Winter Day

I woke up this morning to below zero wind chills and a snow covered landscape.  It was only about an inch of snow but enough to change the appearance of my neighborhood.  It was a day off from work and my usual demands in the office and a day that I planned to spend with my good friend, Father Dennis.  The extreme cold and snowfall gave me some concern about driving on the somewhat lonely country roads that take me to Dennis's home but I decided to try my luck and hope for the best.  After dropping my wife off at her office I got on the interstate and headed south.  Despite the frigid temperatures the roads were remarkably dry and free of ice.  The morning sunrise had a beauty you can only experience in winter, at least until the sun was fully over the horizen and it seemed like a lazer beam aimed at my face.  I had already had to stop once and manually clean my windshield from salt residue.  Apparently there was ice covering the tiny holes on my windshield wipers that prevented the washing fluid from squirting out.  When the full force of the morning sun shone in my eyes I was completely blinded a couple of times until I changed direction away from the east.  I eventually made it to Dennis's house and we soon headed out to a local Mom and Pop restaurant for a hot breakfast of eggs, hash browns, country ham, and biscuits and gravy.  During our meal and throughout the day we had wonderful conversations about life, spirituality, and growing old.  In the afternoon, when we both were in need of a nap, I said my goodbyes and I headed home on on the slower but more scenic backroads.  Now we are heading into another cold night followed by another snowy day tomorrow.  I am looking forward to a day at home where I can sit in my room and look out my window at the falling snow.  Winter can be harsh but like all the seasons it also has it's beauty.        

The Patterns Of Our Lives

All is pattern, all life, but we can’t always see the pattern when we are part of it.
-Writer Belva Plain

I have always enjoined reading the biographies of famous people or watching documentaries about their lives. I find it fascinating to see what influences and experiences shaped them into the people they became. I have attempted more than once to identify and understand my own influences and experiences. How did I become the person I am today? You may occasionally ask yourself the same question. Much of the time when we are living our lives they do not appear to make sense. Even when we have a sense of where we want to be and what we want to do, it is never a simple path. Life is full of side roads and back alleys. Sometimes we explore and enjoy these side trips off the main path. Occasionally they turn into the path we walk for the rest of our lives. I had what most people would consider a stable and good upbringing. Life has given me a good education. I have been blessed with good teachers and mentors. I grew up in a tumultuous time of American and world history. I’ve lived in a monastery and I’ve spend more than more than half my life married. Despite my inadequacies as a parent I have two good sons. At different times in my life I wanted to be a priest, monk, rock star, social worker, psychologist, and writer. In some ways I have been all of these things. Looking backward, I can see how many of my life experiences have formed me into who I am. The individual threads of my life have woven themselves together into a tapestry that is who I am. My life often seems very ordinary to me but others think my life has been interesting. Your tapestry may have a different pattern than mine but you have one nevertheless. Take some time today to reflect on your life and see what patterns you can identify.

Quiet Courage

It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.
-Writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh

If you haven’t already discovered it for yourself, let me be the one to tell you that life is hard. It is also not fair and it is harder for some people than it is for others. The challenges of life do not mean that life is terrible and not worth living. There are few people who will not do whatever it takes to keep on living. To paraphrase from the poet Dylan Thomas, few of us go gently into that good night. It’s not that we fear death, it’s that we love living. Most of our days are ordinary. We take care of ourselves and our families, we drop our children off at the daycare or school, we come to work, and then we go home. For some going home means rest. For others, going home is delayed because of second jobs. Still others go home to hungry mouths, piles of laundry, and homework assignments. Few of us have not had moments where we wanted to scream and yell “It’s too much”! However, in quieter moments of rest and reflection, our faith is renewed, we feel secure in our belief that we will receive what we need, and hope gives us a sense of security. Some men and women do heroic things that we hear about in the news. I always admire such people. However, I also admire the everyday heroes that are never in the news. These are the people who push themselves to do all they are called to do. They get up every day and come to work. The take care of their families. They are faithful to their commitments. Such people are the salt of the earth and they are full of quiet courage that is not usually noticed.

Life Is Always Changing

Life is always moving on and changing. This simple truth manifested itself to me yesterday while I stayed home suffering from allergies. I have lived in Louisville and the Ohio Valley most of my life and never had any problems. Now, almost every time I don’t feel good, it is diagnosed as allergies. I used to like staying up all night. Now I can’t wait to go to bed. I used to love loud rock and roll concerts but now the crowds get on my nerves. I used to be more outgoing and sociable but now I prefer to just be home living a quiet life. The world I was born into no longer exists. The world I live in now seems strange to me at times as though I am in a foreign country that I do not recognize. None of these things are bad things. It is just proof that life is always moving and changing. Nothing ever stays the same and in most cases, it shouldn’t. I have sometimes been accused of being resistant to change. I think we all are at times. There’s always a little panic in my workplace whenever people sense that change is coming. I don’t believe people fear change as much as they fear a loss of stability. People like to know what to expect and what can be depended on. To keep people happy I think we need reasonable stability with change that offers something, not only new, but good. It is not change that people fear, it is loss. If my allergies get worse, I fear the loss of my ability to breathe effectively. When change is in the air, and it is always out there somewhere, ask yourself what it is that you fear losing. At the same time, ask yourself how the change may benefit you. Maybe a change that pulls you out of your comfort zone is a good thing. Life is not static and we cannot be static either. Life will move on and change whether we like it or not.

