Less Is More
Forty-one years ago tomorrow I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime. I had interviewed for the position of Building Service Worker I, which is a janitor, and had some hope that I might be chosen for a vacant position. I had interviewed with Building Services Superintendent, George O’Hara, and had felt good about our meeting. During the interview Mr. O’Hara had asked me what shift I would prefer to work as he had several 11:00 – 7:00 work shifts and two, 5:00 – 1:00 shifts to fill. Immediately I deducted that the 5 – 1 shift must be 5:00 A:M: to 1:00P:M: and that the department probably had difficulty in filling such an early shift. Therefore I happily announced that I would love the early morning shift as I enjoyed getting up before the crack of dawn and heading to work! George hung his head and began placing my files from Personnel back in their folder and sadly announced that he was sorry as the day-shift positions all went to the senior employees and that all new employees were hired on either evenings, 5:00 P:M: – 1:00 A:M: or 11:00 P:M: – 7:00 A:M:. I began to cough and, stutter…a bit, and proclaimed that there was only on thing that I enjoyed better than working early in the morning…and that was working…late at night!
And, so, George hired me on October 10, 1978. I began in Thalman Hall on Greek Row on the campus of SIUC. I knew during the first week that I was there…that God had opened a carer opportunity for me! As I watched supervisors and managers and administrators, through the years, I noticed who was effective and who was not. Those supervisors that felt that the more hands on supervision and criticism of their staff that they could produce…the better the operation flowed….were counterproductive in their desire for excellence. My supervisor, Don Stonum, was a broad strokes type of leader. He outlined for me what he expected and I proceeded to exceed his expectations. I saw little of him….and he was happy and I was ecstatic! Don, as well as my foreman, Jim Walls, would regularly reinforce me with positive comments regarding my work and encouragement that I could go far in the department!
I observed the quiet and solid leadership of superintendent O’Hara. One evening he came for a tour of the Engineering and Technology building, that I was responsible for the cleaning thereof. To me…this was like President Carter, coming to grade my housekeeping prowess! Now, I had been extremely short of staffing for some time and the building, with my best efforts, was lacking in cleanliness…yet the superintendent told me what a good job that I was doing and how he appreciated my efforts. I was not only humbled…but I re-doubled my efforts to return the area to its former pristine condition!
When I entered management and ultimately management/administration…I had a tool that served me well through the 25 years that I was honored to be a leader in Building Services. Each time that I made a decision regarding one of my colleagues….I asked myself how that I would feel if that same decision was being made by one of my leaders for me?
‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Proverbs 25:11. KJV
When I became a supervisor of others…and then a manager of others…I had been humbled by many cruel words and actions towards me. I lived what it was like to be the ‘goat’ or the laughingstock or the person who was ridiculed and made fun of. I determined that if I ever had the chance to lead others….I would treat them like I wanted to be treated. I determined that the doorkeeper job that I had been entrusted with would be a door of opportunity of all! All ethnicities were welcome…all physically and intellectually challenged seekers were welcome….Gay and Lesbian seekers were welcome…..
My friend of many years…chancellor Jo Ann Argersinger…said of me…that I had created a house for all peoples….and I was humbled and tears came to my eyes…as I knew that I was not worthy of such a high commendation….but I tried.
Leadership is really the heart of the gospel of Christ.
‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so must you love one another. ‘ John 13:34. NIV
The Gentle Clicking of the Keys on the Keyboard
Another great blog from Jonathon Brooks!
It can be difficult just to sit down and relax at times. Life can be busy with work. Then it can be busy with social events. Yet then when I am not busy I might think, Wasn’t there something I was supposed to be doing? It is a good thing to sit in the silence for a while just to think or to create or to think about creating and then sit down to do the hard work of creation.
The world around us is a noisy one. Televisions are on in the other rooms. Cell phones keep beeping away. Somebody is shouting out chores to do to the boy who just wants to read a good book in peace. I grow weary of the noise sometimes and I long for the silence or merely the clicking of the keys on the computer keyboard.
Peace is something a soul can…
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Theatre Is Good Medicine!
Last evening, Mary Jane and Jonathon and I were privileged to enjoy an event that I had never experienced before, in church. Our pastor, Rev, Kerry Bean, had written a play for members of our congregation to perform. The donated proceeds for the free event were given to the Good Samaritan Food Pantry and the Presbyterian Hunger Program.
The first thing that I noticed when we arrived is that patrons were flowing into the Fellowship Hall as soon as the doors were open. Smiles were in abundance and there was free popcorn and coffee! We brought along a bottle of red wine…as the play was entitled, Murder by Malbec, and the set was an extraordinary rendition of a winery!
