They Came My Way
“ The heart is the first feature of working minds.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright
It was 2000. Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old Cuban boy at the center of an international dispute, is reunited with his father after a federal raid in Miami. In July the Concorde crashed near Paris, killing 113. In an early October nationwide uprising, Yugoslavians overthrew President Milosevic. One week later on October 12, US sailors on the Navy destroyer Cole died in a terrorist explosion. In mid-May, the I love you virus disrupted computers worldwide and in late June, the human genome was deciphered.
The year ended with the closest presidential election in decades. George Bush secured re-election to a second term when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the manual recount of Florida votes and on December 12th ruled 5-4 there could be no further recounting.
Oprah Winfrey debuted the O magazine. After drawing more than 18,250 Peanuts cartoon strips, Charles Schulz died in his sleep after a battle with colon cancer. Kathie Lee Gifford called it quits co-hosting Live! With Regis & Kathie Lee. Madonna and Guy Ritchie married in a lavish wedding at Scotland’s Skibo Castle. Erin Brockovich hit the Big Screen as did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Gladiator.
In an All New York World Series, the Yankees defeated the Mets in five games. The Lakers defeated the Pacers in six games to win the NBA Championship and Venus Williams won Wimbledon in straight sets beating Lindsay Davenport.
In mid-February, 2000, I drove to Hemet in Riverside County to take Frank Goble to his doctor for the last time. For nearly four years, I had been Frank’s executor and primary overseer of his custodial care needs. Our relationship dated back almost thirty years to the early 1970’s when Frank served as a Board Member of The Santa Anita Church.
One of the most brilliant and expansive thinkers I have ever encountered, Frank was an engineer who changed careers to take on his big interest: The mind and how we learn. His influence was broad nationally. Author of The Third Force, he spent months with the famous psychologist, Abraham Maslow, making the complex theoretical mind of Maslow user friendly to the public.
In the late 1960’s Frank founded the Thomas Jefferson Research Center in Pasadena. Throughout the decade of the 70’s the research center explored the changing cultural landscape of American education. Much of the research focused on reporting on the movement away from character and values driven curriculum in America’s K-12 schools. By the early 1980s, Frank’s ground breaking best seller, The Case For Character Education, became the motivation for the center to change its focus and its name to become The Jefferson Center for Character Education, the first nationwide, research-based character education resource organization in the United States.
In the Fall of 1999, I had Frank placed in a dementia and Alzheimer care center in Hemet. Frank’s Winter Season had been full of turbulence during the past two years. As his mental and emotional capabilities deteriorated and his daily care became more complex, this move had been the right one.
In late January Frank’s decline appeared to be accelerating. Our visit to his physician was purposed for the doctor to evaluate additional end-of-life care. There had never been a time I visited Frank that he did not know me. Such was the case this time. He acknowledged me with a smile and a brief greeting. Except for those words, it was obvious that the hour-long drive to and from the doctor’s office made no sense to Frank. He was totally without energy for the journey. Nevertheless, we were off to the doctor with no conversation as Frank slept his way to the appointment.
Our time with the doctor was brief. I cannot remember whether Frank had any meaningful interaction with him. Soon we were on our way back to Hemet. Silence was the atmosphere again as Frank slept.
It was not until I parked the car at the care center that the extraordinary occurred. Before I could open the door to assist him out of the car, Frank came alive! It was the Frank I mistakenly thought no longer existed. It was Frank, the man I had admired for years, learned from and been inspired by. Frank was present.
He showed up and started up. While these words are not his exactly, they capture the moment as he looked intentionally at me saying,
“Russ, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me these past few years. You have been the person who has helped me greatly in my needs and you have done so with care and with respect. I want you to know I am grateful.”
I was stunned. Where did this come from? How did these words come forth now?
“Frank, you are welcome. I am glad I could be that person for you.”
Frank said nothing more. He was done. I would visit him two more times in the next two weeks. He would say nothing. A day after my final visit, Frank passed.
My meaningful moment with this giant of a man who mentored me to carry on the character education legacy he had started, reveals much about the mind and its mysterious, intentional power to create anew for good.
The mind that spoke through Frank’s awareness was totally alive. In that moment Frank became his whole self…again. He was given a moment to do what was his natural instinct…to be a giver. That was Frank. And, for whatever reason, he was given this moment to be himself fully at his best and I was the blessed beneficiary.
You, my reader, may have a personal story like this one. I like to think of these stories as heart songs. When such encounters occur with magnificent clarity, they underscore The Why of our brief time together on planet earth. We understand more clearly why specific people come our way to sing their heart song and in doing so, deepen our appreciation for the enriching life music of others.
Appreciating you on the ethical edge!
Russell Williams, Founder/President
Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge
www.ethicaledge.org
They Came My Way
“ Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.”
