Of course, the author of “Driving America,” in emphasizing the joy of earlier driving on wide-open roads, forgot to note as well that it wasn’t that much fun to ride in cars without airbags and safety belts.  Plus, cars even as recently as the ‘70s were not sealed as well as our cars are today, so very often drivers and passengers were unwittingly subject to noxious exhaust fumes that seeped up into the cabin.  And if you were in a car accident, the chances of dying through infection or other injury were exponentially greater than those we face today!

Isn’t it amazing how we romanticize the past?  Individuals in companies that are undergoing change often make such remembrances into a very personal art form, one that can limit their lives and, thus, your company’s ability to grow and prosper.

I was an executive at two companies that experienced explosive growth.  At one company we had a spell where we added about 200 people a month worldwide!  Putting into practice a means to help all our coworkers handle such fast change was an imperative. However, once we got started, identifying the individuals who needed help accepting change in “their” company was easy–there are numerous tell-tale signs.

Those struggling with change often talk about “the good old days.” They hold onto the past with all the might they can muster. For example, one group of people was upset when the company no longer gave out little clocks to new employees. While a nice thing to do, it was no longer practicable.  But to some it was not merely a break with a tradition but they claimed it as a marker that the company would no longer honor what had gone before. What we did instead was not only note the arrival of new employees in the company’s monthly newsletter, but we added a little biography of past experience. This demonstrated to the staff the outstanding people who choose to join us and made them feel even better about the company’s prospect! While the company was growing one thing you can do to keep a sense of cohesiveness is to try and keep operational units fairly small. In that way folks are still fairly familiar with those who carried on shared responsibilities.

The lens we focus on the past is imperfect in dramatic and misleading ways, but also in natural ways because each person’s particular visual emphasis is invariably based on their biography and interests.  No way around that, even by taking the “fun, unencumbered, uncongested roads” of yore!

That’s why when change occurs, your first responsibility is to explain (or come to understand) not how change will occur, but why!  In that way when coworkers ask you why we’re changing, you can tell them – to get to a better place!  Your honest emphasis on the specific aspects of what will be better in your company after the changes have been instituted will go a long way toward affecting a smoother acceptance of the new processes, procedures, and people soon to be in place.

It’s a fact that some of your coworkers have microscopically narrow comfort zones.  And here’s another practical way to delete “microscopically” from that sentence:  When those in your charge or those you work with tell you that they’ll be happier “when” this occurs or “if” that happens, remind them (and yourself) that there is no need to wait for the illusory “if’s” and “when’s.”  All that any of us is guaranteed in our life is this moment in time.  Consider how this moment, like the automobiles of 2012, is in so many ways better than what went before.  If you think about it, by the time you read this note the present will have morphed into the good old days!

Whoever said that folks enjoy living in the past are blind to a most obvious fact: There is no living in the past–the past had its moment of existence, but it lives no more. Remember to remind your coworkers that life–like our cars, our roads, and even the very English language we use to talk or write about them with high appreciation–inexorably changes around us, slip-slidin’ away.

But that’s no problem.  Think about it, then come to enjoy all the promises this moment holds!  And now this one.  And this one in your better company of today and tomorrow.

The composer Harold Arlen and the lyricist E.Y. (Yip) Harburg were hired to write the songs for The Wizard of Oz. Harold Arlen was a remarkable man. Considered one of the giants of twentieth-century music, Arlen composed over 400 songs, including the hits “Stormy Weather” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Arlen and Harburg were given only two months to complete the assignment of composing The Wizard of Oz’s entire score. Imagine trying to accomplish that!

They met the deadline–but the story gets even better.  The “rainbow” song was initially deleted from the film after a preview because MGM thought the song “slowed down the picture”!  Of course, the song was eventually reinstated

Where am I going with this? First, you can guess why the song was removed? It probably came about through a decision that was a careless consensus. I bet at one time or another we have all worked in an organization that demanded consensus decisions. Decisiveness is nowhere to be found.  The course of action is usually the child of a tepid compromise designed to suit everyone polled.  How was the song reinstated? Most likely, a leader brought decisiveness to the scene. He or she said, “There is no way that song won’t be in this movie”. The good sense fostered by decisiveness prevailed and we came to love a song recently voted the #1 song of the century and the greatest movie song of all time!

Remember, the seemingly common events and decisions we observe or participate in daily—that we sometimes dismiss or even disparage as boring or at best pro forma—are imbued with wisdom if we will be alert to it. These “frames of” or “slices in” highly meaningful time occur in every aspect of our lives, but companies and organizations, because they are Action Central for high-stakes decisions, offer a rich lode of wisdom-they merely have to be harvested.

For example, if you attend a meeting called to reach a decision on a key issue, more than one opinion will be offered up–and folks choose sides for a hundred reasons, stated or not. When a decision comes down after that meeting, take the time to understand how the decision was reached, what the winning side did to prevail, when you might begin to see the results, and what further or unexpected effects may follow on from the original decision?

