Above all else

Life has often thrown me situations where I have had to make a choice - be safe?  Or to go for it, and either be great or end up with egg on my face.  I love to play basketball, so I'll use this example: when the ball is in your hands, (and yes, I'm over-simplifying, even for a game of basketball) there are essentially two choices.  Make something happen, or pass the ball and responsibility to someone else.  If you shoot and make the basket, you're great.  If you miss (and miss, and miss, and miss), you're in trouble.  But if you never shoot, well... you'll never miss. Quite often, these "safe or great" decision-points also arise at work, because the consequences of work decisions, like a basketball shot, are shorter-term and visible. But longer-term, less visible consequences are obviously important too. I remember my first job - it was exciting!  After some time, I got good at it, and I knew I was good at it too.  So when it came to the ...

Wallflower - a shy or excluded person at a party.  For most of my life, I've felt like a wallflower.  Standing awkwardly in the corner, avoiding eye contact, inwardly hoping for, even while contradictorily dreading the point when someone comes over to break the ice and start a conversation, so I can finally feel included.  What a relief it is when someone takes that step towards me so I'm no longer awkwardly alone! So just last week the wife and I were in New York and we went to see the Statue of Liberty for the first time.  The Statue is on a little island off Manhattan, so you have to take a ferry.  As you would expect, there were a number of school groups on excursion, and we happened to sit next to a young man in his late teens.  He was alone, while his schoolmates milled about at the other end of the ferry, happily chatting and laughing with each other.  A middle-aged lady, probably their teacher, eventually ambled over and casually smiled, ...

One of our practices over a Sunday dinner evening is to share with each other some lessons learned in the past week or a challenge to be faced in the coming week, and either give thanks or seek God's advice in prayer.  It's great because we learn to be more transparent with each other, and reinforce that problems are best resolved not by capricious individual effort alone, but with God's guidance. One of the kids was sharing that there was a classmate who was being a bad influence on the rest of the class by bullying, being disrespectful to teachers and disruptive during lessons.  Solutions included: Kid: Can I complain to the teacher about what he's doing? Me: Well, you don't really want to be the class snitch, unless he's putting someone in danger...? Kid: Then can I confront him myself about the bad things he's doing? Me: How are you going to do that?  Do you think he'll listen? Kid: No.  He always flips me the finger when I tel...