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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday April 2, 2001 Volume III Number 14 |
FOCUS - Alpine Slide (or Who Let the Dogs Out?)
I was at the time, an impressionable seminarian.
I guess I had experience in public speaking… and my denominational credentials were, to borrow a phrase, kosher. The Development Department at the Divinity School asked me and four other classmates to travel and speak and drum up support and maybe recruit a few new students. It was to be a soft sell; no direct appeals for money or newly matriculated, tuition paying entering freshmen. Instead, the idea was to be a living and breathing illustration of the school’s product and let the support take care of itself. It was a good-will tour of sorts. Our model was the Pied Piper.
In three years we hit twenty or thirty states from coast to coast.
Maybe my next assignment was a thank you for a job well done. I’m not sure. It came down from the VP’s office. It marked me for life.
They told me that the office had just received word. The invitation extended to a nationally admired minister with connections in Washington DC had been accepted. He just that day agreed to come to our campus for a full week. He would bring his entire staff. They would mingle with our student body. Teach a few courses. Lead the Chapel services. And in general, show us aspiring clergy and missionaries and educators how it’s done.
I was told that this minister pastored the largest growing church in the nation’s Capitol. Just outside the Beltway, he was attracting Senators and members of Congress and government officials of every kind. He spearheaded an underground prayer and Bible study movement in the halls of the Capitol Building, the Pentagon and even the White House. He was a Player. And somehow, WE got him.
Dr. Richard C. Halverson.
“Ken,” the VP relayed my mission, “we’ve arranged for you to fly to DC and spend Easter week in Bethesda. You’ll be the guest of Halverson’s top Associate. He’ll show you around. We want you to learn everything there is to know about Dr. Halverson, his work and his church.”
“When you get back, you will be coordinator of the project.”
I said, “Count me in.”
* * * * * *
This may well be the best time of year to visit our local mountains.
When we arrived this week at the Lake Arrowhead Resort in the late afternoon, leaving the hazy soup of the Los Angeles Basin behind (the visible rust-brown air left us when we blew through about four thousand feet on our climb up the road to Rim-of-the-World highway), the sky was clear and bright. Spring flowers bloom everywhere. Fields of California poppies pop up and paint the green slopes with broad strokes of orange and yellow. At the Lake, the tall fragrant pines stood in patches of snow.
The two of us were ready for a little one on one time.
We took in a deep lung full of fresh clean mountain air and carried our gear inside. The receptionist welcomed us to Lake Arrowhead, and pointed us through the open beam Great Room of the Lodge’s reception area and down the hall to our lake-view room, where we unloaded our packs, pulled open the slider, took a seat on the deck. We put our feet up, leaned back and looked through the trees up to the blue sky, over to the snow capped peaks and down to the lake where a white flat bottom River Boat carrying sightseers drifted lazily by.
We talked. Long uninterrupted talk. About stuff. All kinds of stuff.
My soon-to-be son-in-law and me.
* * * * * * *
When I was twenty-four years of age, I wasn’t all that impressed by social status or academic credentials or political leanings or net worth for that matter. People were people. Some of them, very smart. Others very rich. Still others very well known. But they were all just people, I thought. We are all ordinary people.
At twenty-four, the playing field seemed level.
Back then I believed things like -
“If it has mass appeal, it must be fundamentally flawed.”
“Honorary doctorates are way inferior to earned doctorates.”
“Many religious books that somehow get published aren’t worthy of print – their multi-syllabic words and bullet lists and hollow ‘how-to’s fail to disguise their feeble and often erroneous ideas.”
“The corporate ladder leads no-where, it’s leaning against the wrong wall.”
These are the things you learn in graduate school. And then somewhere, sometime later, after the inevitable baptism of fire that strikes in that world outside the security and confines of the ivory tower we call graduate school; we unlearn (hopefully) these false doctrines.
I got a glimpse of real world ministry when at the tender age of twenty-four, a second year graduate student in the divinity school, I met Dr. Richard C. Halverson.
* * * * * *
It had a nice ring to it in 1973. I would tell my friends I was off to O’Hare, plane ticket in hand, bound for “DC.”
As our jet banked over the historic and stately white marble buildings, familiar since childhood from the classroom and the books, I recognized the Capital Dome on The Hill and the Washington Monument pointing skyward, the White House and the Smithsonian and the reflection pools and the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and the wide Potomac. I sat alone at the window seat and wondered how by God’s good grace this unlikely California kid could have been chosen for such a heady assignment.
Bob Whittaker, Halverson’s associate, met me at the airport and took me home to meet his family. The following morning, we pulled up to the church, a grand colonial red brick Presbyterian Church in Bethesda Maryland, (they call it “Fourth Pres” for short) with tall white columns and triangular portico at the entrance and a soaring white spire and tasteful stained glass windows. I met members of Halverson’s staff. And finally, Dr. Halverson himself.
“Nice to meet you, Ken.” We stepped past the secretary’s desk and into his office. Then he turned to Bob… “has the lunch been arranged?” Bob nodded. “We’ll meet at the Club… 11:45?” “That’s right,” Bob said. And then Pastor Dick Halverson turned to me, smiled warmly and said, “I’m looking forward to lunch, Ken. I’ll see you at the Club.”
