The Plant

Another goodie from the Internet sent to me by my brother. I have no idea where he finds these!As for this and other stories like it, I find that I can always use them at work for leadership training. Certainly, anyone who has been in a leadership position has had parallel kinds of things happen as happened with the retiring CEO and the young managers. As a leader, I always look for the Jims -- I don't find them as often as I would like.

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you." The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed.He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer! His name is Jim!"

Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow. All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"


* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust.

* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends.

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness.

* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment.

* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective.

* If you plant hard work, you will reap success.

* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.


So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.

Going to the Ball

As I emulate Cinderella and head off to this year's ball, I will leave a post for the sharing in my absence. First, let me say that I am not the ball type. I would rather be hiking mountains than sipping tea. But, I do not always get to choose. As one of the more visible leaders of our organization (combination of high post and big mouth), I cannot ditch the annual ball, much as I would like to.

Last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair amount of comments and discussion about my dilemma in what to wear. (I had actually been able to avoid earlier balls for acceptable reasons, but I had no acceptable reason last year, and so I appeared upon demand.) I could not bring myself to spend hundreds (or dozens) of dollars on the required attire: tuxedo or gown. There was so much more I could do of value with that kind of money, and there was also that Franciscan vow of poverty. So, I decided to wear a dress from Jordan that I had purchased there for $5 and that would look dressy in the USA although I had some serious doubts when I arrived and started to mix in among the tuxedos and ball gowns. (You can read the post here: VIP or VOP or Both? It includes a larger discussion of the decision-making process and results).

The most evident result was the reputation I gained by wearing ethnic dress. Everyone who did not attend the ball heard about it. This year, a few weeks ago, several people who had been to their home countries in the last few months brought me local dresses, asking me to wear them in honor of their culture. (I ensured that they had bought them for $25 or less, the ethical limit our organization places on gifts from employees to supervisors.) I understood the intent. They were not bribes; they just wanted to feel that their senior supervisor respected and even liked their cultures. Of course, I do. I have been to most of their countries and speak most of their languages. Wherever I am, I try to blend and often succeed. I felt honored by the requests. The situation, however, contains its own dilemma: which of the six ethnic dresses and four ethnic shawls should I wear?

Actually, I have decided on none of them. I will wear that $5 Jordanian dress again. Then, I will find other occasions to honor all those who have requested it through the gift of their ethnic attire.

Interestingly, I may have started something. This year's ball announcement again listed tuxedos and gowns as acceptable attire but added "or culturally appropriate attire." Never think that one person cannot create change!

[Note: Image above drawn by Tom Dubois -- click here to see more of his beautiful art work, which is for sale.]

7 Quick Takes Friday #43

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

Since I spent most of the week sleeping -- well, at least evening and night and even an extra hour most days into the morning -- I am not certain that I have seven "events" to report, but I shall "dig" a little and see what I can come up with. Actually, I will make them short because I feel like sleeping already. It is this darn cold/flu/virus; I could sleep it off a lot more easily if I did not have to go to work every day! As for the seven takes, here goes:

1. Dinner with Shane and Lemony. This week was Lemony's birthday, so Donnie and I took her, Shane, and the grandkids to dinner at her favorite restaurant, Dona Ester's, in our little town of San Ignatio. We had quite a choice of authentic Merxican foods. If not anything else, this town is indeed authentic Mexican in many respects, not just in its food choices. Nathaniel sat beside me and chatted non-stop about bakugans, about which Grandma Beth knew very little and still knows very little (I cannot quite get my head wrapped around these newfangled toys) and battle plans, the latter of which he sketched out on a napkin for me. When it was time to leave, he mugged for my camera. Nikolina meanwhile slept and slept and slept, did not wake up at all during the entire meal (hm, seems she inherited that sleeping thing from her grandmother). Pleasant evening.

2. Tripping to San Diego. The next day Donnie and I left for San Diego. Padre Julio, a priest from Colombia, about whom I have blogged on this site earlier (see posts on Fr. Julio) had asked us to come see him in San Diego, where he had moved recently. When Padre Julio was a priest in our diocese, I had taught him English so that he could celebrate the English Masses. (I originally met him when he was celebrating our Spanish Masses, which is the Mass I usually attended on Sundays -- still do.) I was able to get free tickets to San Diego from all my frequent flying. Off we went, having obtained rather nice seats right by the door, or so I thought. It was freezing there, and so I was glad I had brought a warm hoodie sweatshirt for keeping warm! Cold aside, pleasant flight.

3. Dinner with Padre Julio. Once we reached San Diego, I called Padre Julio, who suggested that we meet at Anthony's Restaurant, a popular seafood restaurant on the harbor -- well, on land in the harbor. Thanks to the GPS we had brought with us and installed in our rental car, a Mazda that we quite enjoyed driving, we easily found Anthony's. Finding parking near Anthony's, however, was not nearly as easy a feat. It was clearly a popular restaurant. After several swings through the parking lot, we lucked out. Someone was leaving as we were approaching, and we were able to pull into the only open spot. I have no idea how Padre Julio found a space, but he did and, to our surprise, was already waiting for us inside. There were some interesting dishes on the menu but somehow we all felt like fish. So fish it was. That and some lively conversation, filling in the missing gaps in our information base since we had last seen each other. Please conversation.

4. Mass with Padre Julio. On Sunday, we put the GPS to good use again as we wended our way through San Diego to the church where Padre Julio was celebrating Mass, Cristo el Rey (Christ the King Church). We quickly realized that we were the only Anglos in the entire church -- gringoes, I suppose, would be the better term. Padre Julio was very happy to see us there and introduced me to his congregation as his teacher and us as "good gringoes" -- we were not quite sure how to take that except in the best of intentions as was meant by Padre Julio. After Mass, we parted wtih Padre Julio as he had to leave for Guadelajara and we got to spend a relaxing evening at our hotel. We had contemplated spending an evening on the town, but we know San Diego well from the days when three of our children were attending college there, so opted for a kick-back evening, instead. Pleasant rest.

