Monday Morning Meditation #53: What Is Man That God Should Be Mindful of Him?

This week I began to read the Psalms. What joy! I love the Psalms! Is there anyone who does not? The first few psalms were ones of anguish, with David being pursued by enemies and asking for God to help and protect him. Then, in Psalm 8, David gives praise to the Lord, and after that, he asks a very interesting question, "What is man that You are mindful of him?" Indeed, what is man that God is mindful of him?

Reading: Psalm 8

Meditation: In recent days, I have been blogging a bit about humility. This probably comes in great part from discussions on humility I have been having at work with employees whom I mentor and whose lack of humility is getting in the way of their promotability. Hubris wins no friends and builds no teams. Yes, there are hubristic managers -- and hubristic employees, but the pride is false, built on a crumbling foundation of overblown self-perception. Those who stand on that "unfoundation" are more likely than not to fall.

So where does the need to put ourselves first come from? Why do we want to be the first in line? Why do we want to rise to the top at the office or in our profession? Why must our children be better than our friends' children? Why do we become defensive when someone criticizes us? And where does our relationship with God fit in all of this jockeying for position? Who, indeed, are we that God should be mindful of us?

He has given us two great commandments: love Him and love each other. Neither gives us a basis or need for pushing ourselves past others. We don't have to earn God's love; we already have it. We don't have to prove ourselves in order to receive God's grace; He gives it without our even asking for it.

God exhorts us to be humble, to be meek, to put others first. He gave us an extraordinary example: Himself. (I highly recommend Ilia Delio's book, The Humility of God.) While the possibility of our emulating His example at any deep level is highly unlikely, the possibility of His leading us to the level of humility of which we are capable is very likely -- if only we allow Him to take over and eliminate the unholy parts of our ego.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to private prayer to thank God for being mindful of us, to praise Him for His wonderful and unemulatable example of humility, to repent for any time that pride has tained my relations, especially my relationship with Him, and to ask Him to peel off all my layers of pride and leave my ego bare, devoid of any build-up to to deter my ability to be a good servant to my colleagues, my employees, my family, my friends, and God. Then I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves, knowing that I could have no better Protector.

I will leave you to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Monday Morning Meditation #101: Not By Our Hand

Reading through the book of Daniel, I simply had to stop at the powerful dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Personally, I never remember my dreams, but I do doubt that any of them have been prophetic ones although I do know that God, over the centuries, has communicated with people through dreams (seemingly far more often than through locutions, which is my more common, although rare, experience). So it is even more fascinating for me to read about a dream as highly prophetic -- and initially difficult to understand -- as Nebuchadnezzar's. Here is the dream, as reported to Daniel by King Nebuchadnezzar:

"I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth. 12 Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all. Under it the wild animals found shelter, and the birds lived in its branches; from it every creature was fed.

In the visions I saw while lying in bed, I looked, and there before me was a holy one, a messenger,coming down from heaven. He called in a loud voice: ‘Cut down the tree and trim off its branches; strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the animals flee from under it and the birds from its branches. But let the stump and its roots, bound with iron and bronze, remain in the ground, in the grass of the field. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him live with the animals among the plants of the earth. 16 Let his mind be changed from that of a man and let him be given the mind of an animal, till seven times pass by for him.

The decision is announced by messengers, the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people."

Reading on, one finds Daniel's interpretation of this dream. King Nebuchadnezzar was the tree. He had become powerful. More important (or more distressing), he had become proud that his kingdom extended so far in all directions, and he did not glorify God adequately for this but held some of the praise within for himself. So, God's plan was to humble him by sending him out into the fields to live with the wild animals like an animal until such time that his pride was relinquished and he knew the overwhelming power of the Lord.

And this is precisely what befell Nebuchadnezzar. He found himself living among the animals until he had been humbled, after which his royal entourage found him and returned him to his throne, a humbled and grateful man.

Reading: Daniel 4

Meditation: This dream of Nebuchadnezzar hit home for me. I have often felt -- and said -- that it is difficult to integrate worldly success with spiritual humility. Possible with the help of God, yes, but, oh, so difficult because it is so tempting to assume that one is a "self-made person" and that one can go it alone. After all, in American society, at least, we encourage people to move up the ladder, so to speak, and we praise self-made people. Being motivated by the rung of the ladder and the praise of men, however, take us far from those fields of wild animals where God would have us understand who is great and who is small, who is important and who is not, who is to be glorified and who is to do the glorifying.

On a daily basis, this is brought home to me. As a very senior manager, even though I am in a position where God intended me to be, I have moments of assuming that I can personally make decisions -- and, my goodness, those decisions are almost always flawed in some way, or if not flawed, then not nearly as insightful and good as they could be. On the other hand, when I do take these to God in prayer before jumping to some human conclusion and when I do give credit to its rightful Belonger, that is, when I do realize who is in charge and how little I personally contribute, then things work out amazingly well, better than anything I could possible plan or enact.