- Karl Barth
It was 1986. On January 28, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded killing all seven astronauts. In late February President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after ruling for over twenty years and was succeeded by Corazon Aquino. A major nuclear accident at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl power station put the world community on high alert.
In June the US Supreme Court reaffirmed abortion rights and in August William Rehnquist was approved as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
We Are The World, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, was the song of the year at the Grammy’s. Haley’s Comet yielded new astronomic information on its return visit. A first-ever genetic engineered vaccine for Hepatitis B was approved by the FDA.
The iconic American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, died as did Britain’s famous Duchess of Windsor. The Amazing Mets defeated Boston in the World Series; Ferdinand was the Kentucky Derby Champion; and Penn State went 12-0 under Coach Pa to take a national NCAA Football Title.
From January to August, 1986…my 40th birthday year… I took a gut-check life ride. Twenty-six years later through a 20-20 vision rearview mirror, I can see clearly beyond the clouds of unknowing that surrounded a confusing time that was both frightening and freeing, offering me the prodigal story of re-choosing life again. Surely, it was my time for a Wild Mr. Toad Ride!
In May, after serving eight years as Sr. Minister of a community church in Santa Rosa, I informed my Board I was resigning my position. This decision was formed out of a spiritual experience I encountered during Easter Week when I visited a Catholic church in the Valley of the Moon near Jack London State Park in Sonoma County. Simply stated, the experience reframed a major life perception. I needed to integrate the experience into my life.
Most men measure themselves by the yardstick of being in control, in charge, moving in a self-determined goal direction. What happens when this self-measurement stick fractures? What does a man do when Command and Control is not a useful personal management tactic? What major adjustments can a man encounter when his perceived personal strength is insufficient for maneuvering in his life river? That was Spring, 1986.
The decision to leave my ministry was the initial action item of what was the beginning of a grace-guided journey that uprooted me, my wife and our very young family on a God guided journey from Santa Rosa to Mission Viejo.
In July my friend and professional colleague, Dr. Jimmy Adamson, invited my wife and me to have lunch with his wife and him. By now he knew I was leaving Santa Rosa.
A delightful Old Scot with a ceaseless twinkle in his eye and a good word for anyone who took time to listen, Dr. Jimmy had been the Senior Pastor of the Santa Rosa Presbyterian Church for years. He and I had forged a special collaborative bond in the early 1980’s to shape what was named The Redwood Empire Sing-Along-Messiah. Jimmy and I were the community visionaries who brought the faith community together in a big, annual Christmas event which celebrated its 31st program in the holiday season last December, 2011.
When the four of us sat down for lunch, Jimmy wanted to know all about the move our family was making. As I shared the “back story” that surrounded my decision, he took on the focused listening of the Sage. I don’t remember what I said that made Jimmy know I felt quite vulnerable about this big move our family was taking…motivated by thoughts and impressions that in no way could be defined as career clarity. But, surely, Dr. Jimmy listened with discernment that understood I had arrived at a fork in the road.
At some point I must have taken a moment to pause which became Dr. Jimmy’s entry point to ask me an unforgettable question. To this day it remains with me. His question and subsequent explanation is enshrined in my Personal Pantheon of Timeless Wisdom.
What did Dr. Jimmy say? “Russ, have you ever heard of prevenient grace?” Not only had I not heard of such a term, I could not imagine what he had up his sage sleeve.
“Russ, it is theology. It’s the wee-bit of information we Scottish pastors love to think and talk about. And it sounds to me like you would value knowing.” He had entrapped me in his lair of wisdom.
“So, what is prevenient grace, Jimmy?”
“It means the grace of God is the good that goes before you to set a course for you to follow…to be led…as you find the courage to do so. Your effort is to know you are being led until His leading becomes your effortless action.”
His words were like a spontaneous wind that entered my spiritual sails, filling me with the vital force of clarity and providing me a desired pause from the weighty pain of personal effort that had held my sails flapping in turbulent psychic winds.
The rhythm of prevenient grace was the lesson I was to experience. 1986 was the beginning of a new chapter of learning that twenty-six years later would provide me with rich appreciation for what it means to stand to the side of personal effort and stand in receptive listening to the force of good that forgives us…fills us…fuels us…and moves us intentionally forward along a path that has been prepared for us to pursue.
Dr. Jimmy’s conversational moment with me was sacred time. His words were the whisperings of truth from the thunder of Silence that seeks our attention to help us move where we need to move, learning to practice placing our hands on the tiller of our own ship, knowing we have guidance to move in His purposeful direction.
Why did Dr. Jimmy come my way at lunch in June, 1986? For me, there is no doubt. As the 20th century Swiss theologian, Karl Barth stated, it was an encounter of grace finding expression in my life.
Appreciating you on the ethical edge!
Russell Williams, Founder/President
Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge
www.ethicaledge.org