5. It hit. On Monday, it -- the cold, flu, virus, whatever it is -- hit me, and it hit hard. I was wiped out before we even made it back from the airport. When I get sick, I crave sleep, something that I otherwise often get very little of. I was suddenly very tired, and it seemed like the long trip from San Francisco had never been longer. I am not sure if it seemed longer because I was not driving or would have seemed longer had I been driving; in either case, all I wanted to do was sleep. And so as soon as I reached home, I slept. All afternoon. All evening. All night. Pleasant dreams.

6. A week of work. I had grand thoughts of perhaps sleeping through the rest of the week as well, but that was not to be. Every day filled up with appointments before I left for home the previous day. No complaints will you hear from me about them for most were quite interesting appointments. Many people just wanted to talk about one thing or another. Several junior managers stopped in, wanting guidance on one or another topic or mentoring or just to talk. All the senior managers were out of town, so it seems that with the echelon of management between the junior managers and me gone, interaction between us took place on a several-times-a-day basis. (I will relate a joke about management and talking tomorrow; I am out of time for today.) Pleasant week.

7. Afghanis. The Afghanis who work in our organization, especially the Pashtuns, are delighted with the fact that I have now spent time in their country and that I have learned to speak some Pashto. They go out of their way to find opportunities to give me a chance to practice Pashto. For some reason today, I felt like an ice cream cone at lunchtime and stopped into Burger King where I had heard ice cream had just been added to the menu. The BK is across the street from my office, so it is often a gathering place at lunch for my colleagues. Sure enough, there were a few there today, too. Two of them were Pashtuns, and they immediately approached me, speaking Pashto. We ended up sharing lunch although I had not originally planned to eat lunch at all. These two are relatively new employees, so I got a chance to learn more about them. Pleasant company.

And now it is indeed night time. So, I will wish you all pleasant dreams.

Work and Spirituality

I read a post today on Catholic Spiritual Direction, a wonderful blog, listed on my blogroll in the right sidebar, to which I would refer anyone interested in very insightful posts on living a godly life in today's world. The question a reader had posed was "how do I deal with issues of advancement and self-promotion at work?" The answer was splendid, and I suggest you wander over there to read it.

I have often commented on work issues on 100th Lamb, and its predecessor blog, Blest Atheist. As with anything else, if one lets go and lets God, as the saying goes, work goes better. One does not need to tout one's accomplishments. God will ensure that they become known and noticed when that is important, and otherwise it is not important. Among the things that I have noticed when it comes to inviting God to take over my work life are the following (far from a full litany of benefits and blessings):

(1) Servant leaders become powerful leaders even though that is not their intention. Jesus showed us the way to be good servant leaders when he washed the feet of his disciples. I ask of those managers who work for me that they think constantly of when the feet of their employees need washing and to tend to that task with alacrity. Recently, a would-be leader who had run into some complications with his team members asked me as someone he considers his mentor how to handle the situation, and I told him he needed more humility, to throw his inflated ego in the trash because it was doing him no good, and forgive those who were creating problems for him. Oh, he found that hard, but he tried all of it. He even sent me a self-learning plan for developing humility, at which point I called him to my office to explain that one does not achieve humility; humility simply comes as a result of something that is so easy that is almost impossible for some people: always put others first. Others can say whether or not our actions are examples of our humility; we cannot begin to measure our own level of humility without being arrogant about it. A strange characteristic this humility! But so desirable!

(2) Power grows the more you give it away. This fact is one of the most counter-intuitive realities with which immature managers must cope. Most new managers want to hang onto power. They want their employees to defer to them, even sometimes to call them "sir" and "ma'am." They want overt respect. As a result, they get the titles, the overt behavior, and the public respect. What they don't get is the implicit respect that is not demanded but freely given, the love and support that comes with it, and the willingness to go the extra nine or ninety yards, as needed. I am tickled pink with employees who point out some shortcoming or inconsistency in my behavior. It means that we are working as a team, and teams are more powerful than individuals. I also notice that when both responsibility and authority are delegated to them, employees are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish the tasking. In turn, if the manager asks them to do something that they would prefer not to do, they do it anyway, without grumbling, because of the bond between them. That is real power. The power that comes with position is multiplied a thousandfold when it is bestowed upon a manager not by his/her superiors but by his/her subordinates.

(3) Dealing with difficult people becomes easy, fun, and rewarding. I have said it often, and I truly mean it. I love difficult people. They are my greatest reward for being a manager. Watching a disaffected employee become a contributing team member produces one of the warmest fuzzies that any manager could ever want. I have very few difficult people among the 400 or so who work for me although four years ago when I began this position the division was considered riddled with difficult people. Now the division is called the "black hole" of our organization by the EEO office and by the Union because even people who used to practically live in those places, complaining about their supervisors and work conditions, no longer visit. They are happy contributors to their teams' work. Once a senior manager, who no longer works for me, asked how to deal with difficult people. I told him that the key was so simple that most managers won't use it: genuinely love them. He told me sorrowfully that he could not do that and not long after resigned. I replaced him with someone who could do that, and the 30 or more chronic complainers in that particular subdivision now appear in the corridors and at group meetings with big smiles. When the new manager first appeared, many stopped me in the hallway to thank me for the change in leadership. Now when they are unhappy about work conditions, they do not run to the Union or the EEO officials for help; they come to their supervisor.

