Often on a Monday morning (or over a weekend), I’ll spend some time considering the “Biggest Rock” I want to focus on in my work week – the biggest thing I want to accomplish, or the biggest theme or effort I want to focus on for the week.

This week, with a bunch of tactical “Big Rocks” out of the way for a week or two, I have resolved on a different type of focus for my leadership of my team this week: LOVE.

Love.

It does remind me of the moment I moved from the role of consultant to the role of manager, when I realized that my work would (or should) no longer be as much about my own accomplishments than it was about those of my team members. This is a leap for me, as I had taken great pride & joy in my work as a consultant, had handled some major accounts, and received more than my fair share of awards, accolades, and rewards for that work.

As a manager, though, I have to look through an entirely different lens. My whole work life has to stay focused on my team – helping them to see the reward in their work, get better at what they do, and do the very best that they can for our clients and our greater business.

My whole life and upbringing tell me that the best way to do this is to focus, first, on the heart of my relationship with each of them: To love them as individuals and then focus, from that foundation, on what I can do to help and nurture them as the professionals that they are.

Sometimes that means getting down in the trenches and helping with some client work – easing a burden or giving some ideas or an example. Sometimes it’s going to mean jumping onto a call to help present or defend their work with a difficult client. Sometimes it’ll mean enjoying seeing them receive well-deserved praise or rewards for what they’re doing.

The hallmark is my love for each of them as a person – the dignity and worth that they each bring to our team as individuals.

That’s my focus for the week. No big project checkboxes to check off my list this week – just one over-arching goal to get better at my love as a foundation for my relationship with my whole team.

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” – John Maxwell

“I am God’s wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” – St Ignatius of Antioch

The Tribute Money, Peter Paul Ruben (c. 1612)

“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” – Matthew 22:21b

Pay to the world what is the world’s, and to God what is God’s. It was a big deal for Matthew to write this, as he himself was a tax collector. Surely this moment with Christ touched him deeply, and perhaps even changed him, as it can also touch and change us today.

What is God’s?

Perhaps it’s easier to answer that question with the context of next Sunday’s Gospel, the continuation of this week’s, in which – 16 verses of Matthew after this – Jesus gives “the greatest Law,” and teaches, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

What is God’s? Your heart, your soul, your mind. Your neighbor. And love. God is love, and Love is of God.

Heart, soul, mind, neighbor, love.

If I am to LOVE God with ALL my heart, ALL my soul, ALL my mind, and love my neighbor as myself, when do I do this? When do I fail?

As a husband, if I put some desire of my own over my wife’s needs, am I truly loving my neighbor as myself?

As a physical neighbor of another homeowner, if I quickly and conveniently blow just a few of the grass clippings or the leaves over towards his yard (He’s not looking out his window, is he?) to save myself some time, am I truly loving my neighbor as myself?

If I dangerously disregard traffic laws and speed and weave through traffic to try to get to work faster, neglecting the fact that everyone around me is also trying to get somewhere safely, and I truly loving my neighbor as myself?

If I find it a little too easy to ignore or brush off those in Ferguson reminding me that there are still injustices in my own back yard, regardless of the events that precipitated that plea.

If I forget about those in prison, or in the hospital; if I fear Ebola more than I pray for those who have contracted it and those who are caring for them; if I find it too easy to drive or walk past someone asking for some spare change from my pocket because I’ve been asked and I’ve given or ignored a thousand times before, am I loving my neighbor as myself? If they go to bed tonight with pangs of hunger while I lay, comfortably and well-fed, am I?

God asks for our WHOLE hearts, our WHOLE souls, and our WHOLE minds.

I’m a husband and a father. If I prioritize my kids ABOVE my relationship with God, am I really doing them a service? If getting them to the next soccer game is more important than prioritizing leading them to Mass, to the Eucharist, to the “source and summit” of our lives as Christians and to the very presence of Jesus Christ in the world, am I doing them any favors? Am I showing them that God truly has my whole heart, soul, and mind, and setting the example for them to give Him theirs as well?

Or am I instead teaching my children to give the world what is God’s?

No, as a husband and father, MORE is asked of me. It’s more important than ever before in my life: when i was single, when I wasn’t entrusted yet with children… now it is MORE important to put my relationship with God FIRST, to give him His due FIRST, out of my time, my talents, my abilities, my physical abundance. God gave it to me, and in returning it to Him, I fulfill his command and I deepen my relationship with Him in turn.