I can remember a situation where two different views on an issue were brought to a meeting. I was a little surprised that one person’s view was quickly adopted by management. On inquiry I found that one of the proponents took the time to sit with the decision makers before the meeting to answer any questions they might have concerning his view. His opponents had not. Consequently, the folks in charge were fairly comfortable with the soon-to-be prevailing opinion even before the meeting occurred. They had had time to think about his view with an especial focus on the benefits of going his way.

By paying attention when decisions are made you will be seen to be an “intuitive, insightful” leader, when, in fact, you have simply taken the time to be an observant, caring, and careful one.

Here’s some tag-on advice. If you are having a difficult day, pull up the words to “Over the Rainbow.” Surely, each of us has days when trouble does not “melt like lemon drops.” But never is there a day “when the dreams that you dare to dream, can’t come true.” That is completely within your control, exactly where it should be, if you will take an interest, pay good attention, and learn from what you find in the processes all around you.  In this way, Mondays are never mundane, meetings never boring—they are healthy grist for your mill.

Each player retains the confidence that comes from prior successes, he understands that he and his teammates do right to harvest immense satisfaction from any significant achievement, but he also understands that while those achievements provide a ticket to ever greater achievements, past wins do not guarantee future wins.  And by means of earlier wins that season, he is not entitled to future wins without new work and sacrifice.

As the former president and COO of a highly successful service provider to the pharmaceutical industry, I have learned a fair amount about the keys to building a sustainable competitive advantage.  I consistently reminded my co-workers that we needed to prove ourselves daily. The comparisons are endless:  A friend tells you about a terrific play, one certainly worth seeing, but that good review of the work should matter little to the play’s performers. They know that when the curtain goes up, the folks in the audience are expecting a great evening. But at that moment the paying customers will gain not one shred of satisfaction from what they were told of prior performances.  This night’s performance stands on its own merits—so the actors go out there and give it their best; every night is opening night!

Here is a more dramatic telling of the need to be at your best daily. My twin brother was a fighter pilot in the Navy with nearly 300 carrier landings–many at night. I once asked him, “Bill, what are you thinking about as you hurtle toward the ship’s deck at 200 miles per hour?”  “That’s simple,” he said.  “I’m thinking that it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve done this before–if I can’t get my plane safely on board tonight, this time, I have a real problem!”

Second is the problem of focus. We have all read of the distractions that beset the teams as they try to prepare for the Super Bowl while circling in a whirlpool of hoopla surrounding the game. I’ll bet it’s sort of like trying to study for a final exam in the center ring of a circus tent, a cadre of clowns carrying on to the right of you, a parade of linked elephants turning up the sawdust to your left.  When I speak to groups on the attributes of great leaders, I list the ability to get things done. They shake their heads in wry agreement when I remind them that it’s great to be involved in crafting mission statements and vision statements. Thinking in aspirational terms always gives us confidence—the hours spent on these tasks offer a generalized, communal era of good feeling.

But the next day when we come to work, we must have a laser focus on just one thing–making that new or redrafted mission statement a reality. We need to get things done. It sounds pedestrian to some but not to really successful companies.  The Fed Ex slogan is the perfect directive to its employees: “Absolutely, positively the next day.” I can’t imagine anyone in that organization who doesn’t understand what today’s mission is and that it must be done.

And so when you watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, think about these two factors to success:  which team best realizes that all past victories and accomplishments were steppingstones to, preparations for what for many players will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to excel; and which team is able to maintain its focus upon the job at hand.

A final story:  Many years ago I had one of my greatest chance encounters.  On a plane flight toSalt Lake CityI sat next to Dick Bass, then the oldest man to climbMount Everestand the first man to climb the highest summit on all seven continents! When I asked him his key to success, he smiled and said, “I just kept putting one step in front of another.” Now there’s good preparation as well as focus upon reaching his goal.

Enjoy the game!

As you know, much is being written about Joe Paterno upon his recent death. Lots of judgments on his life, vigorous analysis of his legacy.  As I read these kinds of articles, I am called to the adage “Even God doesn’t judge a man until the end of his days.” Frankly, I am not certain that one’s passing over grants the living a license to judge his or her life.  However, lessons can be learned from studying Coach Paterno’s life–powerful lessons!  Any child can see the consequences of some of his self-admitted flawed judgments, but to judge the man, as opposed to judging his actions, is something I will leave for a Higher Order of judge and jury. Thankfully, He is far more compassionate than any of His human creations are. And that is how it should be.

The life lesson I focus on in looking at Joe Paterno’s life is one that holds a great opportunity for each of us to increase our humanity day by day. It is the manner in which the board of trustees at Pennsylvania State University terminated Coach Paterno.  According to news reports, upon reaching a decision to terminate Coach Paterno, the trustees called him on the telephone to give him their decision!  After giving 46 years to the university, he was fired over the phone!

From what I read, the soundness of their judgment as to ending the coach’s tenure is not in question, but the manner in which the trustees acted upon their decision has drawn wide criticism. Why? When I speak on the vital attributes of great leaders–those who practice humanity, I naturally talk to the need for them to respect all others with whom they come in contact, from the mailroom to the boardroom, from the oil-drilling platform to the London penthouse and heliport.