(4) The workplace becomes a place of worship as well, a place where people are inexorably drawn and from which they do not wish to depart. Many a night I have chased people home with the words, "we work to live; we don't live to work." Actually, it is not the living to work that compels people to stay in the office after hours. It is the palpable presence of God in our workplace. Who would want to leave that? Once I had a manpower team from headquarters visit for a week for the purpose of determining staffing needs -- were we understaffed (yep), overstaffed (nope), or staffed just right (not that, either). After spending a week of visiting and talking to employees, during which the visitors had open access to everyone, thanks to a building schematic and names/titles of employees that I gave them with the invitation to go wherever they wanted whenever they wanted and talk to whomever they wanted. They did. The head of the visiting team came to my office at the end of the week, ostensibly, I thought, to talk to me about staffing levels. Instead, she told me that she wanted to talk about the atmosphere in the work place. "I have read about places like this," she said, "but I have never actually seen one -- where people love to come to work, support each other, and willingly remain to make sure that all tasks are completed and everything is ready for the next day. I wish I could work here." There is nothing to my credit in what she found. Rather, that is what happens when one lets God into the workplace.

(5) Moreover, once God is in the workplace, God does what God does best. Miracles happen. Chestnuts get pulled out of the fire by unseen hands. Cutting-edge and seemingly-impossible-because-no-one-has-ever-done-it-before work gets done with amazing ease. Where task and mission require, 48 hours of work finishes itself in eight hours. Pride in the accomplishment of the division and not in the accomplishments of individuals appears; employees give credit to each other, supervisors to employees, and employees to supervisors. People talk about God and even pray together -- in an institution where separation of Church and State is the norm, the expected, the required. The most amazing, though, are the real miracles. We have had several people literally on the brink of death who have reappeared in our midst. I have blogged before about some of them, among these being Jackie, who ended up with a blog clot in her lung and comatose after surgery but survived and will be returning to work, and Tareq, an Iraqi immigrant to the United States who suffered from cancer and heart failure and did eventually die but not before a miraculous post-surgery recovery that gave him an additional year at work and at home, a year he desperately needed to put his family matters straight and save the life of his son who had to be rescued from Iraq when he was personally targeted by insurgents. For all these people, we have had employees of several faiths praying together, our own little ecumenical world, where religious flavor and fervor come second and God and each other come first.

Well, this is not at all the post I had planned to write today, but the writing of it took on a life of its own, inspired by my reading of Fr. Todd's response to the questioner on Catholic Spiritual Direction, and here it now is. So, I shall post it. Tomorrow I will post what I had planned to put up today.

(Note: I know that the image is not entirely appropriate, but it is also not entirely inappropriate. I found it on the web and could not resist including it!)

7 Quick Takes Friday #38

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

For this week's quick takes, I am moving back from a concatenation of themes to a litany of days. From Friday through Thursday, each day was different in some way even though my work week calendar was a wall of meeting times.

1. Friday. The day began a little unusually but in a fun way. One of the gurus in our profession was conducting some training for us, and the head of the training division brought her to meet me. We have known each other by name for decades but had never met. That was fun. Then I walked her upstairs to our training center. Walking through the halls with her, I was greeted by the usual hugs, handshakes, and hellos in many languages. I love it when I can mingle a little more closely with employees than my typical daily schedule allows. (It is also good practice in keeping my language knowledge fresh for unused languages become rusty and then disappear.)

2. Saturday was Doah's day, and as soon as I get a chance I will post about it in detail on Clan of Mahlou. Donnie and I drove to Santa Clara, where he lives in a group home. We all went to lunch; then he and I took a walk for exercise around the little shopping area where we had lunch. Each of us has lost one pound this week. It may not sound like much, but one needs to lose one pound in order to lose ten. (One pound ten times adds up.) After that, I gave him $20, and he immediately spent nearly all of it on food for his co-workers. Then, he wanted to buy a fishing pole and tent for his next outdoor adventure, planned by his group home leader. The fishing pole was easy, but the only affordable tent had been sold out. Doah was not to be daunted. He approached the store manager, all by himself, and in his limited language somehow convinced the manager to take down the tent in front of the store and sell it to us at discount! (And they call him retarded!!)

3. Sunday was one of those "stuffed" days -- too many activities and too much food, beginning with breakfast in Monterey and ending with a late lunch at our favorite restaurant, Jardines, in San Ignatio, the latter with visiting friends from Maryland. We managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (you may have seen it on Star Trek IV), but not to visit the exhibits -- just to use the bathroom and renew our membership because Shane and family were planning to visit in the afternoon and use our guest cards. (Sort of like what Doah used to do when he was living here -- go to the Aquarium not to look at the fish but to eat them; there is a great cafeteria there.) I also squeezed in noon Mass, which is in Spanish, so it was a Spanish-speaking afternoon: Mass, Jardines (the waiters there are more comfortable in Spanish), and our friends from Maryland (one is originally from Mexico and the other from Panama). Later in the day our neighbor dropped by; she is also Latina. Gotta love San Ignatio for keeping my Spanish fresh.

4. Monday. Monday is usually a boring, difficult day at work with one meeting after another, so I look forward to our evening prayer group. We are reading Things Hidden by Richard Rohr (great book), sharing our reflections on the various chapters, and often the needs for prayers that they elicit. Typically, we begin with singing hymns; sometimes Johnny or Anne bring their guitar as background music (Johnny is a professional singer and guitar player so that makes for a nice singalong). More often than not, I end up pounding out the notes on the piano. Whatever works... We also discussed the girl who wants a blessing from the pope about whom I posted yesterday. It was a member of our prayer group who first brought her to my attention. After singing, talking about our lives (and prayer lives) for a few minutes, and discussing the book, we spend some time in prayer, to which we bring our own requests and requests that have been sent our way. We have seen some wonderful answers to prayers in this group. It is always an "up" way to end the day.

5. Tuesday. For some reason (the reason being simply that I did not look at my calendar before going to work), I mixed up my schedule on Tuesday, thinking that it was a day without any outside interaction, so I dressed comfortably in one of my Jordanian dish-dashas, rather than wearing a suit. After I got to work (a good half-hour from home), I discovered that we had a visitor being escorted by my boss's boss's boss, and I was scheduled to brief him -- in my dishdasha (long, ethnic dress). Oh, well! The deed was done; I had no way to change. I had forgotten, however, that the big boss spent some of his youth in Saudi Arabia; instead of being put off, he was very taken with my attire. Whew! (It was reminiscent of the time that I chose not to spend a fortune on a ball gown and wore an ethnic outfit to that event.)