Somehow – and I’m always surprised by this – God surprises me by giving back to me in new ways whenever I give to Him. Sometimes it’s a new grace, or a new gift. Sometimes it’s a new suffering to offer up to Him for others around me.

In giving to God what is God’s, I acknowledge the teaching of Isaiah in today’s first reading, “I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. I am the LORD and there is no other, there is no God besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not, so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me. I am the LORD, there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:4b-5)

In “giving the Lord glory and honor”, as in the Psalm, I do find myself “unceasingly calling to mind [my] work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians.

One of my favorite verses of the Old Testament reinforces this – the prophet Micah wrote, “You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

When I do these things; when I act this way in these moments of daily life, slowly, over time, I find myself becoming more fully configured to Christ, serving in love. I find peace in giving to God all that is His, all that He has given to me. Sufferings, pains, struggles; gifts, graces, talents. Giving all. May God give us the grace to continue living out this challenge in our lives and in our world.

This morning on an early morning flight, I opened the window shade just as we started our descent to land. It was early in the morning, just as the amber glow of dawn was starting to cast a glow across the clouds to the east outside of my plane window.

As we turned to the west, I looked up and could see, clear as day, the North Star – the pole star.

As a youth, I learned of the importance of the north star to navigators of every age. The brightest star in the northern sky, its location in the sky is steady and consistent and gives a reliable point of reference from which to find your way at night.

It caused me to pause and consider whether I was being a “north star” – a steady and consistent leader – for my own team. What could I do better this week to help show each person on my team the way to success (and help ensure they remain happy, growing, and content while on the way there?)

Even if you’re not a manager, you can be a pole star for others in your life through your own example and servant leadership, or for being there to listen or to help share advice when they need it. That’s my Monday Manager challenge for this week – thinking from the position of north star this week, and anchoring my team and helping to show the way, but simultaneously trying to be a stronger light and example for my own family and friends.

Will you join me?

For more than ten years – since I re-met my wife, started dating her, realized my vocation to marriage with her, and started a family with her – since I stopped considering what I had thought might have been a call to the Catholic priesthood, I’ve contemplated and discerned a possible call to the diaconate.

It’s important to note that that’s not a “replacement” calling – it’s an entirely different calling. The deacon is not ordained for the same sacramental realities that the priest is; and, in fact, a permanent deacon who is married has other sacramental realities that are priorities in his life as well, by virtue of the Sacrament of Marriage. The diaconate has been ill-served in recent years by our Catholic faithful perceiving it as an “other” calling than the priesthood, though – it is in line with the priesthood, but a lower order; it is charged with helping to preach the Word (in word and action), offering the prayers of the Church, serving (but not as a priest) at the altar, and leading in taking that service and call of the Word into the world.

From time to time, the whisper that I think might be a calling gets louder, or sometimes quieter. But it’s always, undeniably, there. There’s a certain fear that comes along with it – not a fear of what accepting that call might bring, but rather a fear of whether what I’m feeling and hearing is truly a call at all. The simple fear of discerning “incorrectly” is a very, very strong fear.

That said, a few weeks ago, a series of signs happened in my life (again.) First, this – a comment thread when a priest of our diocese posted a link to a study our diocese recently co-released with Benedictine University on why some Catholics stop practicing their faith, and why others remain:

That’s the first time the cat’s truly been “out of the bag”, as they say, other than with my wife.

Then, that weekend, the homily at Mass was very much about not withholding your knowledge, gifts and talents when you’re called to share them.

Then, that same weekend, this appeared in our parish bulletin:

Then, I had some intense prayer around the time of my own patronal feast, the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels.

After discussing with my wife, we decided to attend. As it ended up, another good friend and his wife from our parish are also going. It should be a nice trip to our Cathedral (about 1 1/2 hours north) to find out more together.

I don’t know where this first step on this journey might lead. I don’t know if I’ll apply, if I’ll be accepted, if I’ll go all the way. But I know I’m saying my first “Yes” at this moment.

This Sunday’s Gospel is the Parable of the Wedding Feast. In the parable, the king continued to send messengers to invite his countrymen to the wedding feast for his son. Many repeatedly ignored the invitation. I hope that, if I’m truly being called, that I am aided by grace in knowing what to do and when. Also in the parable, when one man showed up for the feast, he was clothed inappropriately and thrown out. I pray that if I’m truly chosen, I’m able to be, and remain, clothed in grace and a life worthy of this calling.

By grace, I just recently noticed something interesting about this print that hangs just to the side of my desk in my home office.