Self-Actualization

I don’t care, frankly, what people think. I do what I like.
-Chef Julia Child

I don’t believe this quote means that we should have no concern whatsoever about other people and that we should just do whatever we want, regardless of the impact on those around us. Unless you’re a hermit, and you have little contact with the rest of the human race, we do have to live our lives with some degree of cooperation and tolerance of others. I think what this quote tells us is that you can’t live your whole life trying to please other people, trying to impress them, or comparing yourself to them. Each of us has been given one life and we have to live it the best way we can. We will go through different stages of growth, immaturity, pain, and awareness until we hopefully have achieved some level of self-actualization. What is self-actualization? I believe it is that point in our lives, usually when we are past our middle age, when we become who we really are and we begin to realize our true potential and personal power. Self-actualization is at the top of Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”. You will never be who you are meant to be if you spend your entire live trying to please others or meet their expectations. I think Julia Child is saying that pleasing yourself is not inappropriate, or selfish, and that each of us must walk down the path that calls us. In her case, it was the call to learn French cooking that anyone could cook like a chef with a little effort. Each of us is more than someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s mother or father, or someone’s husband or wife. We may be one or more of all these things but self-actualization is when we discover our true essence and our true self. Do not confuse identity with roles. Doing what you like may be selfish but it can also be the path to your self awareness.

Dalai Lama Memory

Yesterday I was overjoyed to secure some tickets to see the Dalai Lama. He will be making several appearances in Louisville this coming May. For many people, including me, the Dalai Lama is a rock star. By anyone’s standards he is the most well-known and influential Buddhist in the world and he has been a major influence in my personal life. I consider it a great honor to see him and hear him speak. This is actually the second time I will be seeing the Dalai Lama. I saw him back in the 1990’s at Berea College in southern Kentucky. He was there because there was a large contingent of Tibetan students attending the college. The Dalai Lama is certainly the most famous holy man I have seen in my life. However, I have also been in the company of lesser known but still deeply spiritual men and women. One trait I thought they all had in common was a deep sense of humor. I believe people who are truly holy and deeply spiritual are also very humorous people. Such people, including the Dalai Lama, do not take themselves too seriously. You can’t be holy and pompous at the same time. The first time I saw the Dalai Lama he came out on the stage all serious like. He began to speak in Tibetan. After a few minutes he started laughing out loud. I feel certain he knew that everyone in the audience was having the same basic thought which was “Are you kidding? I came here to listen to the Dalai Lama and he’s going to give his talk in Tibetan”? The audience realized he was putting them on and the joke was on them. He then gave the rest of his talk in English. The week of the Dalai Lama’s visit I will be bridging the gap between East and West. I will see the Dalai Lama on a Sunday and the following Saturday my son will be ordained a Catholic priest.

Constructive Feedback

All of us are sometimes criticized. It is often referred to as constructive feedback to give it a more positive spin but it still usually feels like good old criticism. I have been criticized many times in my life and I admit that I didn't always take it very well. It's not because I think I am perfect. It's more because I really strive to do things well and to always do the right thing. When someone tells me I am not meeting an expectation, it hurts. I don't know if there is a painless way to receive and accept constructive feedback. I do believe, however, there are painless and positive ways to give constructive feedback. First of all you must always respect the dignity and feelings of the person on the receiving end. Constructive feedback can be presented in a gentle, even loving, way. Constructive feedback doesn't have to be presented with negative terminology. The reality of a situation can be presented in a non-threatening way balanced with positive examples of how the situation could have been handled or how it might be handled in the future. I don't believe any decent human being comes to work or does anything with the intention of making mistakes or doing poorly. In today's complex and highly technical work environments the use of computers often makes the possibility of errors more likely than not. Some management gurus, like W. Edwards Deming, believe that mistakes in the workplace are usually the blame of a system or a process rather than people. When was the last time a "system" or a "process" was put on a work improvement program? People seem like the only option for criticism so they are usually given the blame. None of us are perfect, we do sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes our mistakes may be carelessness. Sometimes we may need encouragement or some deserved criticism. If we deserve it, we need to be humble and accept that we have made a mistake or need to get our heads on straight. If we are the leader, the parent, or the friend, do it in a caring, non- threatening way so the person walks away with some dignity and resolve to try harder. Encourage them. Don't break their spirit.