative in my public writing. Though most people have a great fear of public speaking, my fear has been much more of public writing. Of course, the level of discourse that sometimes appears on the web has done nothing to assuage those fears.

But I'm getting older and more ornery as environmental degradation accelerates, threatening life on the planet. Facebook has also taught me how to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous readers.

My truth is that we need to prepare for a dramatic reduction in human population if not human extinction. I have been to the stages of grieving several times and will surely go through them again, but this is no longer a time for despair (a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there). It is time for discernment and for courage.

While the scope of our crisis is precedented, the nature of it has multiple precedents which we can document going back to the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. I actually find it a relief to know that what is happening now merely a normal human pattern writ large

Ministers are taught to develop a prophetic voice. It's important to know the difference between the common understanding of prophecy and the religious understanding. The common understanding refers to Nostradamus and others who make vague predictions about future. Some of these prophets are called economists.

The religious understanding of prophecy is truth telling, especially telling truth to power. Prophets come in two varieties. There are prophets within the court who tell royalty what they want to hear. There are prophets in the wilderness who tell the elites what they don't want to hear.

Hello again, naturally

Long time since I've posted.  Physics continues to outrun politics, but there is a glimmer of hope for solidarity--inter-racially, intergenerationally, and interfaith.

Not enough people yet realize the magnitude of the problem, but that's beginning to shift.  Gaia remains our best ally, far more persuasive than any human voice.

Climate Change Books

Just the other day I got another request to post a bibliography of some of my climate change readings and recommendations. Below is the list of books along with some comments.

If you're going to read just one or two books on the subject, please start with Hamilton and Hansen.

Please note that I have not read all the books from cover to cover. They keep coming in faster than I have been able to absorb them, and this is one field in which new info arrives every day.

I will do future posts on websites, blogs, films, and videos

The place to start: Requiem for a Species, Clive Hamilton (2010)

Time to awaken:

• Climate Wars, Gwynne Dyer (2008, 2010)
• Six Degrees, Mark Lynas (2008), also an excellent video
  

Good general guides:

• The Rough Guide to Climate Change, 2nd ed., Robert Henson (2008)
• Our Choice, Al Gore (2009)
  

From the pens of scientists:

• Beyond Smoke and Mirrors, Burton Richter (2010)
• The Flooded Earth, Peter D. Ward (2010)
  
• Storms of My Grandchildren, James Hansen (2009)
  

Politics and Psychology of Misunderstanding and Manipulation:

• Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway (2010)
• Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely (2008)
  
• The Science of Fear, Daniel Gardner
  

The movement and societal consequences:

• Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken 2007
• Climate Hope, Ted Nace (2010)
• Eaarth, Bill McKibben (2010)
  
• Hope for a Heated Planet, Robert K. Musil (2009)
• The Necessary Revolution, Peter Senge et. al. (2008, 2010)
  
• Overshoot, William R. Catton, Jr. (1980)
• A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit (2009)

Theology:

• Archetype of the Apocalypse, Edward F. Edinger (1999), technically psychology; however, with significant theological implications
  
• The Comforting Whirlwind, Bill McKibben (2005)
  
• Longing for Running Water, Ivone Gebara (1999)
  
• A New Climate for Theology, Sallie McFague (2008)

I Should Have Thunk It: Creationists & Deniers

Ever have one of those moments when you either literally or metaphorically hit your forehead with the palm of your hand thinking "Of course!" When I saw this blog post (link) by Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post, I thought, "Of course, climate change deniers kissing cousins of creationists. The inbreeding is obvious."

• Creationists imagine an impossible past and demand from scientists certainty that is contrary to the scientific method;

• Deniers imagine a nearly impossible future and demand from scientists certainty that is contrary to the scientific method.

Please notice the insertion of the word "nearly" when referring to the future. Anyone who believes that s/he has the future on lockdown should be sentenced to watching endless reruns of the movie Minority Report, where "precogs" are used to arrest people for "precrimes" that haven't happened yet. Naturally, in the movie someone messes with the system to get the results he wants. The fact that I can't predict how many people will die from climate change next year--much less in 20, 50, or 100 years--is not an argument against acting now.