Joseph, the dad hard at work in his shop, with his son (Jesus) playing at his feet, bears the sash over the left shoulder of his tunic – the sash of a deacon.

When we talked about the meeting with our boys at dinner last week, it was a great conversation.

The next morning, while driving somewhere in the car, our second, Matthew, said, “Dad, I think you’d be a good deacon, because you love God, you know so much about Him, and you love to pray Morning Prayer every day.”

That sums it up, I think – if this calling is real and true, I feel deeply that it’s in part because God has given me so much love, passion, and knowledge to help serve effectively: the Word, at the altar, and in the world. Such is what I know to be the service of a deacon.

Mary, ask Jesus your Son for grace and guidance for me, please.

Friends, please pray for Suzanne, the boys, and me.

If I tell you I’m going to pray for you or your intention, you should know that more than likely, in my mind’s eye, I see myself praying the Rosary on your behalf, and ultimately, within a day or two, you will be in my intentions as I am praying a daily Rosary. Today – October 7 – is a special day in our Church calendar – the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (also known as Our Lady of Victory), marking the victory at Lepanto, securing Europe against Turkish invaders (read about it here.)

The Rosary is my personal weapon of choice

Many non-Catholics (and many Catholics) misunderstand it, unfortunately – they see the Rosary as a prayer to Mary and a stumbling block to prayer to Christ Himself and a relationship with Him. However, to me (and to Catholics everywhere), the Rosary is Jesus’s mother’s preferred prayer tool for us to use to recall the major events of Christ’s love and ministry, and pray through her, begging for her intercession before Christ her Son on our behalf.

In the Rosary, we’re taking our needs and in turn, asking Mary, at Christ’s side, to beg of Him for our own intentions.

in·ter·ces·sion (noun) \ˌin-tər-ˈse-shən\ 1) the act of interceding 2) prayer, petition, or entreaty in favor of another

I have a few favorite Rosaries that I use in my own prayer… I still have the small, navy Rosary with tiny beads that I received for my First Communion. I also still have one with slightly larger black beads that our grade school principal Sister Mary Angelene ensured each of us had at our spot at the head table at our 8th grade graduation dinner from Holy Family School. The Rosary I keep in my pocket and use daily is one brought back from Rome by one of my grade school classmates and scouting friends, which he gave to each person in attendance at his Ordination to the Priesthood (it is the one pictured at the top of this blog post.)

Here is a bit of reflection on the Rosary from Pope Saint John Paul II, of whom it was widely known that the Rosary was one of his favorite prayers:

The rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christ-centered prayer. It has all the depth of the gospel message in its entirety. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb… It can be said that the rosary is, in some sense, a prayer-commentary on the final chapter of the Vatican II Constitution Lumen Gentium, a chapter that discusses the wondrous presence of the Mother of God in the mystery of Christ and the Church” – Pope John Paul II, apostolic letter The Rosary of the Virgin Mary

Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on today’s memorial, invited all people and families to pray the Rosary for the intentions of the Pope, for the mission of the Church, and for peace in the world, saying:

“It is as if every year Our Lady invited us to rediscover the beauty of this prayer, so simple and profound.” The Rosary, a “contemplative and Christocentric prayer, inseparable from the meditation of Sacred Scripture,” is “the prayer of the Christian who advances in the pilgrimage of faith, in the following of Jesus, preceded by Mary” – Pope Benedict XVI

Praying the Rosary in our home

In our own home, the ways and places we pray the Rosary are many – If you’re new to praying the Rosary, I would encourage you to find one or more that work for you, give it a try a few times, and work the best ones into your own personal schedule…

• I pray alone, early in the morning, when I’m awake and ready for the day, and before the family wakes up. Often I’ll sit comfortably on a couch or sofa chair, sometimes I’ll kneel.

• I pray alone while taking a walk during a break during the day.

• We pray as a family in our living room; sometimes with a video program with reflections on the Rosary playing (the boys particularly like Father Mitch Pacwa’s Holy Land Rosary), or with one of the boys leading us in the mysteries and reflections on each.

• We pray one on one, or perhaps with two of the boys at a time, at bed time, while one of them is in their room ready for bed and their roommate brother is still in the bathroom or otherwise getting ready for bed.

• My wife and I pray together when the boys are gone or in bed – sometimes in the living room, sometimes in bed together.

• I pray alone when I’m driving somewhere in the car – it’s great for avoiding the stresses of driving and becoming more forgiving of other drivers!

• We pray as a family when we’re driving on long drives.