We left and I turned to Bob. “Who will be joining us?”
No one, Bob told me. It’ll be just you two. At the Country Club.
“No kiddin’?”
“No kiddin’.”
* * * * * * *
It was important to me that I connect with the young man who asked for our middle daughter’s hand a few months back. They are finishing up their college work in the Mid-west, and on this spring break, we finally got some time together.
I wanted to get some one-on-one time. Uninterrupted time. Extended time. Time to get past the small talk and peel back some of the layers and just be us.
So I cleared my calendar of appointments. Booked a room. And we took off for the high country on Thursday. Just us two.
After we checked in, we lingered over a couple of steaks at the Royal Oak Inn. Took in an action movie, a guy movie, and then called it a night. We worked each other over on the Racquetball Court the next morning – and put away a couple California omelets. With avocado and cheddar cheese. We cruised the Rim-of-the-World, scoped out the ski slopes and at Big Bear took a few runs up the chairlift and down the Alpine Slide. He took a spill and I got a reprimand for speeding too fast up to the finish. (“Excuse me sir, I’m gunna have to ask you to slow down,” some guy warned. Cool.) We both laughed hard. We tossed back a couple grilled chicken sandwiches and then stopped off at Inspiration Point, and took in the vistas.
But mainly we talked. And somewhere in the conversation, I learned why it is that our beautiful daughter has fallen head over heels in love with this young man. He’s level headed and bright and strong. He’s got a winsome quick wit and a bounce in his step. He’s got the eye of the tiger when he talks about the future. And he’s eager to show a watching world what he can do. He thinks our daughter is the best thing that’s happened to planet Earth in the whole of human history.
Finally, after we pretty much covered the entirety of both of our checkered pasts, I said, “Jamie, tell me about some of your hopes and dreams.”
And without hesitation, almost like he knew that question was coming (he’s a communications major, and fresh out of courses on how to shine in the interview process), he said, “More than anything else, I want a family. I want to be a good dad, and good husband. I want a home. I want to honor God. And ultimately, I want to leave a legacy.”
“What does that mean to you… to leave a legacy?” I asked.
“When I’m gone,” he explained, “I want to leave behind a family I can be proud of. I want to commit myself to the things that will outlast me. And I want to leave behind a reputation for being the kind of man God made me to be.”
Good answer, Jamie.
* * * * * * *
I did not know I would get a personal lunch with Dr. Halverson. At the Country Club. I was relieved I was wearing my jacket and tie and a clean white collar. And I was glad I had read a couple of his many books, including “How I Changed My Thinking about the Church” which was at that time, his most recent best seller.
But I didn’t need to start the conversation. Halverson did. He wanted to know about my undergraduate years. How I ended up at the Divinity School. What kind of work I was doing through the Development Department. About my wife and my family background and my growing up years.
And he asked me about my hopes and dreams.
I felt like he was my personal friend. He laughed at my feeble attempts at humor. And he told me about his work.
“Mainly,”
he said, “I believe it’s my call to be “with” my people.
Like Jesus was “with” his disciples.
I don’t go to my people with my hat in my hand trying to raise money
for the most recent project; I don’t go to them with what they ought
to be doing to help accomplish my agenda.
I studied the New Testament, looking for what it was that made Jesus
such an effective shepherd, and I found that his secret was to be “with”
his people. To be there for them,
sharing in their lives and understanding their pressures and their temptations
and their aspirations.”
And as I listened, I recognized this line of thinking from the book I’d read. But until that day, had no anticipation that I would find myself face to face with the good pastor at work… with me as his focus for one unforgettable hour, no less.
I was too young to understand the mark this man would make on his world. By the time he died in 1995, he wrote more than a dozen best selling books. This Princeton graduate received seven honorary doctorates and was Acting President and Chairman of the Board for World Vision International and a co-founder of Forest Home Conference Center and for fourteen years, Chaplain of the United States Senate.
And as we left the Club, I felt like I learned something about friendship. Something about ministry. Something about leadership… That I would carry with me for the rest of my life.
And, I guess I have.
* * * * * * * *
Jamie and I ended our twenty-four hour odyssey at our oldest daughter’s house, who’s in her second year of marriage. We had dinner plans at a nearby restaurant – for just us six: our two daughters, their chosen mates, Carolyn and me.
We did not anticipate the delay that nearly left the two guys torn and wounded.
Sammy, their Jack Russell Terrier, a tiny white muscular pup with a brown patch mask across his dark eyes and floppy ears, is both playful… and fearless.
His ears perked up at the sound of dogs barking just outside the door. Through a sliver of a crack, he bolted out. Sammy would let these intruders know that they had invaded his territory.