Reading the comments below Mr. Stromberg's post, I feel like I'm in a rerun of Inherit the Wind, a thinly veiled retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial. In this case, the wind we will inherit will be fatal, especially to the poorest and most vulnerable. Are the deniers making these foolish and offensive comments real people, or are they the paid minions of Big Coal?

Hopeful News - Climate Change

Sunday morning, I saw this Candorville comic (link) and felt hopeful. If even the comics are recognizing the difference between weather and climate, the word is getting out. Then I looked up Darrin Bell, the author of Candorville, on the web, and found out that he's a fellow Berkeley resident. Goddess, is the word escaping the Berkeley bubble?

Well, this U.S. News and World Report article tells us:

Eight Nobel-prize winning economists and scientists have joined more than 2,000 others in signing a letter today that urges the Senate to take swift action on climate change.

Now, how do we help the Senate find the political will and courage to take that action?

Evil & Climate Change

"Evil" is not a word I normally use, especially in reference to people. Instead words such as ignorant, misinformed, deluded, and ill, more easily trip off the tongue.

Yet now I'm increasingly drawn to the word evil when I read articles such as "Attack on the Clean Air Act." We've come a long way from Profiles in Courage.

None of these politicians would strangle their own children. Yet by their actions they are threatening to strangle their children and grandchildren and ours as well.

This debate has brought to mind the Robert Lewis Stevenson's story The Bottle Imp. Like the sailor at the end of the story, have these people decided that they're already condemned to hell and have nothing to lose, or are they merely self-deluding?

This wonderful video of Dan Gilbert may explain what's going on with the climate deniers and help us step back from condemnation and return to the search for collaboration. We and they must not "remain sleeping on our burning bed."

The MFC & the Olympics

No, I'm not about to suggest that interviewing become an Olympic event, even though some schools have interviewing competitions and prizes.

Rather I was caught by the parallels between the MFC interview and an Olympic event when a speed skater said that she had had an emotional breakdown on the day of her event. Her statement was part of an NPR segment on the psychological preparation and coaching. It was good to hear of the preparation and that the skater recovered from her breakdown and earned a silver metal.

Both Olympic athletes and ministerial candidates spend years preparing for "tests" that are over in minutes. The emotional and psychological tension can be quite intense.

An MFC member once said, "We're not so scary." Another posited that successful candidates will face much greater challenges once they become ministers. Yet there is something special about the years of preparation and the few brief moments of the "test" that is different than other challenges. The parallels should led us to question how we prepare ministerial candidates and what we might learn from Olympic coaching.

Babies, shoes, climate change

I'm a long-time lover of philosophy. Yesterday, I was watching the philosopher Peter Singer in the film Examined Life (2008), which I am pleased to say is available instantly on Netflix and was distributed by my cousin's company Zeitgeist.

Singer was standing in front of a Manhattan shoe store, selling, I believe, Manolo Blahniks--Carrie Bradshaw's favorite shoes in Sex and the City. Singer said that the setting reminded him of a hypothetical that he developed early in his career.

Suppose you were walking along and saw an infant in a very shallow body of water. You quickly determine that the infant will drown unless you instantly rescue her, but you will destroy your shoes as you run into the water.

Singer reports that nearly everyone says that they will save the child and damn the shoes. Yet for the price of a pair of expensive shoes, several starving children might be saved.

I see some limitations to Singer's argument, but it did get me thinking: What would people do if they realized that our current activities will be condemning billions of children to horrible and unnecessary deaths by starvation and dehydration?

The answer isn't obvious. At the website "Global Issues," Anup Shah reports that around the world 25,000 children die everyday:

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

The question that floats through my head is how do we present the risk of global catastrophe in a way that compels action. Normally reasonable people who would never have a second thought about ruining their shoes to save a baby will argue that we need to build more coal-burning power plants.

An optimistic friend of mine believes that we will develop the technology to mitigate the effects of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I sure hope he's right.

In the meantime, thank the Goddess for Annie Leonard, the creator of The Story of Stuff and this new video on cap and trade, who turns these complex issues into messages that are easy to understand and share.