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The sheer joy of seeing your friends and fellow congregants acting their hearts out in an uproarious murder mystery farce…is a unique pleasure! It dawned on me that I was experiencing good medicine for an old christian who often seeks inspiration for the journey back to Jerusalem.
The cast contained doctors and teachers and lawyers and college deans and physical therapist and professors…and all were immersed in the moment of the comedic farce! We really are much more alike that we are different. So many of the artificial walls that separate us…are walls that we have constructed in our own minds!
I watched many visitors to our church as they relished the great performances, and I understood that a fundamental hunger we all share is meaningful human connection.
Aren’t we all seeking others who will warm our hearts when we are lonely and who will understand us and love us…when we are difficult to understand and when we are un-lovable?
When we humans are provided with a strict set of rules that are to be followed from birth to death…we balk and become weary and our inspiration flags from exhaustion. But, when we are are shown a faith walk that can be integrated into our daily lives and is relevant and alive to our life challenges…then we have a Christianity that can be lived for 50 years and more!
The Magic Beans Sold Out Before Noon Today
A great post from Jonathon Brooks!
An old collection of short stories from Ray Bradbury is titled, A Medicine for Melancholy. I find it to be one of the most intriguing titles I’ve yet to discover. What if there was a magical medicine that could make an individual forever happy? Would we all try to get our paws on the stuff? Perhaps some would be skeptical and refuse to take their medicine. Yet others might take more than their prescription. What would the results of that look like? The idea of a medicine for sorrow or melancholy is fascinating.
There is medicine of course for depression, manic-depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and anything else under the stars that is considered to be a mental illness or mental health issue. But are these medicinal pills magic? Do they provide joy to the individuals who swallow them down with a large glass of water?
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The Haunted House
A Halloween Tale!
Billy Bump and his mom and dad moved to El Dorado when he was five years old. The house in Sauk Village, near Chicago, had been a delight to him. It was on Peoria Street and he had wiled away many happy hours with Danny and Pauly and Steve and Susie! Billy had loved to have Steve come over and be the master puppeteer of his marionettes. There was Punch and Judy and Pinocchio and Blackbeard and Frankenstein and Dracula. Billy was hypnotized by Steve’s expertise in maneuvering the arms and legs of the stringed performers…and his multitude of voices for the actors was extraordinary.
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At times, Billy would experience a bit of a waking/sleep as he sat with his eyes glued to the puppets performances. He became a member of the theatre troupe and was a member of the performance. When Count Dracula…
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Balance
It is not long after we enter this life that we learn, to our ultimate dismay, that we are temporary employees on the Earth. Our parents encourage us to study hard and earn a good education. When I was a lad my mom told me that I would not be able to procure a good job if I did not have a high school education. Of course, now, a baccalaureate degree is equivalent to what high school used to be…a generation or two ago.
Once we secure our education, which may be well into our twenties or early thirties….we begin our careers. After all of the time we spent laboring for our education, and all of the student loans that we must repay, we know that we had better be dedicated to the cause of being a roaring success in our chosen field!
Now, with me it was not the college education route, although I did almost secure a baccalaureate degree by taking one or more classes a semester for many years, but I did see before me a promotional path that would result in a nice career.
So, as the old saying goes, ‘All work and no play…makes Jack a dull boy!’
Employment is a seductive mistress! Once I obtained a management position with Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale…I worked 60 – 80 hour weeks for the majority of my 25 years as a manager/administrator in Building Services. By the way…no one asked me to…it simply seemed like the thing to do!
Contained in what most would agree is a short life…even if you live to be 100, as my grandmother Askew often said, are much more than work duties. There is your wife or husband or partner to consider. It has been said that, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder…for someone else!’
If you are blessed with children…there is no greater achievement that you will ever be able to carve on your tombstone or mausoleum than the names of your kids and what they meant to you!
I often say that there is a lot of work to do in talking care of the ranch…as my friend Jo Ann Argersinger described our new, 18 year old, home. The up-keep of a home and yard and the cooking of meals and the washing of the clothes and car service that you run for your children and the attendance of all manner of sporting events and all related activity for your kids…is an awesome responsibility!
I am convinced that women have it much tougher than men. I do not believe that it is right, but the extra burden has not been equally shared as of the writing of this piece.
Managers and administrators tend to place a herculean amount of work on members of their staff who are stellar in their work accomplishments and who, the manager/administrator, knows will be willing to take on an increasing work load. Often it is evident that the employee who complains and grouses regarding their work load…will have that load…diminished…while the member of the staff who is ambitious and who has an excellent work ethic…will be given more and more to do!