6. Wednesday. I had such a rough morning! First, I had an employee who had been fired come to me for relief, but I could not provide it because she simply did not have the skills we needed. She was unwilling to try to learn them. She kept telling me how much smarter she was than her boss, so I finally had to be very frank with her and explained that she would have the same kind of problem in her next job if she did not begin to view herself more realistically, acquire the skills she needed, and ask for help instead of being defensive and pushing away attempts at helping her. I was able to let her resign instead of being fired, which seemed to take some of the bitterness out of the situation, but it is always difficult being this frank with people. On the other hand, one does them no service to let them walk away thinking that the firing was just a personality conflict when it was really a lack of skills. The latter can be fixed and make the person a better candidate for another job. Then I had to cancel a program review because the program manager was not ready. Well, he thought he was, but he was not. He argued with me about needing to discuss specific aspects of his program, about the need to document, and about the need to show measures of effectiveness and account for the effectiveness of the program. He bristled against anything I said that smacked of standardization. He explained that he was unique and exempt from doing things like others did them. Finally, I had to tell him flat out, "I am the boss; this is what I want; this is what you must give to me. So, go back and do it, and I will reschedule the review when you are ready." Two unhappy campers in one morning. Then I had to leave for our other office. "Bitchy Bethie is leaving the building," I told my admin assistants as I signed out. They laughed, and one said, "Hey, we're shocked! You never talk that way." Goodness, I don't usually feel this way, but it was not a usual morning.

7. Thursday. I arrived knowing that I had a calendar wall for the day: back-to-back meetings without a break, not even for lunch. My admin assistant noted that she probably should schedule a bathroom break, but there was no time for that, either. As bad luck would have it, every meeting ran late. One ran so late that I missed graduation for one of our training courses -- and I was supposed to give the closing words. Fortunately, one of the senior managers was there and could do that for me on no notice. We are used to no notice around the office. Then, my boss's boss arrived early for a meeting, and I missed the first 20 minutes. I walked in with an armful of water bottles to find everyone seated around the conference table and deep in discussion. Again, three of my senior managers had taken over. (It is nice that I can count on this.) All I was needed for, as it turned out, was to be the water girl. I handed out the water, which my boss's boss immediately spilled all over himself and the table, then joined the discussion. Well, maybe I was needed for a little more than just water since some decisions had to be made. It tickled me, though, to see how closely by boss's boss was working with my senior managers, without me there. One team! That makes for a productive and happy work place.

As for the weather, yesterday it reached 116 degrees: my ice-cream-on-a-stick turned immediately to soup-on-a-stick, and I was eating fast food whether I liked it or not. Clothes quickly became optional, and all three cats were lying on their backs, exposing their bellies to the fan. Pretty funny picture -- I should have taken one! Today the weather took a mad swing, starting off at 50% of yesterday's temperature: 58 degrees! I put on a sweater. I wonder what the dawn will bring!

Have a great weekend! Watch that weather! I hope yours will be more consistent than ours and that you will not have to be eating soup-on-a-stick.

(Remaining pictures and links are coming later -- I have to tumble into bed for a three-hour rest before leaving for work.)

Monday Morning Meditation #36: The Difficulties Leaders Have in Following God

After reading about all the kings who either did good but allowed the worship of Baal or did evil in the sight of the Lord, I began to wonder whether it is possible for royalty to be good/godly. While that may be a discussion for another place and time, with someone possessing greater knowledge of the topic than I, the failure after failure, especially with individuals who started out successfully, resonated with me. And so, I stopped my reading this week at the end of II Kings.

Reading: II Kings 7-25

Meditation: On a daily basis, I attempt to develop the leadership skills of a couple dozen middle and senior-level managers, using concepts associated with servant leadership. While one aspect of developing good leaders involves teaching them how to care about their people, understand those who work for them, and follow and apply organizational rules and regulations, there is another part that is rarely, if ever, discussed widely: God's role in our work.

Personally, I am fortunate. All the senior managers who report to me are believers and willing to discuss issues in spiritual terms, as well as pragmatic and legalistic ones.

The senior managers are not so fortunate. They must provide direction to a range of junior managers, some of whom are committed to personal ambitions that lead to self-centered/self-promoting decisions. Reaching down to these new managers, to help them understand that any decision that does not put God at its center is not likely to be the best possible decision in the long run, is difficult. First, organizational policies do not permit these kinds of discussions, the closest we can get being a discussion of servant leadership, which reflects principles from all three Abrahamic religions. Second, some junior managers, particularly those without any spiritual beliefs, do not want this kind of discussion; they do not want to think about what role God should play in their/our work. Separation of church and state can make leading godly lives as managers and leaders very difficult.

And then, admittedly, there are those times when I really do not want to listen. I know what God is telling me, but just for the moment, I really want to have my anger over some event, some person's failure to perform, or some behavior that has irritated me. And so I turn a deaf ear -- after which, of course, I feel horribly guilty and penitent. But that moment did take place, and there is no way to return to it and make it not take place. One can apologize, take actions to remediate/alleviate and otherwise try to mitigate the damage, pray, go to confession, and otherwise be willing to set things right with God and any individuals involved, but the fact that these moments occur (and probably will continue to occur) point out just how fallible one can become in a leadership position -- and I am far, far, far below the level of king. So, I find it easy to understand how the kings of the Old Testament failed and how the kings of today (whether royalty or just business/political leaders) fail.