Leaving Legacies

Yesterday I attended a program on "Faithful Generosity" sponsored by the Pacific Central District of the UUA and led by Laurel Amabile, Director of the UUA Annual Program Fund. It got me thinking once again about legacies, a subject that has been much on my mind of late.

Although UUism as measured by the average age of members isn't aging as quickly as I am, the last figure I saw on the former was that it was at 50-something and rising. My experience with the Berkeley Fellowship of UUs, where the average age was and remains much higher (it's coming down), made me more aware of the need for action if my generation -- the front spear of the Baby Boomers -- and the generation that preceded it are to leave a legacy of UUism to the generations that follow.

I've also been thinking about "legacy" in negative terms as well. I fear the environmental legacy we are leaving future generations.

I'm happy to report that I see a positive nexus between the two concerns. We can leave a legacy of UUism and a more positive environmental legacy by increasing UU focus on environmental issues. In our ranks, we have the scientists and engineers; the organizational specialists, community organizers, and therapists; and the ministers to create change. We also have the capacity to engage young adults and youth around these issues. Now is the time to face these challenges. Now is the time to rejuvenate UUism.

Ambivalence & Ambiguity

"I hate to write."

"But you're blogging."

So went part of my quasi job interview earlier this week.

I absolutely hated writing as a child. I write left-handed, and started writing back in the days of fountain pens. I spend excruciating hours writing a simple thank you note because I didn't know what to say (beyond "thank you"), I couldn't spell, my hand would smudge the ink, and my father insisted that the product be perfect. I was, however, productive in filling the trashcan with failed efforts.

For years I struggled with pens, pencils, erasers, correction fluid, and typewriters. Thirty years ago, I bought an IBM Selectric with a memory for my then wife the writer (tho it was way outside our budget). It was one of those presents that was more like a loan because I was looking forward to using it myself.

When a word processor was installed in the office, I would sit next to the typist as she entered my work. Soon I was using the machine myself, despite the ridicule of my peers, e.g., "Finally found a job commensurate with your skills." Of course, in time, the shoe was on the other foot as my peers turned to me for guidance on using our first computers.

I tried and failed with speech recognition software. Then when David Pogue, the NYTs tech columnist, announced that Dragon was greatly improved, I tried it again and fell in love. (How appropriate to retell this tale on Valentine's Day.) I have been a Dragon evangelist ever since.

Yet with all these improvements in the process of writing that have removed so much of the frustration and drudgery, I still found myself not writing as much as I thought I should. It then occurred to me that some of the reluctance had more to do with potential outcomes than with process.

When I speak to you to person, I get to watch your reactions and to clarify and correct and even apologize when necessary. When I speak to you over the phone, there is a wealth of information in the timing and the tone of your replies. Writing is much more iffy. It lacks immediate feedback.

The man who was my main mentor in strategic planning was fond of saying that high tolerance for ambiguity is a key competency of creative and effective leaders. (There's a good intro to the topic at this Wikipedia article.) It's also critical for creative planning.

The science on climate change is clear: it's happening and human actions are contributing to it. What will happen 20 years from now, much less 50 or 100, is more ambiguous.

Woody Allen once noted that life is full of opportunities and obstacles. He wrote that the purpose of life was to seize the opportunities, avoid the obstacles, and still catch the 5:30 train to Long Island. May we seize the opportunities to go green, avoid the obstacles of ambivalence and ambiguity, and catch the movement to reverse the damage we've done.

Climate Change

The sharp-eyed among you will notice that I've added "Climate Change" to the subtitle of this blog. It is not from a lost of interest in ministerial interviewing and examining, but from being drawn to a ministry of climate change. I am becoming increasingly convinced that we are headed toward an avoidable disaster if we do not address the amount of carbon we are pumping into the atmosphere.

The topics of ministerial examining and climate change are related. If we do not form and develop ministers ready to address this issue, we do a disservice to humanity and to all life on this planet.

Over at the blog 10 Minutes or Less, Mike Durall recently posted the following quote from Robert Wuthnow, Christianity in the 21st Century: Reflections on the Challenges Ahead:

Liberalism should be a counterculture to secularism, not a reaction to fundamentalism. It needs to present itself as a third way.