And, so, we live in the world of in-balance. Work requires and inordinate amount of our time to the sacrifice of our children and our spouses/partners and our emotional health and our physical health and our…sanity!
It should be expected that a supreme dedication to work related duties would be rewarded with financial remuneration. It seems reasonable the Sisyphus would should be rewarded for continually pushing the stone up the hill?
Take time to smell the roses! Enjoy your children…know them well. Vacation and refresh and renew yourself….you employer will be there….long after you are retired!
Some people live to work…while other work to live…be the latter!
Habits Are Habit Forming!
‘A settled or regular tendency to practice, especially one that is hard to give up.’ Dictionary
Yesterday, Pastor Kerry, spoke about habits and how hard they are to change. He mentioned an intriguing concept that often when we engage in a habit, that might not be good for us or healthy for our bodies, we do so because there are pleasant memories associated with the activity.
I have battled my weight for all of my life. There have been times where I have been thin and vowed…never again to become fat! The practice of eating right and exercising, which is walking for me, and the experience of feeling much better seemed like a winning combination that I would never deviate from again!
Food and drink stir up pleasant memories of times gone by. I can have a Dirty Martini and suddenly I am at my favorite St. Louis restaurant, Cunetto’s House of Pasta, enjoying their rendition of a Dirty Martini…which is the best that I have experienced!
So often food is celebration in our daily lives. If we go out with friends..we go out for dinner. If we go to the ballgame…we tailgate. Birthdays call for a special meal and cake!
Change is hard! It is easy and somewhat inspiring to talk about. It hard work to implement!
Advertisers learned many years ago that if you want to sell something…you need to associate it with a pleasant feeling or memory. There was a popular commercial in 1971 where a large choir of young people sang, beautifully, ‘I’d like to buy the world a coke..’ Morning Mix
‘In the commercial, a camera pans across faces of all shapes and ethnicities, as they sing from a hilltop in Manziana, Italy…’ Morning Mix
‘Bill Backer of McCann Ericsson was the creative director on the Coca-Cola account.’ As he sat in an airport cafe due to his plane had been grounded in Ireland while it was in route to London. After spending the night in Shannon he noticed that the passengers seemed happier…
‘In that moment [I] saw a bottle of coke in a whole new light…[I] began to see a bottle of Coca Cola as more than a drink that refreshed a hundred million people a day in almost every corner of the globe. So [I] began to see the familiar words, ‘Let’s have a Coke, as more than an invitation to pause for refreshment. They were actually a subtle way of saying, ‘Let’s keep each other company for a little while.’ And [I] knew they were being said all over the world as [I] sat there in Ireland. So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be —– a liquid refresher ——but as a tiny bit of commonality all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes.’ Bill Backer, Morning Mix
Upon watching the inspirational telecast…indeed you want to replicate the warm and fuzzy feeling that you experienced as you listened to the dulcet tones.
So, for us to be able to change our habits…we must wrestle with our feelings and emotions that are associated with those habits!
Each time that I have dinner at Cunetto’s I have fond memories of events associated with the ristorante from years gone by. I recall being with my brother-in-law, Ron, and Mary Jane and I having dinner on a cold January, 2011 evening…just prior to flying out to Jamaica the next morning. I was so excited, having retired at the conclusion of 2010. Or, I remember the many birthday dinners I have enjoyed with Mary Jane and Aaron and Jonathon…and each year being amazed at how old I had become! Or the Black Friday Cunetto dinners that we have partaken of…as I waited in the cloak room due to the crush of customers…and the bartender brought me my Dirty Martini…30 minutes after I had ordered it!
I began a habit when I was 12 years old…and I have never broken it. I have attended church and been involved in some type of church work for the past 50 years. The peaceful assurance of attempting to walk my way back to Jerusalem has been all the more real to me…by having so many friends by my side.
Do You See Me?
Our pastor, Kerry Bean, preached this morning on a timely subject, Justice, but what I took away from the message was, ‘Do you see me?’
On many occasions I have noticed physical elements that I have failed to notice before. As I walk the Campus of the beautiful Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale, of which I have been doing for 41 years, I notice new things that I am quite certain were there on my previous excursions.
The tagging of trees as to what type of tree that they are…has been a joy to me. I have often wondered what type of tree that I was admiring.
But, Pastor Kerry explained to us this morning that we may not be seeing the needs that are before our faces and our eyes and our ears and our understanding.
It is easy and comfortable to become ensconced in a mind set and a mission that is clearly laid out in a mission statement and yet to not see the forest for the trees!
Who is hurting;…that you could help?
It is possible to believe that although you are a member of a faith community…that no one sees you. I think that the real work of christianity and faith outreach is difficult and dirty and uncomfortable and distressing…before it is comforting!
