A Willingness to Get Involved

A Willingness to Get Involved

  Charlie Drake, one of my heroes and mentors, passed away this past week at the age of 86. I am one of a significant number of people who looked up to Charlie as a mentor. There are so many things to celebrate about this man’s life, and so I am pleased to be able to share one story that shows who Charlie was and why so many looked up to him. This story has to do with his very personal, hands-on efforts to help start what is now a vital nonprofit organization serving youth in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

    The Rev. Seth Dietrich, the pastor of Christ Episcopal Church in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where Charlie was a very active member, actually wrote about Charlie’s work in helping to start this youth organization in the church newsletter, and so I will share with you here what Seth wrote to the people of his church this week.

    “In the late 1980's, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on 32nd and Lloyd (Milwaukee) had many kids from the neighborhood coming to church. Charlie felt a call to ministry in the city, and he checked out St. Andrew's and began to periodically worship there. As he got to know the kids in Sunday school and worship, he heard first hand about the incredible challenges they faced on a daily basis. He enlisted the men's group of our church, at the time called The Brotherhood of St. Andrew's. Originally, the group was going to put up money for a scholarship fund, but Charlie convinced them that kids needed more personal attention and mentoring. In 1990, 8 people began a tutoring program for about 20 kids and The Homework Club was born.

    While Charlie was tutoring he began to get more involved in kids' lives. If they needed a winter coat he bought one; same with school supplies. He would take his mentee to baseball games. He started going to kids' parent-teacher conferences when a parent could not be there. The other tutors followed Charlie's lead, and before long, formal programming (e.g., a large-scale coat-drive) was created to institutionalize things that Charlie had just been doing on his own. Eventually, the Homework Club became Our Next Generation, a thriving non-profit organization which now has multiple locations and serves hundreds of kids every year.”

    One of the many things I love about this story is that Charlie made the decision the path of personal, direct involvement in the lives of the kids was the best way to make a difference in their lives. Over the years have had the honor to serve as both a board member and a tutor at Our Next Generation and so I have had the chance to witness first hand the effect that Charlie has on the kids. He made their faces shine when he walked in the door, and I couldn’t help but notice that they returned the favor, making his face shine with delight every time he was there with them.  

    I thought of Charlie when I heard the tremendous news of the twelve boys from the Thai soccer team, along with their coach, being rescued from the cave where they had been trapped for nine days. The willingness of the international team of divers, doctors, and other rescue team members to risk getting involved, and to give so selflessly is what made the mission ultimately successful. Any one of them could have chosen to pass on the mission, but they did not. Charlie, like the team of rescuers, chose to risk getting involved and to give selflessly to help hundreds of children. He, too, could have chosen to pass on the mission, but he did not.  

    It pretty safe to say that the opportunity to help a child in as dramatic a way as the rescuers did in Thailand this week will never present itself to any of us. It’s also pretty safe to say though, that we are all presented with many opportunities to help children in our own contexts, children in our families, neighborhoods, and communities. 

    In honor of Charlie, I’m going to be looking for new opportunities to serve a child in my corner of the world who needs a little extra love and support. I think that would make Charlie smile.

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The Beautiful Game

The Beautiful Game

    It's World Cup time and so the last two weeks have been heaven for soccer fans. Every four years, thirty-two countries meet (a record 211 countries started the qualifying process this time) for the World Cup, a month-long tournament watched by billions of fans around the world. The men's World Cup is happening now in Russia, and the women's tournament will take place next year in France. 

    Soccer is often referred to as, "The Beautiful Game." For me, there are many reasons for this; here are my top three. 

    Simplicity. Soccer is perhaps the most simple sport there is. All that is needed to play is a ball and a couple of make-shift goals. No fancy or expensive equipment is required. An example of this was shared recently with me by a friend of mine with whom I have the honor of playing soccer each week. He told me about growing up in Tunisia and how his family and his friends' families did not have enough money to buy a soccer ball. This didn't stop them as they regularly made soccer balls out of rolled up newspaper and then used garbage cans as goals. 