Can any of us conceive of anything that is more important to our person than being respected? Being noticed and treated as a person of worth? I don’t know about you, but in my life, respecting someone and having that individual reciprocate in kind, feels like love’s closest cousin.  We so cling to notions of respect that the vicarious hurt we suffer in watching another being disrespected can sting as much as when we are so injured. Self-respect is so deep in our souls that it takes little imaginative effort to put ourselves in the melting pot of another person’s critical scene as it plays out!

Some claim that it’s trite, even childish to call a team of people–be it in sports, business, the military, or in our everyday lives a “family.”  Not so—when any group has a deep, energetic bond of feeling that passes between and among them, they are a family! In Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Dell Publishing, 1977), Richard Bach rightly describes a family:

“The bond that links your true family is not of blood but respect and joy in each other’s lives. That is why a family seldom grows up under one roof.”

Given that realistic definition, are a group of people genuinely concerned about the success and well-being of each member of that group family? You bet they are. But besides feeling and expressing “joy in each other’s lives,” the second key ingredient is a mutuality of respect. Meaning that most fifteen-year-olds know not to break up with a girlfriend or boyfriend over the phone.  That’s not an action taken after a judgment made in justice and mercy.

The next time you have to take a decision that involves another soul, carefully consider not only what you are about to do but how you are going to do it.   As William Butler Yeats asked in a poem:  “How can you tell the dancer from the dance?”  Considering how we give a judgment is as important, then, as the respect embedded in the content or message of the judgment.

Delivering hard messages in a manner of respect for the judged—and, thus, for yourself as well– might keep what is otherwise a good and just decision from becoming the bad seed that soon sprouts criticism of you—or of your board–by all who are affected and those who observe and read about your deed.

I know the New Year is a commonly accepted juncture for reassessing the state of our lives–and it’s fine to stop and ask ourselves how we are doing, plus ask the biggie:  “Am I happy?  Happier than last January?”  But that blurs the point that happiness is a continuum, not a specific goal like losing fifteen pounds.  On a daily basis, no gradients of effort to be happier than we found ourselves at any previous moment–be it December 31st at 11:59 p.m. or January 1st at 12:01 a.m.–are needed to do that the best we can.

Having shared that self-constructed belief, I must admit that shortly after the New Year my wife was reading an article on tips for how to improve our well-being in 2012, and she read to me the ten suggestions.  Most were useful but one was really powerful–not the type normally found in these cookie-cutter advice columns: Take the time to forgive someone. Now that is a great idea, one I can really use!

Several years ago I wrote a letter-essay on forgiveness and mailed it to family, friends, and colleagues. Later I excerpted it for my book Humanity at Work: Encouraging Spirit, Achievement & Truth to Flourish in the Workplace (Chapel Hill Press, 2008). This essay prompted some of the most searing, emotional responses I have ever received from one of my missives.  Here’s a short segment from the letter I sent:

“Consider forgiving someone you can’t imagine forgiving…. I have someone in my life, someone I pray for every morning who I need to forgive, yet have not.  I have not found it in my heart to do so. I judge even though I know that judgments are seldom constructive and only build barriers.  Moreover, as Saint Paul observes, who am I, ‘a mere man,’ to pass judgment on another?”

I know something about this subject. I come from a large and loving family, but I can remember when family members would get out of sorts with each other. As a child, I would scratch my head over the subjects of their disagreements. Of course, to the adults, rifts between family members always concerned important issues—“He was supposed to call me last Thursday at 8 p.m. but he didn’t!  What’s wrong with him?” For that deep transgression, the offending party might be in the penalty box for a month or more!

At some level of consciousness we all know that forgiveness is a personally liberating act.  Why is it so?

A being who holds animosity toward another has a cancer feasting on his or her soul.  Animosity and especially long-term rancor shackle and enervate our humanity because ill will runs counter to one of our most fundamental instincts for survival, according to Charles Darwin–to help one another. Yet we can all remember times when we have stoked our anger, tending meticulously the fires of revenge or judgment, and then getting a sudden rush of energy when we act against our target-human.

But it is a dark energy, like that contained in a black hole, as it sucks the divine grants of goodness and compassion out of our being. When we inflame a wrath of hate or indignation towards others, the dark exhilaration at taking revenge—or just at zapping our target with a fine-tipped zinger—evaporates fast and then we are weaker than before. Our health is impaired, literally. We’re pretty much miserable and don’t know what to do with ourselves.

The reason forgiveness has such a commanding effect on our well-being is that it is a charitable act. I define charity as giving someone a second chance. Is there anything better in the new year of 2012 we can do for another and thus for ourselves than giving someone a second chance? Biographies are replete with tales of individuals who succeeded beyond all measure when some generous soul provided them with a second chance.  My friends, it is but a razor’s edge that often separates success from failure. That is why it sometimes takes the slightest intersection on our part to turn a life around. Forgiveness is an inspired intersection of one soul with another that can produce such an outcome!