As we pray the Rosary, there are a few sets of reflections we can use – they are grouped into sets called the Mysteries of the Rosary. As we pray each decade (each fifth of the Rosary; each set of 10 Hail Mary prayers), we reflect on one of the Mysteries. Here are the Mysteries:

Joyful Mystery of the Rosary Monday & Saturday

• The Annunciation of the Lord to Mary

• The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth

• The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

• The Presentation of our Lord in the Temple

• Finding Jesus in the Temple (at age 12)

Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary Tuesday & Friday

• The Agony of Jesus in the Garden

• The Scourging at the Pillar

• Jesus is Crowned with Thorns

• Jesus Carried the Cross

• The Crucifixion of our Lord

Glorious Mystery of the Rosary Wednesday & Sunday

• The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

• The Ascension of Jesus to Heaven

• The Descent of the Holy Ghost

• The Assumption of Mary into Heaven

• Mary is Crowned as Queen of Heaven and Earth

Luminous Mystery of the Rosary Thursday

• The Baptism in the Jordan

• The Wedding at Cana

• The Proclamation of the Kingdom

• The Transfiguration

• The Institution of the Eucharist

There you have it – if I’m praying for you, know that it’s likely while holding your intention in my mind while praying and reflecting on the Mysteries of the Rosary.

If the Rosary isn’t yet a part of your own prayer life, I would encourage you to try it once – perhaps even today on this Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary – and see where it takes your prayer life. I’d love to hear how it goes. If you DO already actively pray the Rosary, I’d love to hear more about your own places and ways of praying it, and the impact it’s had on your life.

Lord, you will open my lips; and my mouth will proclaim your praise.

…it begins each day’s Liturgy of the Hours, and it begins the new journey of this blog on the intersection of faith, family, and life.

I am a Catholic husband and father. Work-from-home corporate manager by day; husband and daddy (to 4 boys), church organist and music director, cub scout leader, and scouting volunteer by night. I’ve run “blogs” since before they were called blogs, back to bulletin board systems in the mid-90’s and websites in the late ’90’s. This, in fact, has been an on-again, off-again project for several years, but now it’s time to make it a serious pursuit. More in the coming days.

I recently revisited a voice mail that my group’s senior manager had left me, just after my promotion from consultant to consulting manager, congratulating me on the new role and wishing me well.

Listening to the voice mail again brought back a rush of memories – she had left it while I happened to be in-flight to visit one of the offices where many of my employees are based, and I was also about to head to my first sessions of Adobe management training.

One of the things that developed quickly and clearly for me in that narrow window of becoming a new manager was a focus on what I should manage. It was a key part of our management training, but it also became crystal clear in the day-to-day experience of starting to lead my team.

What did I realize that a new manager should learn to manage and focus on managing? Their team, their business, and the future. You have to keep a good, healthy balance of each. Let’s consider them:

Manage Your Team

No matter how many direct reports you have, you absolutely must spend a good amount of time with each of them. You need to develop and nurture a relationship with each member of your team, so that you can manage them effectively. Knowing their interests, passions, and experience will ensure you’re able to connect them to the projects and efforts that they’ll enjoy being a part of and be effective contributors to. Developing a trusted relationship will allow you to coach and counsel them, and to give critical and constructive feedback when necessary.

Manage Your Business

Your team and your leadership depend on you to be able to manage the day-to-day nuts and bolts of your business. Whether you hold some form of cost center responsibility, are tasked with nurturing the business models and development of the profitability of your team’s projects or time, or some other aspect of business management, one thing is certain: neglecting your business is your fastest path to failure. Your team will lose trust in you as their manager if they don’t see you firmly understanding the business and leading it appropriately, and the leadership above you will question your fit as a manager.

Manage the Future

Not only your team and your leadership, but their families & households, and the entire company’s ongoing growth and success, are dependent on the growth you and other leaders can imagine and inspire within your team and company. Additionally, your team is looking to you for inspiration and motivation on an ongoing basis. As a leader, you must set aside time to reflect upon, and plan for, the future of your team and your team members.

In Conclusion

It’s really easy to dive in too quickly, too far over your head as a new manager. Particularly if you’re evolving from a contributor role to a manager role, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by how much more of your time immediately becomes needed for others’ impromptu needs and how little time you feel like you have over your own time (more on that in a future post.)

Eagerness to perform well and make an impact can easily throw you off balance. Focus and prioritization are critical, and maintaining a balance between managing your team, your business, and the future can keep you poised for managerial success.