    Another example of soccer's simplicity is its rules. There are only seventeen rules, known as the seventeen "laws" of soccer, and with the exception, perhaps of the offside rule, they are easily understood. Compare this, for example, to American football which has close to four hundred rules.  

    A celebration of diversity. No other sport has the worldwide popularity both for players and spectators. Right now you can watch teams from all corners of the world playing in the World Cup, countries as diverse as Panama, Iceland, South Korea, Senegal, Poland, Iran, Uruguay, Mexico, Japan, and Russia. 

    I started playing soccer in my mid-thirties, and twenty-five years later I am still fortunate to be able to play. Among the group of men I play with, we have players who grew up playing soccer in Ireland, Tunisia, Greece, Argentina, Mexico, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, England, South Africa, Peru, Columbia, and Russia. We are men with different backgrounds who love the sport, and that commonality is a great connector. Our games and friendships are also a reminder to us of our shared humanity and the universal desire to have fun with friends. These men, unlike me, all grew up with a ball at their feet, and clearly play a more beautiful version of the game than I ever will!

    Celebrating the flow of play, and not just the results. It is not uncommon to hear Americans say that soccer is boring because there is so little scoring. People are perplexed as to how anyone could enjoy watching a ninety-minute match that ends in a score of 1-0 or even 0-0. The beauty of soccer though is not only about scoring but in the continuous flow of the game. Because there are no timeouts or commercials (except at halftime), the game is always in motion, ever-changing, and the players as a team must continuously adapt, communicate, and improvise in the flow of play. 

    Soccer fans understand that goals are rare and so learn to celebrate the beautiful dance and flow of the entire game. The focus of the team with the ball is always to keep moving forward, knowing that goals will be few, but with discipline and perseverance, goals will come in time. If you want to thoroughly appreciate the beauty of the flow of the game, next time you watch a game, don't just watch the player with the ball, but watch all the other players as they make runs to create space and possible scoring opportunities.  

    Simplicity, celebrating diversity, and learning to appreciate the flow of the game and not just the results are three ideas that sound like a good description not only of the beautiful game but also, of a beautiful life.

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The Hardest Person You Will Ever Lead Is Yourself

The Hardest Person You Will Ever Lead Is Yourself

   This week I have had the honor of being part of the faculty for a course on leadership and non-profit Management in Chicago. The course is a collaborative effort between the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Bexley Seabury Seminary. We have had the chance to both hear from and read some of the top teachers of leadership today. The common thread has become clear through all that we have learned can be summed up in a quote from leadership author Bill North: "The most important and the most challenging person you will ever have to lead is yourself." 
   
   This really struck home, and here is why. I oversee a wellness initiative that teaches the importance of balance and making time for rest and renewal. I teach this regularly, and yet there are times that I am so busy working and traveling to teach wellness and balance to others, that I forget to practice it myself. This I find to be is a perfect reminder that the most important and the most challenging person I will ever have to lead is myself.  

   I was recently facilitating one of our Parent Wellness Circle programs, and a mother was talking about how unhappy she was that her teenage children were spending so much time on their screens-their phones and their computers. She announced to our group that she was going to talk with her children in the upcoming week about their screen time, and would begin discussing some mutually acceptable boundaries around screen time. When she returned to our wellness circle the following week, she reported how things went. She explained that she realized that before she could talk to her kids, she had to take an honest look at herself. She realized that she was spending as much time, if not more, on her phone and computer each night and that before she was going to be able to talk to her kids about their excessive screen time, she was going to have to change her habits. Only then could she set a better example for her kids and expect them to follow. In all this, she, too, realized that the most important and the most challenging person she would ever have to lead was herself. 

   Here is one more example of this leadership truth. Years ago I was refereeing a youth soccer game between two middle school boys' teams. Within minutes of the beginning of the game, I realized that one of the coaches was a screamer. In all my years of being around soccer, I had never heard a coach yell at their players so much. I could see the effect of his constant yelling as his players were quite tentative and seemed to be afraid of making a mistake, less they got criticized. At halftime, I went over to this coach, pulling him aside for a private conversation. I quietly said to him, "I don't know if you are aware of how much you are yelling at your players. It's really out of control." He replied, "I have to yell like that because they never listen to me." I somehow found the courage to say back to him, "I think they don't listen to you because of the way you yell at them. They are tuning you out." After the game was over, this coach made a point of coming over and thanking me for my honesty. He also hopefully learned that day that the most important and challenging person he will have ever have to lead is not one of his players, but himself.  