Though I'm not a Christian, I am a liberal. Dictionary.com gives 13 definitions of the adjective form of "liberal." Some that are relevant here are the following:

1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.

With some hyperbole, Tom Brokaw referred to my parent's generation as The Greatest Generation. I do not want our children or our grandchildren to refer to us as "The Infamous Generation" or "The Inept Generation," the generation that failed to act even though we knew we were undermining the conditions that sustain life on this planet.

Working in strategic planning for many years, I learned that my (and your) crystal ball is cloudy. In The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz persuasively argues that we can't predict the future and provides useful "scenaric" approaches for developing strategic vision.

We cannot "know" the outcomes of current environmental damage the way we can know the history of environmental damage and our contributions to current and historical damage. Caution in making predictions is warranted. However, such caution does not argue against prudence and action. It's time for change.

The Enemies List

During the Nixon Administration, some of his staffers complied a list of enemies (political opponents) with the intent to harass them. More info about it is here. Though it was complied nearly 40 years ago, last year I heard Daniel Schorr, then of CBS, now of NPR, speak w/ quiet pride of having been on the list.

Before I matriculated at Starr King School for the Ministry, I thought of Walmart as a great place to get reasonable quality at excellent prices. I loved the greeters and the courtesy of the staff. On one of my early visits, I had trouble locating cleaning supplies. A staffer walked me half way across the store and pointed to the right shelf. Reading The Discipline of Market Leaders, helped me understand its business model and sources of its success.

At Starr King, I learned that Walmart was the enemy. It didn't treat its workers fairly. It had had a devastating impact on small local businesses.

Now Walmart is making headlines for its sustainability efforts. According to their website, their sustainability goals are "to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste, and to sell products that sustain people and the environment. " This Fast Company article concludes that there will be some challenges along the way.

The future of UU ministry will be about conflict and collaboration. It's easy to identify mistakes and problems. It's harder to identify strengths and opportunities to collaborate. UU ministers should be prepared to do both.

New Century Summit & the Future of UUism

Well, the New Century Summit of the UUA Pacific Central District is over, and and follow-up actions are planned. The topics identified for cross-congregational teams were youth, global/public engagement, community, generosity, outreach/evangelism, spiritual deepening, diversity, and transformation.

Many of the participants share my passion for addressing climate change. One of them, who works for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, told us that the Aquarium is preparing an exhibit on the impact of climate change on the world's oceans.

There's a beautiful view of the SF Bay from the UUC Berkeley, which hosted the Summit. Overlooking the Bay, I found it almost inconceivable that humanity has the capacity to wreck the atmosphere that is needed to sustain life. It reminds me that Henry Nelson Wieman, a UU theologian, once defined "God" as that upon which life depends. It's a special kind of hubris to deny the consequences of our actions, yet the experience gave me a new understanding of deniers.

On a lighter note, I just commented on this post at "Ten Minutes or Less," Mike Durall's blog of helpful hints for busy clergy and lay leaders. Mike and UU moderator Gini Courter were the keynoters at the Summit. His post reminds us that competencies for UU ministry are a moving target because the expectations of UU (and other) congregants are changing.

Sausage Making, Blind Men, & the Elephant in the Room

In response to my 1/25 post about the "Pluperfect Storm," AKA the 4 reviews of UU ministry, Politywonk wrote the following:

Sausage-making comes to Boston... If they are serious about democracy, they will take the time to coordinate all of this into a simple proposal that Denominational Affairs Committees can pick apart point by point.

If she means that by putting together lots of ingredients we'll end up with a yummy product, then I'm in agreement.

I'm reminded of the Indian story of the blind men (or men in the dark) and the elephant found at this Wikipedia link. In my mind, the point of the story is that we each are limited in our perspectives and rather than trumpet their finality, we should be in dialogue to generate a more complete picture. In that light, I hope that multiple scenarios are developed that inspire rich reflections by denominational affairs committees.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

This weekend the Pacific Central District of the UUA is holding a New Century Summit with Gini Courter, the UUA Moderator, and Michael Durall, congregational consultant and author of The Almost Church Revitalized: Envisioning the Future of Unitarian Universalism. Along with the other issues that may arise there, hopefully intercongregational issue groups will be formed to address climate change and the future of lay and professional UU ministry in the District. I will report my impressions after the Summit.