Some time ago, I wrote a couple of posts about the price of success and how my division would be dismantled in two years, with me reporting to a new person brought in as a layer between me and the highest level of management to whom I now report. With God's help, I had put aside all concern about that plan, not without great effort at subduing the pride that said, "hey, I created this success, let me have it; don't pass it along to someone who did nothing for it." God showed me, though, that this was not the right attitude, and with some help from God -- an evening walk here and there, a prayer now and then, I was able to reconcile myself to reality and eventuality. However, over the next two years, things have changed, and the plan has been scrapped. So, too, has been my undue pride. So, while the threatened intermediary never showed up to change my status in the human world, God changed it in the spiritual world. I have found that I like it better that way -- and if some intermediary ever does show up (looks pretty doubtful given the current economic climate), it won't matter because anything I have created was with the help of God, supervisors and employees. I would very much hesitate now to take credit for any of it. I prefer instead to join Nebuchadnezzar in glorifying God.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to praise God for all the reasons I have to glorify Him. I will thank God for His lessons, and I will ask forgiveness for those times that I have been slow to learn them. I will also ask God to continue to give me those lessons in humility that I so much need. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Today's Mess

Just when I begin to take God at work for granted and, even worse, begin to think that I myself am contributing to the harmonious work climate, God shows me who really is in charge of my office. Those reminders always vividly, even dramatically, take me aback.

On Thursday, I had to transfer an employee to another directorate. Since most employees do not want to transfer out of my division (this is a good thing), I usually am the one to deliver them the bad news. Most express concern. Some express resistance, but, of course, must accept the transfer because the good of the organization is the factor that weighs the strongest. Health is the most frequent reason for transferring individuals out of my division since all my employees must be able to travel internationally.

So, given a situation where an employee had developed some serious health problems, the program manager had made the decision to transfer him to a division doing similar work but not requiring travel. This looked to be an open-and-shut case. The employee did not want to travel and would not sign the annual paperwork, agreeing to travel. No need to pray about this one! Piece of cake! When I met together with the employee and program manager, however, the employee became hostile, demanded that we grant him an exception to policy (which is never done because it would open a Pandora’s box of many people wanting exceptions and we would not have enough travelers to accomplish our work), and implied that he had documents that he had retained on both of us that would make us do whatever he wanted us to do.

Later in the day, he brought a sealed envelope to my secretary. In it was a copy of some personnel correspondence I had had with another employee that, on the surface and out of context, could definitely be misconstrued. He had gotten the file when the other employee’s computer had been broken and the two employees had shared one computer. The correspondence, which was innocent enough but out of context could look embarrassing since it discussed religious issues in personal ways, had been left accidentally on the shared computer. The employee in question, seemingly a docile individual, had retained that correspondence for nearly five years, apparently holding it for a time that he could use it to compel me to do something that he wanted to have done, and the time had come. Blackmail!

The employee had miscalculated. As a rugged individualist from New England, to use Emerson’s archetypal image, I do not accept blackmail. In fact, had I been wavering about perhaps granting an exception, the attempted blackmail sealed the fate of the individual in question: he will be transferred without delay.

Since blackmail is a felony both under US law and under California law, punishable in both cases by heavy fines and imprisonment, I am now confronted with a difficult decision: to prosecute or not prosecute. Employees who blackmail employers under California law generally lose their jobs. The same might happen if I share the situation with our human resources people, which I may have to do for more than one reason, e.g., any potential long-term, post-transfer ramifications, including the possibility that once transferred the employee will release the document to colleagues and my supervisory chain. If I do not share the information with our personnel and legal team, I may end up having lost the opportunity for defense later, but the employee, who is elderly, in poor health, and responsible for a family with serious medical problems, will not lose a job he desperately needs and the salary for which he cannot replicate. Do I take the risk of ultimate professional damage or does the employee get hurt deeply and immediately? Obviously, now God has a more difficult problem to solve for me!

This all happened because I, too, had miscalculated. Even in seemingly small things and things that seem to be life as usual with no difficulties anticipated, I do need God’s help and presence. Not praying about all of it is arrogance. Thinking I can handle any part of it is perfect evidence of that lack of humility and my continuing need to develop more, i.e. a continuing need for continuing conversion.

(Oh, by the way, prayers are welcomed!)

Work and Spirituality

I read a post today on Catholic Spiritual Direction, a wonderful blog, listed on my blogroll in the right sidebar, to which I would refer anyone interested in very insightful posts on living a godly life in today's world. The question a reader had posed was "how do I deal with issues of advancement and self-promotion at work?" The answer was splendid, and I suggest you wander over there to read it.

I have often commented on work issues on 100th Lamb, and its predecessor blog, Blest Atheist. As with anything else, if one lets go and lets God, as the saying goes, work goes better. One does not need to tout one's accomplishments. God will ensure that they become known and noticed when that is important, and otherwise it is not important. Among the things that I have noticed when it comes to inviting God to take over my work life are the following (far from a full litany of benefits and blessings):

(1) Servant leaders become powerful leaders even though that is not their intention. Jesus showed us the way to be good servant leaders when he washed the feet of his disciples. I ask of those managers who work for me that they think constantly of when the feet of their employees need washing and to tend to that task with alacrity. Recently, a would-be leader who had run into some complications with his team members asked me as someone he considers his mentor how to handle the situation, and I told him he needed more humility, to throw his inflated ego in the trash because it was doing him no good, and forgive those who were creating problems for him. Oh, he found that hard, but he tried all of it. He even sent me a self-learning plan for developing humility, at which point I called him to my office to explain that one does not achieve humility; humility simply comes as a result of something that is so easy that is almost impossible for some people: always put others first. Others can say whether or not our actions are examples of our humility; we cannot begin to measure our own level of humility without being arrogant about it. A strange characteristic this humility! But so desirable!