   Think about the leaders and mentors that have influenced you most in your life. If you are like me, you may become aware that the most important way in which they influenced you was by the way they lived their own lives.  These kinds of leaders and mentor "walk the talk" and inspire us to want to do the same.

   I typically think of leadership as the ability to influence and change others. This week I am grateful for the reminder that leadership always starts with and flows from the ability to influence and change ourselves.

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Baseball Dadisms

Baseball Dadisms for Father's Day

A love of baseball was something my father and I shared, and so as the baseball season shifts into high gear I always find myself missing him. I was born in Pittsburgh, and one of my earliest memories is of my father and I watching Bill Mazeroski as he hit the home run that won game seven of the 1960 World Series allowing the Pittsburgh Pirates to defeat the mighty New York Yankees.  

Given my love for baseball, it is not surprising that it was the primary sport I played in my youth. I was an aspiring pitcher, and my father served as my catcher for countless hours in the backyard. As I grew older, I could throw the ball harder, and so every few years my Dad would need to upgrade the quality of his catcher's mitt to include a little more padding. The countless bruises on his shins (usually from wild curve balls into the dirt) and even a small fracture to a bone in his hand (from an especially hard-thrown fastball) were evidence of how faithful he was in supporting my development as a pitcher.  

So this year for Father's Day, I would like to honor my father, and all fathers and important male mentors in our lives, by sharing a few Dadisms, each with a connection to the game of baseball.  

"Keep your eye on the ball."  

This piece of wisdom was shared in an attempt to make a player a better hitter and is all about the importance of being focused. In our work and personal lives, as with baseball, staying focused on what is most important is critical.

"Look the ball into your glove."  

This is a similar piece of wisdom but related to being a good fielder. The lesson here is, again, the importance of focus and concentration. Errors often occur when a fielder is looking to where they are planning to throw the ball, rather than focusing on watching the ball fly and then land into the glove. The parallel to this regarding wellness is that the gift we can offer another person is by being truly present to them-so that our conversation with them is all that matters to us at that moment. We follow their words carefully, just like we follow the ball into the glove, never taking our eyes or attention off of them. We need to avoid making the error of "losing track of the ball" in the meaningful relationships of our lives as well as on the field.  

"Shake it off."  

This is often said either after a tough loss, after making an error, or getting hit by a pitch. This is not only sound advice, but it sends a positive, hopeful message. Things don't always go as planned. We all experience defeat and loss, on and off the field. These things don't have to define us though. When we are hurting in life, as in baseball, maintaining emotional and spiritual resiliency is the key to recovering and moving on.  

"Know what you are going to do with the ball
before it's hit to you."  

This, too, is excellent advice in baseball and life. Applied to baseball, it means knowing the situation (how many outs there are, what the score is, and how many runners are on base) before the ball is hit to you, so that there will be no hesitation as to what to do if the ball does come to you. Applied to life, it means we need to anticipate and rehearse our responses to both positive opportunities and potential negative situations before they arise. Parents can teach their children proactively to practice their responses and be prepared ahead of time for potential negative influences and temptations. This is clearly great advice for adults as well.

"Wait for your pitch."

Patience is the key to making good decisions in all aspects of life, including being a good hitter. Knowing when not to swing at a pitch is as important as knowing when to swing. Take your time and weigh your options when you are going to make any big decision in life.

"Know when and how to sacrifice."

In baseball, executing a proper sacrifice involves advancing or scoring another player who is on base, at the expense of giving yourself up for an out. This can be done by bunting or by hitting a deep fly ball to the outfield (or even hitting to the right side of the infield, if there is a runner on second). It may look easy, but being able to make good sacrifices on a consistent basis takes years of practice, as many dads through the years have known and have done for us.

