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March 31, 2019April 19, 2019

Northern Lights

Canadians have a reputation for being polite… typically acting in ways that are kind and considerate. Having spent more than two months there the past few years working with leaders from the western provinces across the country to Newfoundland, I think that perception is true.

Whether training, facilitating meetings or joining in a walk-around, there were three times I heard someone behaving in a contrary way. From my experience, our ‘friends to the north’ typically see the glass almost full and seek solutions to challenges. I find it inspirational to be around them.

Good for the ego, too, as the evaluation rankings I receive are always high.

Although, one of them did tell me recently: “Take our ratings with a grain of salt. We never say anything bad about anybody.” Maybe I should limit the references to college football, Tex-Mex and ‘Hamilton’ from now on.

March 29, 2019May 31, 2019

Scope Creep

There is an accepted theorem of IT projects that what starts out as a great idea for better productivity – before the actual ‘Go Live’ moment – will ‘take twice as long, cost twice as much, and be half as effective as expected’… at least prior to the v1.1 release.

A corollary exists in home projects.

Add new hardwood flooring to the living room and that sofa and love seat just don’t seem to work like they did with your carpet. Hire the neighbor’s landscapers to mow your lawn and, by golly, come spring you’ll have them trim the shrubs, add mulch and plant some colorful flowers, too. Go to the Russian River Valley for a wonderful vacation with your spouse and you’re still getting things from the wine clubs you joined 18 months later. Oh, and you needed to buy a wine cooler to hold all those bottles.

OK, maybe that wasn’t ‘you’; it was definitely ‘us’.

The key to not having this happen is simply to increase your planned capital outlay… every time.

That way when you put in a tankless hot water heater and later find out that each year you need a service call to do something to the coils but then the first time he comes he tells you if you’ll add an external water softener then you won’t need to have him back as long as you add salt every three months to the large black container that’s visible from your street and you just know your HOA is going to make you plant a shrub in front of it because of deed restrictions and then it turns out you actually go through salt in six weeks so you make a lot of trips to Home Depot then carry two 40-pound bags from your driveway to the opposite corner of your house.

Of course, that would never happen to ‘you’… just ‘us’.

March 25, 2019March 25, 2019

Worthy Servant

We buried my father-in-law last week. He was 87.

The first time I met him was the day I asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Kathy had a black and white picture of her parents as young newlyweds on her apartment refrigerator. Then he was a strapping 20-something Navy pilot with a big moustache. It surprised me that the man I shook hands with that day 30 years ago didn’t look the same at age 57.

Carl Dean Lott, Cdr, US Navy (ret.), served this country for nearly three decades. Six months of the year he lived aboard aircraft carriers as an F-4 pilot. The other six he was home working on a base – in Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, California, and to his final appointment at NAS Corpus Christi. Kathy’s mother, Margaret, served as a loyal military wife, relocating wherever and whenever duty called… raising two children alone half the time.

After retiring, Carl spent a decade teaching new pilots to fly in simulators – driving to the base early each morning to prepare the next generation. Surprisingly for a Navy fighter pilot, he drove as slowly as anyone on the road… almost unsafely. When, Kathy’s brother Mike had to take away the keys three years ago, it was not a welcomed action. ‘Old soldiers…’

His military rank meant little to me until the time he took us to the base to see the Blue Angels. When we approached the guard gate in his car, two servicemen saluted Carl and I thought, ‘Maybe he’s important.’ Then another seated us on the first row. Yep, he’s important.

Following a brief funeral service during which the Navy chaplain reminded us to celebrate Carl’s achievements and life well-lived, we walked 50 yards to his final resting place and military honors. A bugler played Taps, two young enlisted folded the flag, then one kneeled next to Margaret’s wheel chair and offered condolences on behalf of the United States Navy.

Afterward, the family gathered for lunch at the hospice care facility where Carl and Margaret lived. Near the entrance was a table with a pair of opened folders. Pictures of the two residents who died last week – both veterans – and personal messages from the staff. Carl’s private care nurse had written: “Goodbye sweet, sweet man. God’s new angel.”

February 28, 2019February 28, 2019

Last Chance

Part II of II

When I shared the news with a close friend that our pastor is being investigated for alleged abuse of children years ago, he said: “Your religion is shaken and your faith is shattered.”

I’m 58 and a cradle Catholic. I went to Catholic grade school and high school, kept attending mass during college, married in the church, raised our three children in this parish, served on the Stewardship Committee and Pastoral Council, and conducted retreats with the leadership team.

For years, I believed the church had resolved this issue, holding accountable both those who committed heinous acts and the bishops who moved them around to other parishes. I never expected abuse accusations to hit so close to home. Since February 1, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my faith, my beliefs and whether I will fulfill my spiritual needs elsewhere.

Following the Vatican summit, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, head of our Galveston-Houston Archdiocese and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote:

“A range of presenters from cardinals to other bishops to religious sisters to lay women spoke about a code of conduct for bishops, the need to establish specific protocols for handling accusations against bishops, user-friendly reporting mechanisms, and the essential role transparency must play in the healing process… Enhanced by what I experience here, we will prepare to advance proposals” to consider at the next USCCB meeting in June.”

Perhaps U.S. Bishops will be the impetus that forces the Vatican to scourge the church of all who participated and put in place measures to ensure this never happens again. Yet the faithful – including myself – are right to wonder if anything will change.

Shaken and shattered.

February 27, 2019February 28, 2019

Revealing Truth

Part I of II

Last week the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops and others gathered in the Vatican to address the horrible abuse inflicted over decades on innocent victims by thousands of priests.

I first became aware of this situation in the ‘90’s when we were living in DFW. A priest in the Dallas diocese – and I’ll never forget his name, Rudy Kos – was convicted on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor, sentenced to life in prison and still is incarcerated. That diocese paid out $24.3 million to eight former altar boys and the relatives of a ninth who claimed they were sexually abused. And he was only the first.

Over the years, the abuse played in the background of my mind, until a few months ago when the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report listed hundreds of clergy accused of sexual misconduct over 70 years. In October, every diocese in Texas announced that on Thursday, January 31, they would disclose the names of all credibly accused priests.

At 2 p.m. that day, I went to the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston website and read the names of 42 priests, none of whom I knew. Then, one from the bottom – under “Recent Allegations currently under investigation” – was the name of our pastor, someone I have worked closely with on many occasions the past two decades.

A little over a week ago, HPD’s Special Victims Division announced it opened a criminal investigation of a Catholic priest after two alleged victims accused him of sexually abusing them years ago.

Next: Conscience Examination