The Pluperfect Storm -- Commission on Appraisal

There's a pluperfect storm of ministerial review on the horizon. Dictionary.com tells us that one definition of "pluperfect" is "more than perfect."

Wikipedia says a "perfect storm" is:

The confluence of three different weather-related phenomena that combined to create what Case referred to as the "perfect situation" to generate such a storm:

* warm air from a low-pressure system coming from one direction,
* a flow of cool and dry air generated by a high-pressure from another direction, and
* tropical moisture provided by Hurricane Grace.

We now have a pluperfect storm for ministerial review:

• In October, the UUA President announced a comprehensive review of UU ministry;
  
• In December, the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee created a process review subgroup;
• This month, the UUA Board appointed a workgroup on credentialing that will report to the Panel on Theological Education; and
• This weekend the Commission on Appraisal decided to review UU ministry.

As Bob Dylan said, "you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing." May the winds of change bless the imperiled climate of this planet.

Tactics, Emergency Preparedness, and Ministry

Thanks to Elizabeth Curtiss, AKA PolityWonk, wrote the following on Facebook in response to Friday's "Health, Trust, and Testing" post:

Today's post at PolityWonk says that with all the money flying into Congress from greedy corporations -- and all the elected officials who love that life -- we need to change tactics completely.

Elizabeth's post was prompted by the Supreme Court decision by this week's Supreme Court decision on corporate campaign financing described in this New Yorker article. She suggests ways of taking political and social justice actions to take back government from corporations.

I too want to take back government to help us veer off our environmentally destructive path. There's something in the air: both literally as in too much carbon and figuratively in terms of sensing it's time for a change. Recently, there was a outpouring of interest in trauma ministry among local UU community ministers. You could attribute this interest to our being in the earthquake-threatened SF Bay Area and the horror in Haiti, and you might be right. However, there are also predictions that water accumulating under the Greenland and Antarctica glaciers may result in their sliding into the oceans and raising sea levels 200 feet within 12-24 hours. This would put much of the SF Bay Area, including the humble abode of this author, underwater.

It's hard to write about this topic without appearing to be the friar from the old New Yorker cartoons who carried a sign "The end of the world is nigh." It's also hard to not to think about Gore's metaphor of the boiled frog (frogs won't jump into hot water but you can boil them by gradually increasing the temperature of the water that they're in because they can't sense the gradual increase).

During the years I worked in strategic planning, I had lots of opportunities to say that my crystal ball is cloudy. However, cloudy isn't the same empty. Look around you, what do you see? What does it say about ministry and our denomination?

Health, Trust, and Testing

Thanks to Christine Robinson, AKA iMinister, for the following comment in reply to my last post:

I think that it is dicey for the denomination to decide what the issue of the future is going to be and require it as a ministerial competency. We tried that with Anti-Racism/Multiculturalism and the result has been minimal. It is healthy churches, healthy leaders, and spiritual and emotional centeredness that we need to look for, and look hard for. Then we need to trust the bending arc that that spiritually, emotionally centered person will lead their congregations into whatever the future brings.

I always appreciate Christine's thoughtful comments and believe that this one warrants a new post.

I have a confession to make. The title of the last post, "The Critical Competency," was intended to be provocative and slightly disingenuous. You could have inferred from it that I was proposing that we add another competency to the 16 we already have. Please, please note that that's not what I had in mind. Three competencies -- UU Identity, Ethics & Justice, and the Practice of Ministry (Ministerial Praxis) -- should be sufficient.

Also, I agree with Christine that's it's dicey to try to decide the issue of the future and require it as a ministerial competency. However, healthy organizations and healthy leaders do imagine futures, plan for them, and adjust those plans and preparations as new information becomes available. Being/becoming spiritually and emotionally centered presents us with the opportunity to see the future as it is emerging and to develop the skills and abilities needed to prepare for it.