There are also those times that the God-directed decision is not the popular decision or even the accepted decision by the uppermost level of management. Surprisingly, those are the easiest situations for me although they have not always been so. With the passage of time and the following of God's direction where I have been able to discern it, I have found that "selling" the "right" decision is possible. Moreover, God rewards us when we follow Him. I have often told subordinate leaders that sometimes to be a good leader one must be willing to lose one's job for making the right, rather than the popular or required, decision. I know whereof I speak. I have lost a job in that manner -- and God found me a better one. Since then, I have had complete trust in God when it comes to work. I don't have to watch out for me because God watches out for me.

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to intervene when I want to keep my anger or otherwise react in a non-servant, un-godly manner at work (or at home), to thank Him for his daily guidance, to praise Him for the wonderful ways in which He has been present for me and for the leaders in my organization on an every-minute basis, and to repent for those times that I have ignored His presence through inattention or desire to "do my own thing." After that, I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:
Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Monday Morning Meditation #30: Lead As Jesus Would

As I read about the successors to Solomon in the middle chapters of the book of I Kings, a clear pattern emerged: not only did these kings sin, but they also caused Israel to sin, much in the manner of Solomon sinning and causing Israel to sin at the end of his life, an act that caused God to be angry with him. With Solomon, it began (in earlier chapters of I Kings) with Solomon's taking of foreign wives against the commandment of God, a command with which God had sought to prevent Solomon being converted to foreign gods through the love of foreign wives and concubines.

Reading: I Kings 15: 33-34

Meditation: It may seem like a bit of a stretch to apply this history to modern leadership, but since modern leadership is the stuff of my every day life, I do see parallels and lessons nearly everywhere, including in I Kings. As was written about Baasa, he "did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin," so can it be that leaders of all sorts do evil in the sight of the Lord and in their sin make their followers to sin.

As a senior leader, it is easy to forget the influence that one has over the thinking and beliefs of one's subordinates. More than one display of anger, and some junior leaders will consider that heavy-handed approaches are permissible ways to manage. After all, it is easier to demand and to be angry when one's demands are not met than to share governance, listen patiently to someone you just know is wrong, and to compromise when you just know you are right. A lax interpretation of rules and regulations for self benefit tells both junior leaders and employees that cheating is okay if it is only "a little thing." Remembering that deeds speak louder than words can keep one from self-exemption in acting in accordance with moral and ethical standards especially when one thinks one is not being seen. It is much like with our children. If our words and deeds do not match, our children are more likely to emulate what we do than to follow the principles we hope to inculcate in them through education.

It is far easier than we think to lead those who follow us astray, whether that be astray from moral standards, scrupulous adherence to regulations, or willing obedience of God's commands and taskings. For that reason, I ask God to help me at the beginning of every day (often several times during the day as events unfold) to keep me not only from hurting anyone but also from leading anyone astray. I also ask that His love flow through me and splash onto those around me, that both my words and deeds honor Him, and that I set the kind of example for junior leaders and employees that He would have me set. (Of course, even with God's help, I do not always succeed for human emotions intervene from time to time, causing me to forget to refer the given situation back to God.)

In trying to lead as God would have me lead, I find two sources of leadership development helpful. One is the Bible. Just as the passage from I Kings can provide excellent guidance, so can much throughout the Bible -- those situations where leaders excelled and those where they failed. There is another book that I have found to be quite helpful and that I recommend to any leader: Jesus on Leadership (C. Gene Wilkes). For leaders who are not Christians, a very similar book is put out by the Greenleaf Center, The Case for Servant Leadership (Kent Keith, the author of the Paradoxical Commandments that Mother Theresa loved, otherwise known as "Do It Anyway"); while foot-washing is not mentioned in it, it does reflect principles that God taught to leaders and hoped and expected from them throughout the Bible.

These books help me a lot. God (and prayer) help me even more. And the rest I mess up all by myself -- and go running to God to help me fix it!

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to continue to ask for guidance every minute of every day as I interact with junior leaders and rank-and-file employees, to repent for those times that I have set a bad example, to thank God for so often setting straight with my employees what I do wrong, and to give praise for the way in which He leads me and my subordinate leaders to assist and support those who work for us, the ways in which he ensures that we do not harm any of them exceedingly much, and the way in which He has brought much spirituality into our workplace. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Monday Morning Meditation #18: Arrogance Leads to Destruction

Much like the Jews in the wilderness whose story fills the Book of Numbers, I am still wandering through this book. I found Chapter 16 fascinating because I see so much in common between the ancient Jews and my modern peers. In this chapter, 250 people, led by a man named Korah, rise up against Moses and Aaron, and, by extension, against God. Their complaint is two-fold: (1) they are every bit as holy as Moses and Aaron and should have direct access to God, and (2) Moses (and, again by extension, God) has failed to bring them to a land of milk and honey). This angers God. Moses begs God to have mercy to these men and especially not to punish all the Jews for the sins of a few. When all is over, the Jews as a whole are spared by their leaving the tents of the rebellious leaders, as God demands through Moses, but the 250 who led the rebellion perish for their arrogance.

Reading: Numbers 16

Meditation: While there were a number of emotions floating around the Israeli camps, the one that seemed to permeate the most as I read this chapter is arrogance. Arrogance is an emotion that I see a lot at work. It is the most typical downfall of the junior and senior managers who work in my directorate and the topic that I address most frequently at leadership development meetings that I lead (or that I bring in others to lead). When I arrived at the directorate as its head nearly four years ago, I introduced servant leadership as the leadership approach across divisions -- rather unhappy divisions, I would note. In the past four years, as we all have become more skilled at being servants to our employees and as our employees through our regular reverse evaluations become more skilled at pointing out where we, their managers, are failing to be good servants, the unhappiness in the various divisions has turned to deep-seated satisfaction and happiness that even visitors find palpable. Still, I have a few programs whose managers just don't get it, and their employees are the ones who most frequently take advantage of my open-door policy to complain. The core issue with these managers has little to do with doing things right. Most are very good at doing things right; on the other hand, they, at times, are not willing to do the right thing when it would mean throwing out the rule book. The core issue is their arrogance in thinking that they are "in charge" and, therefore, they determine how things work. They seek power to make themselves feel important. What they don't understand is that