Walking in the dark, under a streetlamp just past dusk that evening, was a lone slender woman smoking a filtered cigarette, taking a week’s end Friday night walk with her two over-sized Labrador retrievers: one black, the other beige. A chocolate hound, big and muscular, leashless, appeared from behind the bushes in the dim light and confronted the three with a nasty bark. The Labs lunged and barked back. The woman, in tight jeans, put the cigarette in her mouth and pulled hard on her leashes shouting “Down boys!” And then to the intruder, “GO AWAY!”
Sammy wanted in on the action. In a single leap, he bounded into the fray yelping and snapping at all three dogs each four or five times his size.
Ben, Sammy’s master, shouted “Sammy, COME HOME! NOW!” But Sammy was too busy informing the anxious beasts that they did not belong here… and the lady with the two dogs and the smoking cigarette glowing against the black of night grew more and more alarmed as the noise and the shouting and the barking escalated to utter chaos. Out of control chaos.
The three mighty dogs turned on Sammy. Ben broke into a run. Jamie followed close behind.
Neighbors started to appear up and down the street. The piercing noise echoed terror.
And Sammy’s best friend, another black hound, half pit-bull, half lab, leaped over a back yard block wall in a single miraculous bound and joined in the skirmish.
I watched… from a safe distance, as my (almost) two sons-in-law took over. Jamie snatched Sammy from the powerful jaws of the chocolate hound tearing into Sammy’s neck like a crazed coyote with intent to kill. Ben, flexing every muscle, biceps rippling and veins popping from his neck, pulled on the black half pit-bull with all his might, trying to break his vice-grip on the lady’s Lab.
Jamie, holding on to Sammy like a halfback protects the football into the End Zone, pulled with the lady on her dogs’ leash. The dogs growled and snapped and squealed, and Sammy yapped and the neighbors joined in with loud unsolicited advice. “Punch him in the stomach! PUNCH HIM IN THE STOMACH!” they were yelling.
The two guys battled like gladiators in the arena.
Me, I kept my distance. I flashed on the headlines of fatal dog attacks and pit-bulls put to sleep in the pound with the full approval of the police department and the local judge and the humane society and wondered who among these pulling, punching, biting, kicking participants in mayhem might be listed as survivors.
These two big guys saving the day are the fathers of my future grandchildren, I thought.
By now all the women were screaming. All five dogs growled and bellowed. The lady lost her cigarette in all the yelling and yapping and yanking. It rolled down the asphalt street, sparks glowing in the dark.
And then some thickheaded neighbor, a flabby disheveled thirty-something male without a name, appeared out of the shadows with an aerosol can of pepper spray and opened fire on the whole pile of writhing flesh. By this time, Ben was on the ground wrestling an angry hound dog nearly as big as he. Jamie, still protecting Sammy, pulled on the one leash still within reach. And the cowardly neighbor with the can sprayed everyone… but especially a local teenager who that night got a little too close to the ragged edge of a neighborhood dogfight. He caught the bulk of the pepper-spray right between the eyes.
The bedlam slowed. It had reached a crescendo of ear-splitting noise… which the stinging spray settled down. The guys smelled the spray. “What is THAT?”
Every one backed away.
We began to assess the damage.
The teenage boy groaned and wept and wrenched, holding his eyes as his mother sprayed a garden hose on his face. The pepper spray made him sick. Ben stood to his feet, chest heaving up and down from the adrenaline rush, brushed himself off and shook his head and told us he was fine. Minimal bloodshed. The lady in the tight jeans angrily shouted something about dogs without a leash. She picked up the smoldering cigarette, took a deep drag and blew smoke into the air and then yanked her dogs and disappeared with them around the corner and into the night. Jamie stroked Sammy’s head, and told him everything was gunna be alright.
Carolyn and the girls hugged, and then ran over to Sammy, still in Jamie’s arms. “Are you alright?” they asked in unison.
Kristyn told Ben he was her hero. Then Candy told Jamie the same.
The neighbors returned one by one to their homes. The excitement was over.
Me, I said, “Well… shall we dine?”
And after a quick clean up, we headed over to the restaurant.
There, seated in a large booth, I raised my glass of iced tea and toasted my two sons-in-law (one present the other future) and said, “Here’s to Ben and Jamie… fearless in the heat of battle. It looks to me like my two girls will be well protected.”
* * * * * *
It was this week’s trip to Arrowhead that reminded me of that trip to Washington so many years ago when I met a man who marked my life for good.
When he brought his staff to our campus of the Div. School for that unforgettable week, we saw his philosophy of ministry modeled for us all to see. They preached a couple of tag-team sermons during the chapel hour. They laughed together and prayed together and supported each other like a winning team. They hung out with us guys at the coffee shop. We talked about a God who was active in the lives of real people. Our role as leaders is to stoke the fires of everything that is good and right, they told us.
There’s something magical about taking time. Time to listen. Time to share. Time to dream dreams and imagine a world that just might be… if we work together, and do it right.
* * * * * *
On this Monday morning, as a leader, think about the person who needs you. Take time to talk.
When crisis strikes, maybe in the blink of an eye, like dogs barking in the night, you’ll be ready to take on whatever distraction comes along, and come out of it with a high five.
And if you take time to hit the Alpine Slide together… go ‘head and let her rip.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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