Well, after scolding some of the new-year advice-givers, I guess I morphed into doing the same.  But here is something I hope you’ll remember—and I need to remember it, too:  When Mother Teresa was asked what one should do to lead a meaningful life, she responded, “Pray and forgive.”

Though strongly tempted, I probably should not speak to the fears we feel now at the state of politics in our nation.  Well… perhaps a few words.

At the outset, let me say that I do not and will not use my blog to promote any specific political view or philosophy. Like you, I have certain beliefs as to the proper role of government in citizens’ lives and how it governs best. Moreover, I have generally supported one of the major parties–but not always. In any event, know that when it comes to comparing the competencies of the two political parties, I am pretty much an agnostic.  Though not an atheist, or I wouldn’t be writing on this subject at all.

Having said that, I think there’s a lesson we can all take from the state of politics that is a powerful teaching, relevant to how we live moment to moment.  We must also examine point-blank our role in the genesis of politics and our individual political behavior within the whole. Hence this note.

The artist Tom Sachs writes that “If you worship money, you’ll always feel poor.” If you think about it, the same is true for those who worship money’s pals–power and influence:  enough is not enough for them.  Sadly now, where we see the effects of coveting power and influence play out most vividly each day is in the halls of government.  By contrast, during His time among us, our Lord never sought the company of those with social, financial, or political status.

How often His parables lead to the inescapable conclusion that the conventional use of power and influence regularly produces monstrosities. He taught that whatever bounty we are granted and/or have earned should be focused on the material and spiritual salvation of “the least of the brothers of mine.”  Recently, I read that while some only see the suffering of the poor, Mother Teresa saw their dignity and value: “Indeed, it is the poorest, who are not consumed with worldly matters, who are most free to seek God’s peace,” she observed. Think about it, among the most divine forms of “power” is power of compassion like hers.  So if you consistently find yourself coming up short in those incessant comparisons of your own power and influence to others’, congratulations!

Compare yourself instead to those who attend to the neediest among us, such as the leaders of nonprofits and NGOs, individuals of such compassion that they often cut their own modest salaries so that enough caregivers in their organizations can be kept on staff.  Other heroes of compassion “adopt” a needy child in their free time. They are influential leaders indeed! As you read this letter, know to a certainty that within earshot of your house, men and women, boys and girls are living in their cars. When you retire to your warm bed this winter night, compare yourself to the caregivers who spend their waking hours finding shelter for the homeless.

We hear lots of talk and see vivid symbolism around the cherished concept of hope.  The promise of hope has always been a darling of the political class.  Perhaps we instinctively believe that if someone, anyone, says they can provide hope, then they are to be trusted.  To bring up in a stump speech the emotional knowledge that citizens want, need, and thus value hope means that the candidate understands and thus is at least on the way to caring about us, right?

Well, trust under any circumstances—family, friends, work, business or political leadership–requires a leap of faith.  If you think about it, a trusting relationship is by definition a safe place.  Because we need emotional safety, trusting someone is a serious,key decision we make.  How does the Phish song go?  “Each betrayal begins with trust.”  One of the problems is that we don’t hold people to their proof, their actions taken in the service of our needs.  Descrying the reasons why we do that is another essay topic for another day!

But, for whatever reason, not holding politicians accountable for their assertions of fact has led to a fascinating phenomenon – claiming that what a candidate says is true because no evidence exists to prove otherwise.  That’s the ultimate exercise in foolish trust.  Are you familiar with the recent movie “Anonymous”?  The story claims that the plays attributed to Shakespeare were actually written by Edward deVere.

The fact that deVere died before ten of Shakespeare’s plays were written doesn’t slow these scholars down for a moment.  Nope, they argue next that a conspiracy to suppress the truth of deVere’s authorship has been perpetrated:  and the fact that not one shred of evidence exists to prove deVere’s authorship demonstrates how effective that conspiracy was!  You can’t make this stuff up.

But in political matters, too, as long as we give our leaders a pass on factually sustaining their positions and actions, we have to accept our complicity in cultivating the political quagmire.

Noted author and commentator John Kay has observed that “When we elect a government in a democratic society, we simply cast a ballot. We do not have to tell the government we reject why it has failed or the government we elect what we expect.” [Emphasis added]  There may be historical precedent for Dr. Kay’s hands-off reading of citizens’ proper response to government leaders’ actions and statements, but I think it no longer will do. Instead, we need to stand up to failure to govern with more focus, confidence, and firm expectation of their accountability.

Because in the last twenty years, it appears to me that citizens have simply and sadly concluded that our elected officials suffer from the behavioral panic and cowardice we witness daily outside the Washington bubble.  We think, “Hmm.  What a mess that is.  I expected more of them, and I didn’t think that government needed a primer on governance. Oh, well . . . .  Perhaps I was wrong. . . .”  It is, in my estimation, entirely too late for that kind of complacent response to what we see each day in Washington and in many state capitals.