As you think this weekend of your father, or perhaps a grandfather, uncle, coach, teacher, or other significant men in your life, you may come up with your own list of helpful words of wisdom. If you have any that are particularly meaningful to you, please share them in the comments below.

As Father's Day approaches, it's an ideal time to pause, remember, and honor the men in our lives who taught us such significant lessons as the importance of watching the ball, planning ahead, bouncing back, being patient, and when and how to sacrifice.  

* I would be remiss if I did not also acknowledge that Father's Day can be a difficult day for many people, especially for people who have lost their father recently, and for those who have had a painful relationship with their father. My heart goes out to those of you who are experiencing grief for any reason this Father's Day.

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Sabbath Time

Sabbath Time

I am currently serving for two weeks as a visiting pastor for a small historic church (built in 1878) in the village of Fish Creek in Door County, Wisconsin. The Church of the Atonement is only open in the summertime and is served by guest clergy who come every couple of weeks throughout the summer. It is a special place in the heart of Door County.

For those of you not familiar with Door County, it is the long peninsula that extends up into Lake Michigan north of the city of Green Bay. It is a quaint string of villages surrounded by beautiful farmland and numerous parks and is sometimes referred to as the Cape Cod of the Midwest. Door County lovers, however, prefer to think of Cape Cod as the Door County of the East. 

Last Sunday I preached about the importance of Sabbath time, and Door County was the perfect place to do this because two million people come here each year to rest, renew, and give themselves a time to reset their busy lives. Many families have been coming here for generations to enjoy a slower, more deliberate pace of life.  

For many of us, the season of summer includes creating space for some intentional Sabbath time, which often includes time visiting a special place that helps us to shift gears for a weekend, a week, or longer. Summer is a natural time for recreation, a natural time for us to think about taking time to renew and "re-create" our selves.  

A story comes to mind that illustrates how important it is to take time for rest and renewal. The story is from long ago and involves two lumberjacks who are near the end of a long day during which they have been cutting down large trees since just after sunup, using an old-fashioned two-person hand saw with one of them on each end pulling back and forth. As the day comes to a close, a passerby happens upon the two lumberjacks and pauses to watch them work their craft. The passerby looks around and sees dozens of large trees that have been felled just that day, but at the same time notices that the lumberjacks are making absolutely no progress on the last tree of the day. They are halfway through the tree, and no matter how hard they work, they cannot make it through this last tree. They finally call it quits and begin to strike up a conversation with the passerby. They point proudly to all the trees that they had cut that day, but then explain that the last several trees took them twice as long to cut and that the last tree was impossible for them to get through. They were perplexed as to why this was but figured they probably just were worn out from all the effort they had exerted, even though they had taken several rest breaks. It was only then that the passerby asked them a critical question, "I'm just curious, how many times during the day did you stop to sharpen the saw?"  

Summer is an excellent time for us all to take time to sharpen our saws. Take a moment right now to think about what helps you sharpen your saw. And as you do this, think about it from a holistic perspective. What enables you to sharpen your soul? ..... your heart?.....your mind?..... and your body? The answer to these questions will be different for each of us, but each of us knows what sharpens--and what creates dullness-in our soul/heart/mind/body. Proactive wellness involves knowing what choices and habits we can make to help us create some Sabbath time of rest and renewal, and then following through on the commitment to do those things.  

Please notice the critical difference between rest and "sharpening the saw." Making time for "down time" and rest is undoubtedly important, but it is not the same as sharpening the saw, Sharpening the saw provides us with renewed energy and is life-giving. I enjoy resting on the couch and watching a good TV show or an hour of a good ball game, but when I want to truly sharpen my saw I'll go for an hour walk or bike ride, read an inspiring book, or get together with some close friends for some great conversation. In the lumberjack story remember that they took several rest breaks, but what they forgot to do was make time to sharpen the saw.

So, happy beginning of summer everyone. And here's hoping that your summer includes some sabbath time to re-create, renew and sharpen your soul, your marriage, your physical wellness, or a valuable friendship.

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