7 Quick Takes Friday #41

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

1. It is hard to believe, as I sit here this Friday, writing about the week's events that just last Friday I was sitting in a cafe in Seoul with two of my senior managers and a Korean businessman who recognized my face from our organization's website and was a former colleague of one of my senior managers. We had some interesting things to eat, the names of which I don't even remember, but most of them were tasty. Then, I returned to our hotel while the other three (all men) went out to drink. (There are still some strong divisions between male and female activities there, and when abroad I don't vociferate for equality. Besides, I don't even like to drink. I can think of much better ways to waste money than in drinking and gambling.)

2. Saturday -- well, one of my Saturdays (I lived through two Saturdays because of crossing the international date line) -- I found myself back in the Asiana airlines lounge enroute home. I think, given my lifestyle, that it was quite appropriate that I was flying an OZ (the code for Asiana airlines) flight. The lounge had class, serving chicken terremec with coriander rice. On the flight out, I had bimbambap (shown in the picture on the right), a Korean dish that I like very much; the stewardess seemed surprised that I knew what it was. Donnie picked me up in Monterey at 3:30, two hours before I left Seoul. That was a strange feeling. So, here I was at 3:30 on Saturday, riding in the car back home from Monterey and sitting in the Incheon airport at the same time. This time travel is truly mind-boggling!

3. Sunday revealed the wonderful improvement in family togetherness that has been made possible in the wake of Doah's recent tribulations and his subsequent change in group home from a place far away in the Santa Clara/San Jose area to a group home quite near to us, one that did not exist just a few years ago when we were searching for a group home away from Salts, which had become a dangerous place to live. Doah called early in the morning and said that he wanted to go to Mass with me. Since he is only 15 minutes away now, I was able to run over and pick him and then bring him back. I even had time to get him back home before my SFO (secular Franciscan) meeting that afternoon up at the St. Francis Retreat Center, which is only five minutes from my house, just a short ride up one of the hills that surrounds our little town. How convenient some aspects of my life have become!

4. Monday I was back at work and Korea seemed thousands of miles away. Oh, yeah, it really is thousands of miles away. That evening, I attended our weekly prayer group meeting. My co-leader is a spiritual director, so he often comes up with interesting activities that help us focus on the content of our concluding prayers. (We usually start and end with prayer; sometimes we also sing, and I get to let my fingers pick up the hymns on the old piano, which is a delight since I don't have a piano at home. Thank goodness, I am good at sight reading, probably as a result of those times in childhood when I wanted my teacher to think I had practiced more than I really had, i.e. sight reading was a skill developed from necessity.) Monday's interesting evening activities came from Things Hidden (Richard Rohr), a book that we have been reading for the last few weeks. It is a rich read and cannot be fully appreciated in just one read-through. On Monday, we each took a different reference to God that Rohr presented in the book and applied it to our one life. The sharing was very revealing and created an equally rich discussion.

5. Tuesday was another difficult day. One of the supervisors did not renew the contract of a troublesome employee. In fact, this particular employee had been fired from another division, and we took him in because often we can turn difficult employees around. We have a reputation for doing that, and I think we can because all of the supervisors in my division are servant leaders. This guy, though, is not one our success stories. He was suspended last month for throwing a book at his boss. Things went further downhill after that, and the management in his department decided that they simply did not have the skills to integrate him successfully with non-temper-tantruming, non-book-throwing, compliant-and-supportive, team players. So, the supervisor did not renew his contract when it ran out this week. He came to see me to explain that America is a democracy and therefore he saw no reason to do anything his supervisor asked of him unless he personally wanted to do it. To expect him to do otherwise constituted maintaining a dictatorship, in which he was unwilling to live. He wanted his contract renewed and the condition given to him that he could do whatever he wanted on the job. Trying to explain hierarchy and team play to him, I felt like I was in an Alice-in-Wonderland world for he understood nothing of what I said. These situations are always sad. Clearly, there was a mismatch between our job requirements and his job needs. I wished him well in finding a job in which he could call all the shots; there are such jobs, but I don't know of any to which I could refer him. It was a sad and frustrating parting.

6. I was a very popular boss yesterday (Wednesday). Because I had just returned from Korea, I knew Wednesday was chusok, the full moon observance day, sort of like our Thanksgiving. Both Koreans and Chinese observe the holiday, so I let everyone who worked for me who wanted to observe the holiday leave an hour early. Of course, all the non-Asian employees wanted to help their counterparts observe the holiday (I expected that to be the case), so they all left early. One of the Iranian supervisors dropped into my office and told me that this is also an Iranian holiday, so I gave them permission to leave early, too -- he really laughed about that because it was clear from my e-message that everyone had the time off. Then, one of the Israeli supervisors dropped in to tell me that the day was also sucot in the Jewish tradition. How wonderful that I was able to scoop up so many nationalities with the same day, different holidays, time-off
gift!

7. Today (Thursday) catechism classes began again. Right before today's session started, I caught Fr. Ed to give him the birthday gift I brought back for him from Korea -- his name in Korean calligraphy on a small wall hanging. It was fun watching him open it because he is always delighted by gifts. When I tell him he is still a little boy, he agrees! Our class this year is a smaller group -- only 15. They are moderately quiet, which is a change from the rowdy class of last year, which, thinking about it, started out as quite quiet until we got them involved in active lessons. I suppose we will see the same transformation this year. I noticed that our atheist from last year did not return for second year confirmation, at least not tonight (the two groups, first-year and second-year, met together for part of the evening, so we got to see some of our former students). We had seen a spark of spiritual understanding near the end of the year in our little atheist, but the summer has intervened so I don't know where he is in his journey now. One thing I do know, though, is that wherever he is in that journey, whatever path he is on, God is with him, whether or not he knows that.

As the weekend approaches, we look forward to the arrival of Lizzie, who is coming home for the weekend to attend the wedding of a friend. She has not been here for two years, so it will be good to see her. Wishing all of you an equally exciting weekend.