- managers are never truly in charge; the employees who do the critical work are really the ones in charge;

- power held is always weak; power given away (authority granted to employees) grows exponentially in direct proportion to the amount given away;

- when, through the arrogance that emanates from some sense of our greater worth or skill, we hold all leadership decision-making unto ourselves, we deprive God of the opportunity to be the true leader in our organizations for God, as we have seen in this passage, chooses to work through humble and obedient people and, at best, lets arrogant people do themselves in; the reality is that we are not just as good as God at leadership, and when we turn leadership over to God and do it His way, incredibly marvelous things happen, like the development of whole divisions that love each other and love coming to work and even, upon some occasions, real miracles. (I would note here that leadership and relationships in our families and communities does not differ much from leadership and relationships at work.)

There is another aspect to arrogance that comes out of this chapter: the arrogance that comes from expecting God to answer our prayers in the way we want at the time we want, as did those that complained that they had not yet seen the promised land and therefore they had no desire to follow Moses any longer. That arrogance assumes that God is required to live up to our requirements, that we know better than God what is best for us. God not answering prayer in the way they desire is one of the greatest complaints I hear from the teens in my catechism classes. The concept that God sometimes says "no" is something that even adults sometimes have trouble accepting. Yet, often we find a better answer when we don't tell God what to do but simply turn over our problem to Him (and don't take it back). Yes, bad things do happen, and people, including children, do die, but we cannot assume in arrogance to judge that God should have intervened. Only God knows when intervention is warranted and when it is not. We have to trust that He knows what we do not.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to show me how to let Him always be in charge and to nudge me to check myself for arrogance regularly, to repent for all those times I have made a leadership or even personal decision without first asking for His guidance, to give thanks for all the many ways He helps me on a daily basis at work and at home, and to offer praise for the way in which He resolves problems in ways that far surpass my abilities and even comprehension.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, open to any lessons on humility He wishes to teach me, no matter how difficult they may be. (I have had some experience with His lessons.) I especially welcome His leadership in my life and at my work. I love the way in which He takes care of the people in my directorate, sometimes even protecting them from bad decisions I make when I forget to ask for His help, and in my family and community.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of inspirational blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Have a good day and a good week, remembering in all things to do humbly whatever God requires of you. May you be blessed by His love and His aid as you do so.

Monday Morning Meditation #18: Arrogance Leads to Destruction

Much like the Jews in the wilderness whose story fills the Book of Numbers, I am still wandering through this book. I found Chapter 16 fascinating because I see so much in common between the ancient Jews and my modern peers. In this chapter, 250 people, led by a man named Korah, rise up against Moses and Aaron, and, by extension, against God. Their complaint is two-fold: (1) they are every bit as holy as Moses and Aaron and should have direct access to God, and (2) Moses (and, again by extension, God) has failed to bring them to a land of milk and honey). This angers God. Moses begs God to have mercy to these men and especially not to punish all the Jews for the sins of a few. When all is over, the Jews as a whole are spared by their leaving the tents of the rebellious leaders, as God demands through Moses, but the 250 who led the rebellion perish for their arrogance.

Reading: Numbers 16

Meditation: While there were a number of emotions floating around the Israeli camps, the one that seemed to permeate the most as I read this chapter is arrogance. Arrogance is an emotion that I see a lot at work. It is the most typical downfall of the junior and senior managers who work in my directorate and the topic that I address most frequently at leadership development meetings that I lead (or that I bring in others to lead). When I arrived at the directorate as its head nearly four years ago, I introduced servant leadership as the leadership approach across divisions -- rather unhappy divisions, I would note. In the past four years, as we all have become more skilled at being servants to our employees and as our employees through our regular reverse evaluations become more skilled at pointing out where we, their managers, are failing to be good servants, the unhappiness in the various divisions has turned to deep-seated satisfaction and happiness that even visitors find palpable. Still, I have a few programs whose managers just don't get it, and their employees are the ones who most frequently take advantage of my open-door policy to complain. The core issue with these managers has little to do with doing things right. Most are very good at doing things right; on the other hand, they, at times, are not willing to do the right thing when it would mean throwing out the rule book. The core issue is their arrogance in thinking that they are "in charge" and, therefore, they determine how things work. They seek power to make themselves feel important. What they don't understand is that

- managers are never truly in charge; the employees who do the critical work are really the ones in charge;

- power held is always weak; power given away (authority granted to employees) grows exponentially in direct proportion to the amount given away;

- when, through the arrogance that emanates from some sense of our greater worth or skill, we hold all leadership decision-making unto ourselves, we deprive God of the opportunity to be the true leader in our organizations for God, as we have seen in this passage, chooses to work through humble and obedient people and, at best, lets arrogant people do themselves in; the reality is that we are not just as good as God at leadership, and when we turn leadership over to God and do it His way, incredibly marvelous things happen, like the development of whole divisions that love each other and love coming to work and even, upon some occasions, real miracles. (I would note here that leadership and relationships in our families and communities does not differ much from leadership and relationships at work.)

