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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday June 9, 2003 Volume V Number 28 |
FOCUS - Gratitude
This afternoon, I’ve been asked to speak to the graduating s seniors from our little country church. These are kids we’ve watched grow up, and it’s time now to recognize their attainment of a new level of maturity. They’ve reached a major milestone in life’s path, and their lives are about to change in fundamental ways, never again to be the same.
Up until now, their days have been pretty well planned out. For some of them, graduation is a genuine achievement. Some of our high-schoolers have been programmed to think of their high school years as a time to develop a résumé for college; complete with high honors, grade point average, the proper memberships, stellar SAT scores, volunteerism, glowing faculty recommendations secured, commendations from the right people, athleticism and the like, geared up to enter into the competitive world of matriculation. Everyone in this category has studied the same “how to get into college and win scholarships” manual. They are learning the system, and mastering it. They are quick to tell you about their chosen major, their college of choice and their career plans. They are eager and giddy, and graduation day presents them with the reality that the dream of college entrance is just around the corner – a summer away.
For others, graduation is just the end of a long, tedious journey through a maze of obscure disciplines, and there has been just enough completed homework to get through the courses with respectable grades, and a bright spot here or there on the field of competition or on the performing stage. There are friendships - bonds that made the days tolerable. But graduation now opens the door to a whole set of bewildering questions and options and uncertainties. The new freedoms also bring with them a mystifying array of choices. Take some time to figure it out, they’ve been told. And it will.
I’ll be telling all these kids how proud we are of them. And that will come from the heart. During their four years of high school, they have earned more and more privileges, taken on greater responsibility. When they were freshmen, they were chauffeured just about everywhere. Now they keys jingle in their pockets or purses. When they first stepped on the campus, they needed a map or a guide to find their classes. Now, they know every nook and cranny, every building, every room, and even the smell of the gymnasium and locker room will linger as a memory imprinted in their minds forever. The teachers and coaches, some of them unable to disguise their wish to be somewhere else, others engaging, intelligent, challenging, believing in the potential of their students, pointing the way to greater awareness and higher levels of understanding, they will all be remembered. Those hours in the classroom and moments of brilliance and embarrassment, some of each, high school will always be remembered as home. The home school. The home court. The alma mater. The graduation year (2003). The school colors and mascot. All of them together a stamp, a tattoo on the soul, never to be erased.
I want to give them a sense of the possibilities waiting for them. I want them to understand that they are not statistics. We live in a world that measures just about everything, but they shouldn’t let the statisticians define their futures. For example, there’s plenty of gloom and doom about the job market these days. There’s a sense that home ownership is out of most everyone’s reach. Read the headlines, and some will just about give up.
But here’s what all us parent types are hoping, and praying. That these kids will find something that will capture their imagination. That will fill them with curiosity. That will energize their spirits. Make them eager learners. Draw them in with abandon. To find something worthy of their abilities and gifts, and give them a sense of belonging. We are hoping they discover the sheer joy of reading. Of developing leadership skills. We believe they can do it. We know we can’t choose it for them. It’s a discovery they make all on their own.
If somehow we hammer them with a sense of duty and obligation, and they make choices just to satisfy us, their parents, eventually they will be looking for an avenue of escape.
I’m going to tell them one other thing. The God who created the universe knows them by name. He desires their success. He is the wellspring of all that’s required to live a full and complete and happy life. He’s made the way clear. He made sure we have a Book of instruction.
Someday, too, we hope and pray that they will find someone to whom they can wholeheartedly and completely give themselves, a partner to build a life together.
Don’t rush into that one, I’ll say. Give yourself some time to settle into a world outside your parent’s house. Shop around. Get to know a wide range of potential partners. Get to know yourself. The kind of person you are, and the kind of person who will balance you out and make you complete. Someday you’ll wake up and realize, you’ve found a soul-mate.
These kids I’ll see today are tomorrow’s leaders. It sounds like a well worn cliché. But it’s reality.
I want to let them know that I’m confident in our future.
They’re gunna do well.
* * * * * * *
Somewhere in our ecclesiastical tradition, we lost our ability to express gratitude.
Your organization is different, I’m sure. Those who sacrifice time and money, who contribute something of their expertise and knowledge, who give hours of pro bono time to make sure the program is first rate and the facilities are cared for and the staff is compensated and motivated and encouraged, they are regularly recognized for their hard work and given applause and approval and heartfelt appreciation.
I belong to a community service club. We eat breakfast together every Friday morning. It’s a chance for me to make friends outside my church group where I spend so much of my time. It’s refreshing to hang around some of the educators and law enforcement and professional leaders, attorneys and doctors and brokers and agents, people who know little of church etiquette and the well worn clichés we depend on Sunday mornings. I’ve learned something from them. These guys know how to express appreciation. All you have to do is show up at an extra-curricular function, you get a badge and a round of applause and a pat on the back and your name in the paper.
But in church it’s different. We think maybe we risk vanity, or pride, or conceit or egoism if we dole out awards for service rendered.
Guys who studied our brand of theology will go to a place like Robert Schuler’s Crystal Cathedral and be horrified by the plaques and inscriptions and commemorative brass name plates decorating the grounds and think to themselves, “Well, they’ll get no reward in Heaven. They already got it here!” (Jesus warned us about this.) And then they’ll go on to mutter something about salvation for sale, and the peddling of the gospel, and the hawking of indulgences back in the Reformation era, and shake their heads at the crude fund raising strategies that have built monuments that have the look and feel of the biblical Tower of Babel and that God himself must be pretty upset about the self-serving, self-promoting things people do in His name.
I’m not suggesting that we give to get. That we serve for the recognition.
But I am suggesting that heartfelt appreciation for a job well done ought to be a way of life. When we forget, people will not complain about it, at least not in public. Complaining about the lack of appreciation is poor taste. It’s a whole lot easier to just disappear. Quietly.
And that’s what happens.
Parents pick up their kids at the Sunday School class door, and have no concept of the hard work and sacrifice of the staff who care for their kids. Volunteers cut the grass and tend the gardens, and never hear a word. Hard working crews clean up the mess, straighten the chairs, and everyone simply expects that someone else will to it. Preachers pour their heart out week after week in a way few people would dare. Teenagers are carted to the beach, and the weekend camp and the youth concert. Teachers teach. The food is prepared. The hour gets late. And no one says, “Thank you.”
I’m talking about something considerably more than a trite “attaboy.” I’m talking about paying attention, recognizing the sacrifice, appreciating the value of the contribution, and then saying it. Look ‘em in the eye, and let ‘em know. From a public platform, express the appreciation of the group, and our reliance on the good gifts of generous people who have their hearts in the right place. It’s the life blood of any non-profit. Even the church.
It’s leadership.
* * * * * * * *
There was a whole crew preparing food, blowing up balloons, decorating tables and preparing the books. The graduates came. I spoke my piece.
They are good kids. If these young people are representative of tomorrow’s leaders, I think we’ve all got a chance.
They are on their way.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader, too - like me.
Leadership means that you sometimes live with the consequence of oversight. Sins of omission become just as devastating as sins of commission, maybe more. When your people go unnoticed, unappreciated, undervalued, trouble brews.
Catch someone in the act of doing something right. Let them know. Think about the sacrifice, the skills, the generosity, the promise, the heart that motivated a considerable contribution to the larger goals. Express your gratitude. Make eye contact. Smile with your eyes. Hold the firm handshake just a moment longer than usual. If it’s appropriate, add a hug. Pass along your strength.
It’ll build your team.
It’ll circumvent abandonment.
It’ll lighten your load.
Posted in Valley Center, CA
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2003
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
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