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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday, May 15, 2000 Volume II Number 20
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FOCUS - Law and Grace
Jean Valjean served nineteen years in a dank French prison cell for the menial crime of stealing a loaf of bread. It happened during a long and dark period of cruel economic depression in France. Valjean was hungry. A warm brown loaf cooled on the kitchen windowsill of a cottage in the village. Fresh out of the oven. The smell drifting down the lane was an unintentional enticement to passers by. He simply could not resist.
Valjean snatched the bread.
A vigilant gendarme seized then arrested him, presented the hasty charge of thievery to the judge, and in a matter of days, Valjean’s long brutal confinement began.
These were the primitive, angry days that led to the French Revolution of 1848. Long prison terms for commoners who committed lesser crimes were hardly rare.
By the time Jean Valjean was released, he became hardened. Bitter. Brimming with resentment. Eager for revenge. Venomous. Years of backbreaking labor on the chain gang made him physically powerful, imposing. He carried an identification card. The obligatory yellow-ticket-of-leave marked him: #24601. By law the ticket must be displayed, confirming the suspicions of any onlooker – this frightening misfit was a criminal. An outcast. A convict. Shunning was expected. The byword: avoid any and all contact.
His appetite for bread and a cruel unjust penal system ruined Jean Valjean’s life. Or so it seemed.
Penniless, newly released from the chains, he wandered from village to village searching. For what he did not know.
Until the kindly Bishop of Digne took him in.
Valjean could scarcely accept the warmth
of the Bishop’s welcome. Valjean
was filthy. Tired. 
Cautious. Distrustful.
The Bishop’s living room was soft and clean and comfortable, lit by
the flickering glow of candlelight. The
table set with silver and pewter. The
goblets filled for the guest – one each, water and red wine.
The kitchen permeated the house with the appetizing aroma of nourishing
stew and warm bread. Warm bread.
As Valjean for the first time in nineteen years laid his head on a pillow that night, he could not sleep. His empty stomach was satisfied with real food. Strangely, this gift of hospitality had an opposite affect. Instead of relief, it was a harsh reminder of the utter deprivation he suffered in prison - all the good things kept from him in the prime of his life. It fueled his anger. It stoked his rage. He lusted after revenge.
Quietly, he slipped out of his bed. As the Bishop slept, Valjean crept into the dining room, silently stashed the silver setting in the deep pocket of his heavy coat. It would fetch a pretty penny in town, he thought. He escaped the Bishop’s home running off into the night.
Inspector Javert spotted the shadowy figure moving suspiciously through the village. Instinctively, he followed, and captured his suspect. At the station, Javert discovered the silver in the man’s coat. A common thief, he charged. He recognized the silver as the Bishop’s. The yellow ticket. A convict. The following day along with his deputies, he hauled #24601 in chains back to the Bishop’s home, threw him down at the Bishop’s feet, pointed a finger and charged –
“Here is the man who stole your silver!”
The Bishop looked down at the shamed, broken man in chains and then up at his accuser, Javert the Inspector. With compassion in his eyes and in his voice, the Bishop said,
“This man didn’t steal anything. I gave him the silver. It is my gift to him.”
Javert was stunned. Valjean, #24601, was astonished.
The Inspector considered the Bishop’s claim shocking. Reprehensible. Javert’s case vanished. He had a criminal in his grasp. Now, the empty-headed Bishop left him with nothing.
Before Javert’s superior officer, the number of convictions measured his success. This had been shaping up as one more. A good one, too. But with no charges and no criminal, there would be no commendation. No proud public appearance before the judge. No cause for celebration among the townspeople grateful for yet another victory against crime.
On the other end of this surprising twist, Valjean’s bitterness disappeared. Until this moment, he had never known mercy. Grace, until now, had been invisible. A moment ago, a quick return to the chain gang appeared inevitable. Now, the gloom of a dark prison cell was swept away, replaced by a second bright chance at liberty.
“I gave him the silver,” the Bishop told Javert, “but he forgot the candlesticks. My gift included the candlesticks. Let me get them.” The Bishop turned into the house, and emerged with more silver for the ex-convict. He handed them over with an approving smile.
Valjean nodded timidly. In gratitude. Javert grimaced, and shook his head in disgust.
Thus begins Victor Hugo’s epic novel of the French Revolution, Les Miserables. Valjean’s encounter with grace changes his life. His hope renews, his identity transforms. He becomes a gracious community leader.
* * * * * * * * *
Around our house, Cinco de Mayo is not only an international holiday, it’s a birthday. Our middle daughter was born on this annual celebration of all things Mexican – the 5th day of May.
Candy turned twenty-one this year. She’s two thousand plus miles away, finishing off her third year in college. It’s a milestone birthday, a hard one when such a distance separates us.
It was, nonetheless, a day filled with high anticipation and big plans. But by noon, it all turned sour.
She gave me permission to tell you this story… in hopes that her embarrassing little oversight might be a lesson for others. That’s what she said.
There were plans for a dorm party. Balloons. Cake. Partying. Laughter. A big care package from home. All of that on a Friday after classes and a couple hours on the job. Then a departure to visit her boyfriend’s family at their mountain home.