My friends, shed your impotent, generalized anger and face the fact that placid cynicism, sophistication in the face of general societal anguish, and separatism of any kind is not going to help us through this period of rapid and turbulent change.  It is all about change now, as never before.  The changes in our work lives and in our political lives are here. They are among us, they are us, and there’s no place to hide.

As Mother Teresa gave her energies and care to the destitute, as employees of nonprofits and NGOs dedicate their energies and care to the poor and homeless around them in towns, cities, and countryside, we must each in this coming year (and beyond) devote our energy to studying the facts of our candidates’ and leaders’ current statements and actions, holding them accountable for each one.  Then we must take action to get on track, as we see it.

Once we know what we’re talking about—doing our homework, reading for facts , then we can take responsible action to lessen the gaping distances between perceptions and facts.  Because unless we know the truth—the hard truth, in many cases, we are not living free and democratically; we cannot “promote the general Welfare,” or, reliably in a time of inexorable change, “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

It is not too late to get a grip and be a truth-leader who requires accountability, just as the Church asks each of us to be a minister to our fellows.  But soon, perhaps, it will be so:  too late.

To conclude, I include an excerpt of a letter the great American mind Abigail Adams wrote from London to her son, later President, John Quincy Adams, on September 6, 1785, two years after the close of the Revolutionary War:

“I know . . . [America] capable of whatever she undertakes.  I hope you will never lose sight of her interests; but make her welfare your study, and spend those hours, which others devote to cards and folly, in investigating the great principles by which nations have risen to glory and eminence; for your country will one day call for your services. . . . Qualify yourself to do honor to her.”

What has been known since the mid-1930s is this: snowflakes are formed between the temperatures of 25˚F to 32˚F (freezing); from a temperature of 23˚F to 25˚F snow needles are created; at 22˚F frozen columns appear; and at -32˚F it stops snowing.  But here is what prompted my writing–scientists, including Dr. Libbrecht, don’t know why any of this occurs.  It seems that when it comes to the molecular dynamics of ice crystals, the scientific community is pretty much clueless.

What a healthy perspective that is–great minds admitting after decades of study that they don’t have an answer. No making something up, no crisis-management team called in from the four corners of the map, no spin–there it is!

The scientists’ admission provides a wonderful kernel of an idea for a valuable New Year’s resolution.  First, come to accept, whether at work or in private endeavors, that we can’t always have the answers.  Deposit in our cerebral trash bin the societal imperative that a lack of knowledge on most any subject implies some level and type of incompetence.

Rather, come to accept that saying “I don’t know,” or “I need to find that out for you” puts you among the self-confident people of the earth, those candid and wise people who accept the limitations of their mind’s competence.  Isn’t that better than fabricating some lame answer, anything to keep folks from piercing our strongly self-defended armor of infallibility?  That sharp defensiveness is, rather, what is lame.

Second, take the resolution one step farther–and this is a really tough assignment– recognize and embrace the close cousin of admitting you don’t have all the answers:  learn the remarkable practice of admitting a mistake.  I say remarkable since admitting a mistake is for some of us as rare as discovering gold in the back yard.  Through years of practice—uh, call that make-believe, we become constitutionally incapable of saying “I made a mistake.”

Surely you remember Fonzie staring in a mirror as his windpipe clamped down on uttering his mistakes. He was physically unable to tell that truth about himself.  It seemed funny, didn’t it, but remember—it got laughs because it wasn’t unusual. We saw ourselves in Fonzie!

After you yourself look in the mirror, look back at the year just ending and inventory the rich and famous who fell from grace.  I’ll bet you a cold soda that the majority of the fallen could have undone the publicity feeding-frenzy that followed upon their transgressions by simply admitting to their mistakes.  As we witnessed in the media during 2011, each denial of wrongdoing they made wove tighter a day-glo orange cloak of culpability around them.  Until they had no space at all to maneuver, much less breathe the clear, cool piney air of truth—simple, sincere truth.  Sincere—that above all.

My friends, can any observer of our words and deeds consider any one of us perfect?  Should an individual’s malfeasance come as a surprise to any one of us?  The Lord may have created us in His or Her image, but warranted no testament that we are perfect. Thus, my third point:  accepting that we are not perfect, and knowing not to overload our emotional circuitry with impossible standards and expectations of perfection, nay, omniscience, let’s take the following as our New Year’s resolution in chief:

I will have mercy on myself in all I say, do, and expect from myself and from others.  And when I make a mistake, that habit of mercy will lead me to admit sincerely my mistake as soon as possible.  That’s the best use of “asap”!

We have all experienced the death of a family member that was sad but not unexpected, a death that provokes a feeling of silent relief that the passing has been merciful—he or she had been ill so long.  However, others among us start this day like any other.  They tell their spouse they’ll be home in time for dinner, they promise to pick up some groceries, then give him or her a peck on the cheek, and go out the door.  “Oh, good—no rain this morning!”

