Don’t blame me.. I’m not the person who appointed a Senior Advisor at the Forest Service who has written a book.. Given that Ken Verheyen has, inquiring minds want to know “what can we tell about what value he will bring to the Forest Service based on this book?” Just so you know, I’ll be moderating the comments carefully.
I’m going to address his book in three parts: 1) a very brief summary translated into generic spirituality, 2) some interesting stories in the book, and my ideas for how they may be related to the question above “what of value does Ken bring to the FS table, and if he asked us, what would be our advice to him?” Finally there is 3) a deeper theological dive for the one or two people out there interested in that- that can be skipped for most folks.
I. Summary: I know Bible Christian terminology can be off-putting to many, so I translated into Generic Spiritual language.
Life is better if you align with the Source, and have an open heart. Success is not about money, power and possessions, but about how loving you are to each and every human being and how you treat them.
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II. Stories that Ken tells about himself.
It’s fairly unusual for an appointee to write a book that includes their personal struggles, but here it is. Ken started at his Dad’s company and worked his way up. He’s pretty open about mistakes he made.. what we might call “over-marketing” and working too much, and how he realized what was wrong through prayer and the support of his spiritual community. Of course, if being with your family is one of your principles, perhaps you can’t take particular kinds of jobs like wildland firefighting. There are also stories about treating employees well, forgiving them for betraying the company, and giving them options to stay on when they are old and not performing well. I think these are all stories that resonate with us to some degree. At the same time, what a corporate board might agree to in terms of generosity might not be a good use of taxpayer resources.
One story he tells is how people wanted coaching and mentoring from him, and how he felt having a desk he felt interfered with that.
“One weekend, I dropped by a Pottery Barn and purchased two identical expensive and oversized leather chairs for my office. from then on, whenever someone asked to “have a word” with me, I led him or her to the comfy leather chairs situated in the corner of my office. I wanted to talk as equals, as fellow travelers down this road called life.
And this is what I have been doing for the last fifteen years. I listen to whatever is on people’s minds and in their hearts. Then I encourage them to find their purpose in life, how to handle their business or navigate their marriage and family. When the opportunity presents itself, I share one, two or three, or all of the Super Six verses God gave me.”
This reminded me of the character Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the ship’s counselor. But Feds don’t have an equivalent position, and Deanna wasn’t upfront about her own spiritual values as I recall. I also imagined a new political trying to “drop by Pottery Barn” and buy something without layers of approvals. Maybe they have special rules or lack thereof.. I don’t know.
In the book, he talks about his spiritual gift being encouragement. Certainly after the last few years (beginning with the budget-no temps problem of 2024, layoffs, the shutdown and proposed reorganization) employees could use some encouragement. But as a cog in the Administration machine, what could he do? The ultimate quandary of a middle manager.. which he was once. I’d be interested in how he handled those situations as a middle manager.But I wonder what employees would trust a member of the Admin? Then there is the question of “Evangelophobia” which my Progressive Christian friends seem to have, so I would expect many others do. Could that wall be broken down with goodwill on both sides?
Of course, I have an idea how he could be helpful. He could find some employees and lead a listening tour of FS units (not online, no recordings) organized somehow so that people felt safe. We used to do that on Forest reviews, meet with employees separately. They could then write a report on what employee concerns were and how they could be addressed or not, and give feedback to the employees on what would be done or not done. Since I would guess that most employees are affiliated with Ds more or less, they would take a great deal of partisan flack, but beyond that and deeper would come ideas for improvement.
Anyway, that’s how I’d use a person with that particular talent. At the end of the book, he has a list of 100 values to live by, based on the Golden Rule. I wish he would publish those for free online somewhere (maybe it is) because they are so specific that they challenge us in ways that maybe we haven’t previously considered. One relevant example comes to mind, #38 “I will respect your religious beliefs because I want you to respect mine.”
In federal service, we don’t talk about the specifics of our religious beliefs except when we leave “work” space and enter “friend” space. Most political appointees have always understood this. I think it’s absolutely inappropriate for Secretary Rollins to quote scripture in her X feed.