There is another aspect to arrogance that comes out of this chapter: the arrogance that comes from expecting God to answer our prayers in the way we want at the time we want, as did those that complained that they had not yet seen the promised land and therefore they had no desire to follow Moses any longer. That arrogance assumes that God is required to live up to our requirements, that we know better than God what is best for us. God not answering prayer in the way they desire is one of the greatest complaints I hear from the teens in my catechism classes. The concept that God sometimes says "no" is something that even adults sometimes have trouble accepting. Yet, often we find a better answer when we don't tell God what to do but simply turn over our problem to Him (and don't take it back). Yes, bad things do happen, and people, including children, do die, but we cannot assume in arrogance to judge that God should have intervened. Only God knows when intervention is warranted and when it is not. We have to trust that He knows what we do not.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to show me how to let Him always be in charge and to nudge me to check myself for arrogance regularly, to repent for all those times I have made a leadership or even personal decision without first asking for His guidance, to give thanks for all the many ways He helps me on a daily basis at work and at home, and to offer praise for the way in which He resolves problems in ways that far surpass my abilities and even comprehension.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, open to any lessons on humility He wishes to teach me, no matter how difficult they may be. (I have had some experience with His lessons.) I especially welcome His leadership in my life and at my work. I love the way in which He takes care of the people in my directorate, sometimes even protecting them from bad decisions I make when I forget to ask for His help, and in my family and community.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of inspirational blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Have a good day and a good week, remembering in all things to do humbly whatever God requires of you. May you be blessed by His love and His aid as you do so.

7 Quick Takes Friday #6

I cannot believe that it is Friday again already and time to contribute to the Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. I am grateful to Jennifer for coming up with these meme; it is about the only time I truly look back on the near events of my life and take stock.

1. Monday night Donnie and I had dinner with visitors from the Ukraine at my favorite restaurant: Jardines de San Juan where winter never comes and flowers never die. I had met them last month in the Ukraine at their company, and at that time were planning a return visit to ours. Since they had taken me out to a traditional Ukrainian restaurant and showed me the architecture of St. Sofia's Cathedral, I wanted to do something similar for them here in the USA. Voila! All was possible, thanks to my living in a heritage Mexican town. They loved the authentic Mexican food and the garden atmosphere of the restaurant. One of the two is an architect, and he enjoyed discovered our old mission. It would seem that God's special places are special in more ways than we typically think!

2. I have fallen off the bandwagon with dieting. I had done a good job of losing 30 pounds in 2008, then about ten pounds crept back on after a stay in Lithuania this past winter. (Cold weather = heavy food.) I have managed to keep the weight at the -20 pound level, but recent travels (5 countries and 11 states in 3 months!) has made it impossible to watch my diet. Well, impossible is probably not the right word; inconvenient is more like it. I think dieting and weight maintenance boils down less to willpower than to habit. I have lost my habit of tracking calories and sticking to a daily ceiling. Alixandra, you who managed such a startling maintained weight loss, offered to help! Tell me, what is the secret for maintaining weight loss and even losing more pounds while traveling? Any thoughts, anyone?

3. The frenetic pace of this week matched that of last week, with a quick two-day trip to Arizona. I am starting to weary of my one-night stands with Candlewood Suites in state after state. In spite of its quick in-and-out nature, my trip had value, I believe. I was able to speak to a graduating class of specialists in Arabic language and culture who will, hopefully, one day much sooner than anyone thinks have some positive influence on international events. It was these same kind of specialists, without any knowledge of language and culture who carried at the atrocities at Abu Ghraib a couple of years ago. Now, however, as future specialists in military affairs are also learning language and culture -- and more important, being taught by native speakers from Arabic cultures -- they are building the skills they need to communicate, rather than to interrogate, to create trust rather than fear, and to use words, not weapons, for winning wars. For me to be even the smallest piece of that, I consider to be a gift from God, especially since not all that long ago I nearly took another job because of being part of an organization that looked at the force of arms rather than the force of words to accomplish its mission, but God would not let me have that job. Now, I know why, and now I am a grateful.

4. Catechism class last night brought me back to a sense of reality. This year's first-year confirmation kids are very quiet compared to the classes of the past two years. At least, until last night they have been eerily quiet. Last night I brought in left-over Halloween candy. Halloween was a very quiet affair here in our mission town this year, and we had a few pounds of leftovers, pounds that I do not want to put into and onto our bodies; hence, the "gift" to the kids this evening. The loved the candy, and we (the teachers) noticed that as the sugar entered the bloodstreams of our normally quiet kids, they began to respond vociferously and vigorously to the lesson. Who were these kids? They had turned into people we would not recognize. The excitement for one, Luis, got to the point that he began rolling around on the floor. I recognized this symptom of hyperactivity caused by food allergy from Doah's allergic reactions -- Doah would roll around on the floor all the time if no one monitored and controlled his diet. So, lesson learned in all senses of the word -- the kids' activity also increased their interaction with us and the lesson and they did go home, having learned a lot, and we teachers learned not to pump them full of sugar in the future. And I remembered why I rarely allowed my children refined sugar when they were growing up.

5. Cats now are our children. We have three. Murjan (Arabic for coral) is all white with a red ears, bangs, and tail. Oh, and jade-colored eyes. He looks like two shades of coral that one can find in the Red Sea near Aqaba, and he is indeed an immigrant from Jordan. He kept me company while I was living there before Donnie made it over, just me and the cat, and we have had a symbiotic relationship ever since. Intrepid, also a native of Jordan, lost his mother before he could barely toddle. A professor at my university knew that Doctora Beth loved cats and brought over the multi-colored cat with brown-ringed yellow eyes for me to nurse. The rest, as they say, is history. "Treppers" (pictured here), as we nicknamed Intrepid, became Donnie's sidekick. The name came from his kamikaze-like flights through the air, attacking potted plants, of which, of course, we currently have none. Then, there is Simone, our grey-faced, blue-eyed, extremely shy white Himalayan cat, who, with her Persian features, looks like she belongs in the Middle East, too, but we rescued her from under our house here in California and turned her from feral to lovable. I love taming feral cats. No matter how old they are and how ingrained their defensiveness and fear, I have been able to tame them. I think all of God's creatures like to be loved, and there is no stronger force for accomplishing anything or making any change than love.