Then the unthinkable happens, and the next morning we read about their having suffered an “untimely death.”  Now there’s a presumptuous term!  Can anyone know ahead of time when they will die?  Can anyone experience a “timely death”?  Nope, we allow that there is only one Timekeeper.  Growing up attending numerous Italian funerals in my family and community, I recall hearing mourners wail, “God took [him or her] too soon!”  My question is, too soon for what?  For taking the trip they always dreamed of?  For finally learning to play the piano?  For running a marathon?  For living life to the fullest?

The sudden or too-early family death shows us the true nature of Time:  it’s a cosmic deck of cards with one card sliding daily from the top of the deck.  But here is the catch:  not one of us knows how many cards He put in the deck.  Even so, being privy to that number wouldn’t matter for a lot of us who don’t perceive the deck as getting smaller.  But it is!  And we need to pay attention.

Not one of us knows if we’ll be dealt a card tomorrow, or get to keep our card even in today’s coming hours, but one thing we know to a certainty–we’ve been dealt this moment.

Could it ever be “too soon” to live this moment to the fullest?  Susan Boyle certainly understands that it is never too soon to take life up on every opportunity given.  In her case, we might say she has capably “taken life by the throat”!  Susan perhaps understands, too, that opportunity never attempts to measure itself against our expectations, and that’s why a hope realized in a chance at what we’ve wanted often storms into our lives.  Have you watched the video of Susan Boyle auditioning for “Britain’s Got Talent”?  It has been viewed more than 80 million times and my hits have sure contributed to that number!

The magic of Susan’s performance is not merely the completely unexpected disclosure of a world-class talent.  You need only look at the awed faces in the audience to verify the concept of “unexpected.”  Those faces make clear that on that evening a matronly, 47-year-old woman from a small Scottish village is hope’s very voice.  Her choice of songs is ironic, too:  “I Had a Dream” from Les Misèrables, is an expression of life’s miseries.  One of the most uplifting verses is, “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”  Yet, as Susan sang that evening of hope gone asunder, she put the lie to these lamentations.  Her actions in the bold spirit of hope “turned it around”!

Going into the New Year remember, life doesn’t kill our dreams–it simply asks that we do the work to breathe hope into those dreams and then take up every opportunity life gives us.

“The problem with God – or, at any rate, one of the top five most annoying things about God – is that He or She rarely answers right away.  It can take days, weeks.  Some people seem to understand this – that life and change take time.”  Anne Lamott

My Dear Friends,

As we near the closing of this year, please accept my heartfelt best wishes to you and to all whom you hold dear.

I recently spoke to a fairly large group on the subject of change—of which there is now plenty to go around.  After my talk, a woman came up to me, book in hand for me to sign.  I could see that she had been crying. “I am so frightened,” she said, “so frightened of what the future holds.”  There she stood, her spirit streaked with foreboding, a second proof of her words.

Because of the press of people, I couldn’t reply in any meaningful way.  I gave her my card, hoping she would call.  As she has not, I decided to use this message to remedy an opportunity missed.  Not knowing her identity, I will call her Mary.

Dear Mary, though we are in expectation of “The Holiday Season,” I know many among us are immersed in a different season – a season of anguish for unexpected losses.

But how does cloaking oneself in dread prepare us for what life holds in store?  Not a morsel of good can come from this self-indulgent play-acting.  It’s akin to practicing bleeding!  We are raised to believe that “We should always do the right thing.”  Doesn’t that also apply to nurturing our own emotional well-being?  Not allowing ourselves to fall into melancholy?  Perhaps that would be the best change we can engineer in a down-time.

Distressed times have blanketed our nation before—wars, various panics, depressions, but they have never diminished our strength or resolve as a people.  Perhaps in the last fifty years, we imagined ours a generation immune from any blight of uncertainty–the too-strict parent of doubt that can shred our confidence. Not so.  We, too, are very much a part of history, just as our ancestors were.  Generations before ours have confronted their own styles of fear-mongering by people who reveled in and profited from chaotic times of change.  Even so, no doomsayers extinguished the luminance of our citizens’ free will.  Nor of our common sense. We are, after all, the only creatures on this planet divinely deeded the will to decide how we shall react to anything that crops up in our lives.  Of course, admitting the full presence of free will into our lives means that we stand up to hard emotional and physical work—for the duration.  We cannot hide from this responsibility by fleeing to the odd comfort of a debilitating state of dread.  Mary, in this life there’s not one of us that’s a “walk-on.”  The contest grants no time-outs.

Why not? The Lord has bestowed on each of us a gift unequalled in the universe–a unique personhood. As that gift is personally bestowed, He asks in return that we assume responsibility to better ourselves, to treat ourselves with compassion…to ripen His gift.

Humans are not truly animated until the soul gives birth to the spirit,  tends and nurses it, filling it up with strength.”  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Slightly more than a year ago, 33 Chilean miners were rescued after surviving for 69 days in a collapsed mine shaft.  They were completely cut off from the outside world for 17 days.  The fear these men experienced was in no way illusory.  When asked how he survived the ordeal, one rescued miner responded, “I met God and I met the devil – God won.”  I know where he met the devil, in the lightless recesses of his doubting mind.  In that venue, hellish thoughts are spawned and our panicky fears of chaos hang from the cavern walls, ready to swoop like congregations of rabid bats.