Are there other things you’ve found essential to focus on as a new manager? Is there another similar topic you’d like to read about in a future Monday post focused on management & leadership? Please let me know in the comments below, or on Twitter at @Halbrook.

In 1915, at a scout camp near Philadelphia, a young camp director founded an honor society of honor campers and leaders in boy scouting. For years, from that first simple induction on that first night in a scout camp, the program called the Order of the Arrow (OA) grew and expanded.

(From the OA’s website:) “It became an official program experiment in 1922 and was approved as part of the Scouting program in 1934. In 1948 the OA, recognized as the BSA’s national brotherhood of honor campers, became an official part of the Boy Scouts of America. In 1998, the Order of the Arrow became recognized as Scouting’s National Honor Society when it expanded its reach beyond camping to include broader service to Scouting and the community.”

Today, the OA has more than 170,000 active members located in lodges affiliated with over 295 BSA local councils. One interesting hallmark to the Order is that, contrasted against many organizations in which members elect or select new members, in the Order of the Arrow, the members of a scout’s own troop (many non-OA-members, in fact) elect the new members to the Order of the Arrow.

I spent much of my young life growing in leadership and service in the Order of the Arrow. In 1990, I was elected by the members of my troop and served my ‘Ordeal’ (my induction weekend.) My dad and I also drove, with two other members of our troop, to Indiana University to explore a day of the 75th Anniversary “National Order of the Arrow Conference” (NOAC), at which over 7,000 Arrowmen from around the country gathered to learn, network, have fun, and be inspired. I was hooked!

Through the years, I worked at the 1992 NOAC (Publications, writing for the conference newspaper), 1994 (actor in the Theme Show, the major theatrical production the final night written and produced to impart the conference theme to the participants in a unique and powerful way), 1996 (co-director of the Theme Show), 1998 (technical director for shows), 2000 (shows technical staff), 2002 (author of the Theme Show), and 2004 (shows support staff director), and 2006 (again shows support staff director), at which I was also able to push my firstborn son across the stage in a stroller as part of the mall scene in that year’s Theme Show.

I also helped to produce and operate the Order of the Arrow’s major theatrical production (including building a theater on-site) at the National Scout Jamborees in 1997, 2001, and 2005.

But at the more local level, I was honored (and learned a lot) serving as lodge chief (the youth leader of our local organizational unit, a lodge, covering roughly a 10-county area) for two years and various other positions for several more years. Most importantly, in that work on the local level I made true, deep, lasting friendships that remain to this day – my very best friends in the world were co-leaders in our local lodge and the surrounding area. Additionally, two of my fellow scouts from my own parish and troop who served in the OA by chairing important lodge committees while I was lodge chief are now Priests of God (Father Robert Lampitt and Father Jason Nesbit.) I was also very involved in helping to lead shows and/or publications at many section conclaves, regional gatherings of handfuls of lodges, through which I formed several other great friendships. Another very good friend from a neighboring lodge, a past section chief, is now another one of my own sons’ favorite priests (Father Arisman, ordained this last spring.)

All this came flooding back to me earlier this morning when I took some time to reply to a survey that had been emailed last night to “Section chiefs, national OA committee members, and key volunteers [they must be casting the net wide to include me],” to provide input to help provide the OA’s theme for the 100th Anniversary national conference (NOAC) next summer.

Here are my two replies to two of the questions that I hope can adequately sum up the real, lasting impact that the Order of the Arrow had upon me as a young man, and I hope that my ongoing work in scouting can also help to have:

Question (paraphrasing): Express your own experience in the Order of the Arrow and the impact it has had on you in two sentences or less.

My response:

The Order of the Arrow was THE most formative program in developing and reinforcing the leadership skills that I now use every day, and in firming up the moral fiber that Scouting in general started to build up in me. It also provided the strongest network of like-minded men I now have in my adult life & career.

Question (paraphrasing): Express the message the Order of the Arrow should impart to a member in 10 words or less:

My response:

You were made for love and service. Go lead.

Quite simply, in the Order of the Arrow, anything I had learned growing up in my family, in my church and school, and in scouting, about leadership or service, was cemented and given a very real structure and context in which to practice, exercise, and grow in it. I grew into being a confident and competent servant leader in the OA.

I’m super-excited to have been asked to help with a key area of next summer’s 100th Anniversary NOAC at Michigan State University, and look forward to helping to prepare for the Arrowmen who will be coming, whether it’s their first or their last.

