This isn’t right. School shouldn’t start in the middle of August. The summer has been great and we have enjoyed the grandkids but it was too short. Part of the problem is that they didn’t get out until late last school year because of snow days. Melissa and her kids are coming to Wilmore to day to visit their cousins and we hope to have a back to school celebration. The celebration is more for the moms than the kids I suppose. It will be an exciting school year. Ryan is starting high school and Jerod is starting middle school.
Ann and I plan to spend a few days with Clark and Vanessa in Iowa next week. Hope to do some fishing. I have not had much luck fishing this summer. I blame it on the unsettled weather.
(excerpt from post 9/20/06)
Isa. 30:15-21
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.” Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
At a time when I am struggling to understand what I should do to be the person God desires me to be, these verses are very personal. Today there was discussion on prayers of silence. We practiced silent prayer. It is hard for me to grasp the importance of doing nothing. As I prayed in silence I was overwhelmed by the temptation to make it a time to be utilized to get something done. Earl Lavender commented: “Most of our lives are out of control because we are in control”. He also asked a question that I will need to consider seriously, “Is there a way of doing mission reactively rather than proactively?”
If not comforting, it is interesting that I have come to identify with President Obama in his efforts to single-handedly solve most of our country’s problems. Let me explain.
In the mid-seventies I returned from an educational leave to a new job in labor relations at Ford. As a labor relations representative my first significant assignment was to conduct absentee hearings. The assignment meant that each day I would go to an interview room in the plant and conduct hearings for employees that had been absent or tardy the previous few days. Typically, dozens of employees would line up for their opportunity, accompanied by their union committeman, to face my stinging interrogation regarding their absence/tardiness. Without a reasonable explanation supported by appropriate documentation, I would administer discipline which could be as little as a verbal warning or as drastic as termination depending upon their attendance records. We employed a progressive discipline system which meant that each penalty was more severe that the last. Within certain limits, I had the latitude to exercise discretion in what the penalty would be. For example, I could give a person a three-day suspension without pay and then their next discipline would be a week suspension, and so on. I might, because of mitigating circumstances, administer the penalty but waive the time off. Theoretically, the employee having been given a gracious gift and facing a next penalty of one week (appropriately threatened with such at the time of the gift) would see the error of his ways and come to work from that point on.
You must be thinking, what does this have to do with President Obama? Let me explain. When assigned to the absentee hearings, I inherited all the documented absentee records of every employee. Those who came the hearings were most often employees that had a history of habitual absence/tardiness. I looked at the terrible attendance records and talked with the employees and heard their pleadings and hard luck stories and tears et al. I began to believe, that despite the failed efforts of experienced labor relations representatives to correct their behavior, I possessed qualities and skills that would succeed where others had failed. As a result, I launched a personal campaign to single-handedly solve the plant’s desperate absentee problems. It was obvious to me that my predecessors had not explained clearly nor used the tools of persuasion as I was capable of doing to turn this around. To make a long story shorter, in a short time disciplinary actions decreased and absenteeism began to increase. This did not go unnoticed by my superiors. I was informed that if I didn’t get on track I would be fired. So rather than be fired, I fired. My delusions of grandeur were burst and I learned a valuable lesson. The lesson wasn’t that I didn’t have some special or unique skills and/or qualities that may have very well improved the process. I learned that I could not ignore the reality of history and experience and succeed by the force of my personality. What success I ultimately achieved in improving attendance came because I recognized the reality of the circumstances around me and then began to apply whatever special traits I possessed to those circumstances.
There is, I believe, a basic human trait that leads us to arrogantly believe that we individually possess knowledge and understanding that transcends all others and as well as lessons learned from the past.
It is comforting(?) to know President Obama is human.
It was 47 years ago today that I walked into the Ford Motor Company Nashville Glass Plant as a new employee. It was both exciting and scary. Getting to work at Ford was a blessing. The opportunity did not come not because I had been recruited for my skills and talents. Joe Clark, a good friend of Ann’s family worked there and had the influence to get me hired. He literally sneaked into the employment office past others waiting for an opportunity to go to work. Ann and I did not have two pennies to rub together with a baby on the way. We were living with the Clark’s until we could get on our feet. I guess I couldn’t reach my bootstraps.
For the next 36 years 5 months and 8 days my life was pretty much defined by “I work at Ford’s”. My work experience was rewarding both materially and personally. I am thankful for the opportunity that came my way and it is good to be reminded that it was only because of the graciousness of others that it was possible.