Where did he meet God?  God, lodged in this miner’s life’s core, is the Healer who saves us daily, sometimes in strange and mysterious ways.  So we are not meant to understand life’s mysteries, Mary, those times when our hearts are seared by a preponderance of life’s ills.  Only the spirit can decipher these mysteries.  Only the spirit can be with us, walk with us after we are sick of the negative messages of disaster.  When our tears fall.  Rather than providing mortals with the verbal answers we desperately seek when heaven and hell converge in our minds, the spirit mercifully, in quiet patience, offers faith.

“Faith is the radical trust that home has always been there and always will be there.”  Henri J. M.  Nouwen

I really like Nouwen’s teaching–he tells us that faith is trust on steroids.  Faith lives in the spirit.  Anne Lamott clarifies faith’s identity, reminding us that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty.  Feel fortunate that you are not burdened with omniscience–knowing all that will occur to a certainty–because in that case you could not embrace faith!  Faith is non-demanding, fully in tune with our mortal infirmities.  When the landscape of our lives is stripped naked of all pretence, faith resurrects our courage.  It harbors no prospect of self-aggrandizement, it asks nothing in return.  Faith informs us that the path to hope is always near.

“Suffering produces endurance: and endurance character; and character hope.

And hope does not disappoint…We are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope:

For who hopes for what is seen?”

                                                                                    Romans 5:4-5; 8:24

My dear friend, mentor, and editor, Linda Hobson, who contributed to this letter, honors St. Paul’s idea of hope, above, because it’s not glitzy, sentimental, or romantic: “Hope is turning the other cheek to an oppressor, and not rolling the eyes, either; it’s the vote we cast at the ballot box despite not really liking or understanding any of the candidates; and it’s the act of a good Samaritan despite the Samaritan’s being late for a lunch meeting.  Hope is smooth and open breathing, the stomach unclenched from hour into hour, ourselves curious and willing to contribute to human events as they happen; hope is genial; and hope waits.  Hope is patient even after love has gotten bored, clicked off the remote, and walked out.”

Hope is also a conduit into our highest imagination, Mary. It is said that hope puts us in the mood to succeed, but hope is not a sweet emotion, like that transparent green butterfly fluttering around in an anti-insomnia medicine commercial on TV.  Hope demands a will and a way—it demands that we act.  If you think your dreamed-of promotion will result from sitting cross-legged in your office, burning incense while you repeat the mantra “I want to be President of this company,” save your matches; be assured that you can chant until your breath palls at your empty request, for hope demands of us  the will and the way to fulfill its promise.

Life doesn’t kill our dreams–it simply asks that we do the work to breathe hope into those dreams.

“The tragedy of life is what dies in a man while he lives.”

Albert Schweitzer

 And when our longing for comfort and love and approval from others is most intense, when we are in hard times, we need to look inward to the love the Lord has infused in our life core—our healthy love of self.  Self-love allows us to accept mercifully that when we are accosted on life’s path by grief and despair, Mary, there is some part of that path we must always walk alone.

In his wonderful book The Heart Aroused:  Poetry and Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (1994), David Whyte claims that to find the path we deserve, “We have to leave the path we are now on, even for an instant, and earn the privilege of losing our way.”  At that instant, The Lord will extend a guiding hand.  Imagine all the women and men you have come to admire – perhaps they didn’t find their way but instead lost their way . . . to find a way to a higher calling!

“Acceptance of death is one thing but to allow it to upstage the joys of living is ingratitude.”  Ronald Blythe

Recently when my wife Jean and I found a location well off the beaten path by using our GPS device, I mused that Lewis and Clark would have given most anything for a GPS system! Jean smiled, “If they had had a GPS,” she said, “their extraordinary exploration into the unknown west would not have been adventure!”  Of course she is right.  Theirs was one of history’s greatest adventures, a story to which neither man knew the ending.  An adventure is precisely another way to characterize a mystery. Their remarkable journey does not remind us of an Hercule Poirot mystery, but it was a mystery of the most exciting type.

Rachael Naomi Remen observes that ours is not a society of mystery, but a society of mastery.  What does this mean?  We’re control-oriented, and thus we love a good mystery on the TV, but we sure don’t want to live one out ourselves—that would be terrifying, it would fill us with anguish.  Given a choice, might we not opt for a celestial GPS to read our own stars rather than being as we are in this year of 2011–frozen in our tracks by the prospect of unrevealed changes that may lie ahead?  Changes we fear we cannot master and then control?

The true extent of our control shows up when there’s a sudden family death.  It shows us that Time is in control and masters us one and all.  Life is a cosmic deck of cards with one card sliding daily from the top of the deck.  But here’s the catch:  not one of us knows how many cards God put in our personal deck of days.  Even so, being privy to that number wouldn’t matter, for a lot of us don’t perceive the deck getting any smaller.  But it is!  Mary, not one of us knows if we’ll be dealt a card tomorrow, or even get to keep our card in the coming hours of today.  One thing we know to a certainty is that we’ve been dealt this moment.  Could it ever be “too soon” to live it to the fullest?