Christ came to disturb the comfortable and to afflict the complacent! If you feel that everything is going as planned and the mission of Christ is being accomplished, are you in tune with the radical
gospel of Jesus?
Do I see the opioid addict?
Have I reached
out to the church member that has been hurt? Have I understood why people leave the church and how to get them back?
Does he church have relevance to todays society?
Do I see the homeless and the hungry and the destitute and the immigrant and the stranger and the foreigner and the member of a church or faith community…that no one sees?
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Do I hear the call to faith and works…and not feel the the call is for me?
Do I hunger to understand that Jesus call has never been convient or socially or politically popular? Do I really understand that Jesus call was to a radical discipleship that does not mesh well with modern society?
Has Christ revealed what his discipleship entails…and why there are not many takers?
Do I see and understand the lack of connection of my fellow pew mates on Sunday morning? Do I understand how they do not feel seen by the faith community that they are a part of? Do I really want to get involved in the intricate minutiae of assuring my broken sister or brother that they are a part of the Body of Christ and that they matter…and that they are seen?
Who are we to imagine that we are called to be representative of Christ in a upper middle class life style and with little downside to the real work of christianity and the calling to be his disciple? Why would we think that Jesus does not want to disturb us….but rather wants us to continue in our comfortable lifestyle and to be oblivious to the countless members of his creation that are suffering and hungry and dieing….and searching for someone who sees them?
Michael Meyers…Deflated
A tale of a Deflated Michael Meyers!
twomIt was a dark and forbidding Saturday morning. The clouds covered the sky like a quilt that grandma Askew had made for Billy Bump many years ago. It was the last Saturday in September and it was ninety degrees in the shade! Billy met his sons, David and Daniel, and they proceeded to the Student Center for Comic Con, which had been renamed Saluki Con. This was volume #3 of the event…and Billy had attended all of them.
One of the most enjoyable elements of Saluki Con is watching all of the people, young and old alike, dressed in their various costumes of Star Trek characters and Star Wars names of renown, as well as famous horror figures such as; Freddy Kruger and Michael Meyers.
As Daniel and Billy waited for David they observed Cat Woman, who had aged gracefully, as well as Super Girl and Batman. There was the…
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Chaos
‘Complete disorder and confusion.’
‘Snow caused chaos in the region.’
‘Behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.’ Dictionary
‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ Genesis 1: 1-2 KJV
Each of us enjoy the freedom that the United States of America affords us. We are the. Land of the free and the home of the brave!’
I do know that none of us likes or seeks chaos. On the contrary, we seek order and system and procedure and goals that can be achieved through hard work and discipline.
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The American people seek and hunger for common sense politicians and leaders that are not pandering to fringe groups.
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Have you ever listened to a leader who promises you a plethora of good things that he or she is going to do for you…only to later discover that the leader was lying to you…while they looked you directly in the eye and did not blink?
Many proclaim, ‘America First.’…until the day that we are attacked and on the verge of defeat…and then we will want to call on our global allies for assistance!
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Some of us are members of faith communities that teach us that we are the chosen and the called and thus…if you do not see it our way….there is the highway. Do you really believe that God created the Earth and the human family, out of chaos, and decided that he was only interested in a select few…and the rest would make a fine barbecue? What if you are one of the barbecue candidates?
The Christian community is so fragmented that some groups are satisfied that members of the other groups are not, really, Christians.
When we decide to yield our brains and logical thinking processes to an autocratic leader…and subsequently if our understanding of world events does not come out of that leaders mouth they are wrong…we are participating in chaos.
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Have you ever had a member of your family or a church leader or a political leader…or a boss…that if you did not agree with them in all areas…they sought to punish you? It happens! I have witnessed it.
I have witnessed colleagues who, conveniently, looked the other way, when wrong doing occurred…out of a fear for their job and a trepidation of becoming a whistle blower.
I have always had the ability to empathize with others misfortunes and plights, although I was not experiencing the same thing. We may say, ‘Whistle blowers are akin to traitors…and should be punished as we did in the old days…shooting, hanging, death!’ What if you are trapped in an environment that you see with your eyes and hear with your ears and understand with your heart is…wrong…and illegal…and dangerous and threatening for you and your colleagues and your family and your loved ones….would you appreciate your safety being threatened and your family being placed in danger, if you were a whistle blower?
‘I believe in full LBTQ rights.
That we should protect the planet.
That the world is bigger than America.
That everyone deserves healthcare.
That all religions are beautiful.
That people and places are made better by diversity.
I don’t think that’s radical.
I think humanity feels radical to inhumane people.’
johnpavloitz.com
The Happy Traveler 