But late in the morning, the telephone rang. No one answered, so the message stayed on the machine for a while. She made a quick stop at the dorm room and listened to her messages.
It was the bank.
It appears that Candy, after three years of careful monitoring, lost track of her checking account balance. The day before, the bank returned six checks. Several made out for less than five dollars. The reason: insufficient funds. The bank charge: twenty-four dollars for each of the six checks bounced plus any others that might arrive at the bank that day.
Do the math. Then consider this: Candy earns less than seven dollars per hour at the cafeteria on campus.
This was not the news flash Candy had anticipated on the day she turned twenty-one.
Panic is a word that is generally reserved for life threatening moments. Like impending car crashes. Gunfire during armed robberies. Tornadoes touching down. Wings falling off airplanes in flight. Motorcycle rides at speeds in excess of one hundred miles per hour. Completed homework assignments showing up missing. Bungie jumping off bridges. Stuck elevators. Roller coasters making abrupt unscheduled stops upside down half way through the loop due to technical failures. That sort of thing.
Candy panicked.
She called the bank. “What should I do?” she asked.
“Get money over here. Fast,” someone said.
So whatever else she had planned for that afternoon disappeared as fast as last week’s weather report. She marshaled all her problem solving skills. Put it in overdrive. The first action: an SOS call home.
We learned one thing. In this age of technological wizardry, there is no way to get instant money to that little mid-Western town and that little mid-Western bank same day. We tried everything. Everything.
In Upland, Indiana, they don’t take credit cards over the phone from out-of-staters. Period. Especially Californians.
(Here’s what you are thinking – “I know what you should have done, Ken.” Well, where were you last Friday afternoon when I needed you?)
For three years, Lindsay has been Candy’s roommate. Like Candy, on this Friday afternoon, Lindsay’s cash reserve was about depleted. But she did have a paycheck. It lay on her desk, still sealed in an envelope.
Lindsay had an idea.
Just before closing, Candy and Lindsay walked into the bank lobby and sat down at a service desk. Through her tears, Candy explained how she’d lost track of her balance, and how her checkbook register indicated that she had enough money to write good checks. It was an innocent error. But a costly one. The woman behind the desk was no stranger to this sort of challenge. She nodded, knowingly. Marginally sympathetic. But unmoved. This is a college town bank.
Then what happened next took even this veteran banker by surprise.
Lindsay pulled an envelope out of her purse and opened it. She removed her paycheck and then she signed the back side. “Pay to the order of Candy Kemp,” she wrote. Then she handed it over to the banker.
“Hm. A third party check.” She paused, then looked back at the girls. For the first time since they walked in, she smiled.
“I think this will take care of it.”
* * * * * * *
After the convict’s dramatic encounter, Jean Valjean’s identity would undergo a compete transformation. The saving grace he experienced at the feet of the Bishop of Digne before the accusing eyes of Inspector Javert washed away the bitterness and the powerful need for revenge. He took on a new name – Jean Valjean became Monsieur Madeleine.
He built a factory, becoming the village’s major employer. The people and the town became prosperous. His reputation grew as a generous and caring man. The townspeople asked him to be their mayor. He governed with integrity and honor and moral character.
But Javert remembered.
The Inspector believed he knew the Mayor’s true identity. He was flawed, Javert thought. He was a thief. He was a liar. He was Jean Valjean. Javert believed that The Mayor, Jean Valjean, #24601, belonged behind bars. His lifelong passion would be to return Valjean to the prison house. It was his duty.
So throughout Hugo’s novel, as Valjean becomes a man for all seasons, he is haunted by the mistakes he’d made early on. He fears he does not deserve the happiness that comes from prosperity. He is not worthy of the lovely Cossette, the adopted daughter he is given to raise. And Javert is always there to remind him. He is the ever-present Accuser. The Inspector. The Prosecutor. The Denouncer.
Always there to point the finger of suspicion.
Until his dying day.
Throughout his life, Valjean had to decide. Whose verdict mattered most? To whom would he listen? Javert? Or the Bishop of Digne?
* * * * * * *
If business is a game, then there are rules. If life is a game, the universal rules apply universally.
There will always be those who will debate the rules. Challenge the rules. Even question if there are any rules at all.
But there are rules. And they are better understood than many will care to admit. Break the rules, and suffer the consequence. It’s as simple as that.
As a leader, you are obliged to both play by the rules and enforce the rules. It comes with the territory. No getting around it.
But people who play the game well - people who play with finesse and style and skill and technical excellence – these people don’t even think about the rules. The rules are assumed. But they are not the focus.
The focus is grace.
Law and grace. Hard to reconcile. Logic says they can not co-exist. And yet they do. You may have to choose between one or the other today. If not today, tomorrow.
When Candy bounced the checks, she broke the rules. Unwittingly perhaps. But there were consequences. Lindsay exercised a saving grace that transcended the hard and fast rules of the Upland Bank. When Jean Valjean stole the silver, the rules said he deserved a one-way ticket back to the chain gang. The Bishop’s gracious act of mercy sent Jean Valjean down an entirely different path.
You are a leader. On this Monday morning, you will find yourself in a world of rules.
Live by the rules. Call it when someone steps crosses over the line. But remember Lindsay. And the Bishop of Digne.
Let grace abound.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
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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