“We cannot put off living until we are ready.”  José Ortega y Gasset

My friend Brian Stiller, noted author and theologian, is now Global Ambassador of The World Evangelical Alliance.  Recently, Brian wrote an extraordinary account of a visit to the earthquake-ravaged northeast coast of Japan.  He tells of the near heroic efforts of various Christian organizations to assist the needy there.  While some thought these organizations were too small to do much, Brian observes that the impact of their united efforts has been profound—they are “a powerful witness of love and care to those in need.”  He adds that “A sports metaphor came to mind [while I watched] people working to bring hope to hopeless times and places.  [A] boxer taking on another in a heavier weight class is said to be ‘punching above their weight,’ taking on more than one would expect.”

Ernest Hemingway famously wrote that only bullfighters live their lives “all the way up,” implying that only a small group of “extraordinary people” feel fulfilled.  What nonsense.  The Lord doesn’t play favorites; we are each divinely designed and extraordinary.  We can each live life all the way up–we can punch above our weight, paradoxically–when our inner nature aligns and acts upon our healthiest human traits:  love, empathy, compassion, and forgiveness.  Much like the tumblers of a cosmic safe dropping into place, the radiance of this alignment illuminates God’s intention in granting us the miracle of life–to put in motion our free will to help all who come within the orbit of our own existence.

Mary, the next time a fear of the unknown leaves you feeling as though you’re hanging onto the rim of life by your fingertips, take to heart the following instructions by the naturalist Henry David Thoreau. There are some who admire the beauty of Thoreau’s words but dismiss his observations as abstract idealism.  An idealist–now there’s a job description sorely missing in today’s want ads!  Actually, Thoreau’s twenty-six months’ sanctuary at Walden Pond (July 1845-September 1847) marinated his “idealism” in remarkably practical ways, imbuing him with unique insights.  The following tutorial, if pursued, is the work of a lifetime, but what better time to start than right now:

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment [at the pond]; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.  He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.  In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.  If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them.”

Mary, our life, lived through our thoughts and feelings put into action, makes this foundation Thoreau identifies.  On those days when fear holds your thoughts hostage, remember this instead:  the Lord intended us to be vital, curious beings, constantly in a state of re-birth, thus as open to change as everything else around us is.  And when we pass over, our spirit no longer encased in its mortal trappings will be as it was at the moment of our conception, in all ways flawless, without a hint of the pain rained upon us during the course of our worldly passage.

My love to all who receive this message,

Sandy

“If only you could see how heaven pulls the earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end.”   Lisel Mueller

In a recent interview the iconic singer Tony Bennett made an interesting observation.  He said that with the ascendance of megastars like Elvis and the Beatles, performances moved to large auditoriums and outdoor arenas, thus “Singing lost its sense of intimacy” between the singer and his/her audience.

His remark prompted me to wonder–have we lost a personal sense of intimacy with our fellow citizens?  In difficult times, especially, we each crave the love of others.  And we should, as love received induces gratitude.  Yet at times even when our longings are most intense, we need to look inward to the love that has been divinely infused in our life core—our healthy love of self.  Self-love allows us to accept mercifully that when we are accosted on life’s path by grief and despair, there is some part of that path we must always walk alone.

In my book, Humanity at Work: Encouraging Spirit, Achievement and Truth to Flourish in the Workplace (Chapel Hill Press 2008), I observe that “In his wonderful book The Heart Aroused:  Poetry and Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (1994), David Whyte claims that to find the path we deserve, ‘We have to leave the path we are now on, even for an instant, and earn the privilege of losing our way.’  At that instant, The Lord will extend a guiding hand.  Imagine all the women and men you have come to admire – perhaps they didn’t find their way but instead lost their way . . . to find a way to a higher calling!

Naturalist Henry David Thoreau wrote of “a road less traveled,” his call to arms to live fully as an individual, not aping conventional ways of making do.  So as we travel the first road, the one more traveled, be aware and vigilant, wait in hope for that speck of time when your perception of the world shifts slightly.  At that point in time and space, we are momentarily aware that our lives don’t fit snugly upon life’s pieced out, traditional quilt.

In that instant, we see that we may be honest to ourselves only if we are freer, more open and adventurous, yet more untried and untested—even hazardous—life traveling the second road.  Don’t people say that beyond the shoulder of either road “It’s a jungle out there”?  What to do?

My advice is this–crave all the love and support you can earn and garner from others, and give to them in return, but don’t despair that there is some part of the journey where self-love must sustain you.  Partly, we do have to go it alone for the sake of earning character and strength along the road less traveled.  How else can we fully know our self?

My friends, has there ever been an adventure where the explorer confronts the wilderness as a totally solitary challenge? Even in solitary times, necessarily solitary times for our growth as individuals, the Spirit is with us in the thicket, and in the thick and thin of it.