6. My boss and I are doing a self-study program in Pashto, one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Languages intrigue me, so Pashto represents little challenge, especially considering that it is the 20th language I have formally studied, in addition to the 50 or so languages I can understand at levels ranging from just barely to quite well because I have studied some of the common background languages like Latin, Old English, Old German, Common Slavic, and the like and thanks to travel exposure.) For my boss, on the other hand, Pashto represents only his second foreign language. He has spent several hours and completed part of the first unit. I have spent less than two hours and am near the end of the fourth unit. That makes it hard to study together; moreover, I learned a long time ago that it is never a good idea to "show off" in front of one's boss where the boss is attempting to do the same thing. So, I have to learn how to march in place better. His ego is more important than mine. I just have to figure out how to help him without offending him. That's the story of my life. I have to do the same with junior managers who think they know everything about management, but have not developed the most critical skill: humility.

7. After all this, I am very ready for today (just started). It is First Friday! Yes!! I have taken the first six hours of the day off in order to attend First Friday activities at St. Francis Retreat. Those months when I can do this are just wonderful experiences. And so, I am going to end these 7 quick takes abruptly since I have no idea what lies in wait for me this morning, but I am eager to dash off right now (!) and find out.

May you start your day with as much eager anticipation!

V. I. P. or V.O.P or Both?

How does a VIP (Very Important Person) take a VOP (Vow of Poverty)? This troubling non-equation plagues me on some rare occasions. Take Saturday night, for example. Our organization was having a formal ball. And "ball" was the appropriate title for that event, the required attire being tuxedos for men and gowns for women. Now, being a VIP in our organization (by position, not necessarily by self-view) meant that I could not avoid attending the ball, and indeed my VIP-ness evidenced itself several times throughout the evening by what I was called upon to do and where I was required to sit. That is the work side of me.

The spiritual side of me is quite different. Usually that different spiritual side, with God's help and guidance, splashes out around me at work. I am a secular Franciscan (well, almost -- I have not yet professed but am entering my third year of candidacy), and as such I tend to follow St. Francis's model of giving away what I have and making do with very little. After all, I don't really need much now that the kids are grown. I do not feel compelled to live this way; I feel impelled to do so. It brings me great happiness to use my fairly decent salary (albeit less than it might be if I were not living in the "Land of Splat!") to help those who have no salary at all, to pay off God's credit card, and to contribute to divine projects such as rebuilding the St. Francis Retreat. Splurging on a fancy ball gown that I would wear only once, then, did not fit with my truly Franciscan lifestyle that, alas, at times conflicts with my truly secular life. I did not want to buy a gown; I wanted the gown money to help my kids with their medical bills, the orphans of Kaluga or Liberia with finding care and perhaps even homes, the children of Palomar with getting a school, the young mother in need of a home, the foreign handicapped child in need of an American doctor, and the strangers passing through my life in need of food. I find far more pleasure in helping them than in looking at a pretty dress. But this was a ball! And it was for my office where I was supposed to be some kind of role model!

I did have an alternative -- or so I thought. Since our foreign nationals were allowed, indeed encouraged, to wear their national dress, I figured that perhaps the Arabs would allow me to claim their ethnicity for a night since I had lived in Jordan for more than two years as a resident (equivalent to a green card holder in the USA). After all, on more than one occasion I had gotten away with wearing a pretty Arabic dress for a dress-up event. So, I donned a Jordanian dishdasha hashemiya (the kind of dress in the picture above) and, like Cinderella, left for the ball.

Yes, like Cinderella. Except for one thing -- no ball gown! The closer I approached the ball on my 45-minute drive there, the more concerned I became that I would be sitting at or near the head table where everyone would have on their fancy tuxes and gorgeous gowns, and there I would be in a pretty but everyday dress that I had picked up for $7.50 (yes, the period is in the right place) on the streets of Aqaba from a shopkeeper whose wife had probably done the hand embroidery. I started to squirm, well, at least, emotionally. What would people think? If I were sitting with the rank-and-file, it would be one thing, but at the head table in a Arabic dress, not a gown, and, in fact, in a dress that even the poorest of people in the Middle East could afford and would typically wear? What was I thinking? I could have afforded to buy a beautiful gown to show off for my employees and superiors. How dumb to have put my last dollar for this month in the church collection plate for this week's cause! If people who worked for me deserved to look pretty, so did I!

I was still squirming when I reached the ballroom. I should not have been. All my Arab national employees flocked to me, pleased as punch that I would dress as one of them. They wanted my picture taken with them. They introduced me to friends who had come with them. The other nationalities suggested that next time it was their turn to be so honored, that I should don their native attire. (I think I will -- I have some dresses from Russia, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and Turkmenistan in my closet, all of them gifts from friends and colleagues with whom I worked in those countries.) Needless to say, I enjoyed my gownless ball experience very much.

Driving home, I realized that my thoughts during the earlier drive to the ball had dramatically illustrated some Biblical precepts, like the man who asked Jesus what it would take to get to Heaven and to whom Jesus responded that he should give everything away and follow him (whether taken literally or figuratively, I was on the wrong side of that equation on my way to the ball). And how about that camel that could make it through an eye of a needle easier than a rich man can make it to Heaven? Well, thank God, I am not rich! But I was acting like it on the way in. Really, who cares what others think about what I am wearing physically? Is it not more important what I am wearing spiritually? Is not the armor of God far preferable to a pretty ball gown? I may have questioned that on the way to the ball but certainly not on the way from the ball.

God taught me a lesson that night about who is important, who is really a VIP. No VIP of God's was at the ball that night (at least, none that I was aware of, there being much of which none of us are aware). He also taught me a lesson about what is important. Certainly, not a gown.

God gives me everything I need. If I had needed a ball gown, He would have given me one. Instead, He showed me that my simple Jordanian dress was sufficient, just as His grace is sufficient. So, any dollars I have, extra or not, belong to God. Deep down, I think I knew that on the way to the ball, too. Just sometimes, God has to reach down and clunk me on the head again so that I remember just what kind of role model I am really supposed to be.