That, my friends, sums up the Order of the Arrow to me, from my own experience with it, and my growth and learning in it. Here’s to the chapter of the first 100 years (almost completed) and to the next 100, and the 100 after that…

In the last week, I have received a calling to a new responsibility that honors and humbles me greatly.

Our local Catholic parishes have been fostering a retreat-based community of faith called Koinonia for nearly 10 years. I’ve been a part of it since the very first “Trinity Koinonia” retreat weekend in September of 2005, Suzanne and her mom joined me a few retreats later in the series, and my parents and siblings joined a bit later.

The Koinonia retreats and the community that has formed around them have been very important in the faith life of my extended family, but more importantly in the broader community. Hundreds of my fellow parishioners and parishioners of our sister parishes have now taken part in Koinonia and become a part of the community, and I have formed new, deep, friendships as a result of the community.

Calling

In recent months, Clarence DeGonia, the fine Catholic man (and friend) who initiated the community nearly 10 years ago, began to discern that it was time for him to step down from the chairmanship of the community and its core committee. After prayerful discernment on my part and the part of the core committee (effectively the executive board), the committee asked me to become the next chairman of the Koinonia community.

I am floored by the responsibility that the core committee and the broader community have entrusted to me, and I take it very, very seriously. There is an organizational weight and responsibility for sure, but more so, there is a deep spiritual weight and responsibility.

I pray that I’m able to execute well on this challenge and help to lead the community forward with wisdom and grace, and the phrase that has been in my mind since I was first approached with the request that I take this role has been “Ad Jesum per Mariam.” “To Christ through Mary.” The Koinoinia community holds as its by-line the fact that it is a “Community in Christ.” If I am to have any semblance of grace to try to help lead a “Community in Christ” as part and “sub-community” within our broader Catholic community in our cities, it can only be “Ad Jesum per Mariam.”

[NOTE: Koinonia is a Greek word taken from Scripture which means community. Koinonia was founded decades ago in Springfield, IL, and continues there – we are an offshoot of that community. Koinonia is a community of caring people providing loving support and prayerful fellowship for all. Each weekend has a set program it follows focusing on the Paschal Mystery: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Koinonia is for young adults and older.]

God Winks

There has been a whole series of events in recent days that have struck me as a series of “Signs” (or “God Winks” as some in the Koinonia community affectionately likes to refer to them) of God’s Providence in this moment:

First, within a few days of accepting this responsibility, I was “off work” for the weekend from my usual role as music director & organist at our parish. The guitar group that leads the music for our weekends off had selected Jesse Manibusan’s “Open My Eyes” as one of the hymns for the weekend. It was the first time in a few years that the song had been used in our parish.

Many in the community who have been on weekends where I’ve given talks in the past know that I’ve spoken a lot about the place this song held in my own faith journey. It was central to my life, and the lyrics held great meaning, at the point when I was discerning the call to Marriage with Suzanne, and I played and sang it as part of the prelude before our wedding.

Second, the Mass readings this past weekend really hit home as it relates to the challenge of the calling to this new role. In particular, though, the Second Reading (Ephesians 5:8-14) has long been one of my favorites of the Lenten season, and one on which I was inspired to write a hymn setting a few years ago. It struck home as a new, personal calling this weekend:

Brothers and sisters: You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

Just like everyone, I have my own challenges in my faith life and my walk with Christ. But this reading summed up for me the challenge and the call to lead by example with all the grace God gives me, but also the call that we in the community, in turn, are asked to give others as ambassadors for Christ.

Finally, a series of notes that I’ve received from Clarence himself, encouraging me and explaining that there were some signs for him in this transition as well, comforts me and gives me encouragement and hope in what lies before me and the community.

As an added bonus, I find myself writing this today, April 1 (yes, a bit before publishing this), which happens to be the anniversary date of my own Baptism, 36 years ago…

Sent

I’m about to enter into a series of meetings to help facilitate a clean leadership transition from Clarence to me, then I look forward to my first meetings with the core committee and introduction of the new, go-forward leadership to the broader community – at a key moment as we’re preparing for our 13th retreat weekend this September.

I’m struck recalling the fact that the Man Born Blind in last Sunday’s Gospel was washed “‘in the Pool of Siloam’ – which means Sent,” and he went, washed, and came back able to see.

I pray to be freed from any blindness of ego or opinion in leading this community forward to a deepening relationship with Christ and each other; and I pray that I can help God reach each person in our community to free them in moments of blindness and to send us, together.

Sent, to help lead others ‘To Christ, through Mary.‘