How would she feel if the next Sec of Ag quoted the Quran or the Book of Mormon, or the Upanishads?
Anyway, my advice would be for the new appointee to practice being helpful to people without the specifics of his own religious beliefs.
III. Ken has six go-to Bible verses that he calls the Super Six. He talks about them in the Christian context, but remember Jesus was a Jew, and so were his followers during the early periods so it’s not particularly surprising that they are Jewish ideas.
1. Matthew 6:33 NASB (that’s the Bible version he uses). “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and everything will be added unto you.” That’s what Ken uses, but the same idea is found in the Hebrew Bible Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” It seems likely that most spiritual traditions have some form of this alignment with the Divine, in whatever form or formlessness that tradition defines.
2. Matthew 20:26-28 (NASB) “whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant.” Some of us may remember the concepts of Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership book in 1977. Based on a quick search on Amazon, it appears that there have been quite a few books written on the topic. According to this website (who knows if it’s true?)
The idea of servant leadership came to Robert K. Greenleaf, a retired AT&T executive, after reading Hermann Hesse’s novel Journey to the East. The storyline is simple: A group of men heads out on a mythical journey accompanied by their servant Leo, who sustains the group with his song and spirit. After Leo disappears, the group falls apart, and the journey is abandoned. Years later, the narrator of the story finds out that Leo was in fact the head of the order that had sponsored the journey. He wasn’t just a servant—he was the guiding spirit, their great leader.
I know Forest Service folks who took these ideas to heart and spoke of them in the workplace, but got to them via Greenleaf instead of (or in addition to, I never asked) Matthew.
3. Colossians 3:17 (NASB) Whatsoever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to him through God the Father.” Regardless of who wrote Colossians (which scriptural scholars contest). I wonder what it means to “do it all in the name of”. I would prefer maybe “align yourself with the Divine and be grateful.” It could seem a little repetitive of 1, but adds the “as you do everything” part.
4. 1 Chronicles 29:11-13 (NIV). It’s longer, but the point is that God is the head over all and God is the ruler of all things. While again, Chronicles is part of the Hebrew Bible that Christians call the “Old” Testament, so again it’s not a uniquely Christian idea.
5. Malachi 3:10-12 (NIV) This is about tithing, and the point is that blessings will happen, and your crops will do better, if you tithe. Once again, this is from the Hebrew Bible, is post-exilic and is generally focused on improving the behavior of the Jewish community.
Which brings us to #6, Luke 6:31 (NASB): “Treat others the same way you would want them to treat you”. This reminds me of a Hillel story (remember Hillel predated Jesus)
When someone challenged Hillel the Elder (b. 110 BCE) to teach the entire Torah while his listener stood on one foot, he famously replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is commentary. Now go and study.
Now there have been many interesting discussions about the negative vs. the positive formulation (do treat others as you want to be treated, don’t treat others as you don’t want to be treated). Still for me, at least, it’s very hard work either way it’s formulated. And of course, the Golden Rule idea is common across almost all traditions, regardless of variation in other beliefs.
To summarize, I think “both things are true” about these spiritual values. Each expression of these truths (say, Ken’s) is unique and valuable, and, at the same time, there are underlying commonalities across traditions. If we are to welcome this new person to our world (in the spirit of the Golden Rule) as we would want to be welcomed, we shouldn’t be distracted by his language or beliefs (or currents of Evangelophobia in our society). At the same time, he should be respectful of others’ beliefs and of the culture of federal agencies that has served us well these many years.
Thanks Sharon. Nice review. As a sort of Bible-thumping progressive (if one can live in both camps) I find your review very helpful. I was going to write off the “new adviser” for the same reason I always took appointees of either party with grain of salt when I worked in DC but sounds like his heart is in right place and he does hold values that, as you pointed out, are universal to Jewish, Christian and other religious traditions. I love your idea of going out and listening to employees in the field. Wish you had some influence there!
The trouble with religious traditions is while they spout them, they don’t actually live them. Take the New Testament (Matthew, something or other) or the good old “eye of the needle” quote. Not lived by most people in political parties.