(2) Power grows the more you give it away. This fact is one of the most counter-intuitive realities with which immature managers must cope. Most new managers want to hang onto power. They want their employees to defer to them, even sometimes to call them "sir" and "ma'am." They want overt respect. As a result, they get the titles, the overt behavior, and the public respect. What they don't get is the implicit respect that is not demanded but freely given, the love and support that comes with it, and the willingness to go the extra nine or ninety yards, as needed. I am tickled pink with employees who point out some shortcoming or inconsistency in my behavior. It means that we are working as a team, and teams are more powerful than individuals. I also notice that when both responsibility and authority are delegated to them, employees are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish the tasking. In turn, if the manager asks them to do something that they would prefer not to do, they do it anyway, without grumbling, because of the bond between them. That is real power. The power that comes with position is multiplied a thousandfold when it is bestowed upon a manager not by his/her superiors but by his/her subordinates.

(3) Dealing with difficult people becomes easy, fun, and rewarding. I have said it often, and I truly mean it. I love difficult people. They are my greatest reward for being a manager. Watching a disaffected employee become a contributing team member produces one of the warmest fuzzies that any manager could ever want. I have very few difficult people among the 400 or so who work for me although four years ago when I began this position the division was considered riddled with difficult people. Now the division is called the "black hole" of our organization by the EEO office and by the Union because even people who used to practically live in those places, complaining about their supervisors and work conditions, no longer visit. They are happy contributors to their teams' work. Once a senior manager, who no longer works for me, asked how to deal with difficult people. I told him that the key was so simple that most managers won't use it: genuinely love them. He told me sorrowfully that he could not do that and not long after resigned. I replaced him with someone who could do that, and the 30 or more chronic complainers in that particular subdivision now appear in the corridors and at group meetings with big smiles. When the new manager first appeared, many stopped me in the hallway to thank me for the change in leadership. Now when they are unhappy about work conditions, they do not run to the Union or the EEO officials for help; they come to their supervisor.

(4) The workplace becomes a place of worship as well, a place where people are inexorably drawn and from which they do not wish to depart. Many a night I have chased people home with the words, "we work to live; we don't live to work." Actually, it is not the living to work that compels people to stay in the office after hours. It is the palpable presence of God in our workplace. Who would want to leave that? Once I had a manpower team from headquarters visit for a week for the purpose of determining staffing needs -- were we understaffed (yep), overstaffed (nope), or staffed just right (not that, either). After spending a week of visiting and talking to employees, during which the visitors had open access to everyone, thanks to a building schematic and names/titles of employees that I gave them with the invitation to go wherever they wanted whenever they wanted and talk to whomever they wanted. They did. The head of the visiting team came to my office at the end of the week, ostensibly, I thought, to talk to me about staffing levels. Instead, she told me that she wanted to talk about the atmosphere in the work place. "I have read about places like this," she said, "but I have never actually seen one -- where people love to come to work, support each other, and willingly remain to make sure that all tasks are completed and everything is ready for the next day. I wish I could work here." There is nothing to my credit in what she found. Rather, that is what happens when one lets God into the workplace.

(5) Moreover, once God is in the workplace, God does what God does best. Miracles happen. Chestnuts get pulled out of the fire by unseen hands. Cutting-edge and seemingly-impossible-because-no-one-has-ever-done-it-before work gets done with amazing ease. Where task and mission require, 48 hours of work finishes itself in eight hours. Pride in the accomplishment of the division and not in the accomplishments of individuals appears; employees give credit to each other, supervisors to employees, and employees to supervisors. People talk about God and even pray together -- in an institution where separation of Church and State is the norm, the expected, the required. The most amazing, though, are the real miracles. We have had several people literally on the brink of death who have reappeared in our midst. I have blogged before about some of them, among these being Jackie, who ended up with a blog clot in her lung and comatose after surgery but survived and will be returning to work, and Tareq, an Iraqi immigrant to the United States who suffered from cancer and heart failure and did eventually die but not before a miraculous post-surgery recovery that gave him an additional year at work and at home, a year he desperately needed to put his family matters straight and save the life of his son who had to be rescued from Iraq when he was personally targeted by insurgents. For all these people, we have had employees of several faiths praying together, our own little ecumenical world, where religious flavor and fervor come second and God and each other come first.

Well, this is not at all the post I had planned to write today, but the writing of it took on a life of its own, inspired by my reading of Fr. Todd's response to the questioner on Catholic Spiritual Direction, and here it now is. So, I shall post it. Tomorrow I will post what I had planned to put up today.

(Note: I know that the image is not entirely appropriate, but it is also not entirely inappropriate. I found it on the web and could not resist including it!)

A Simple Man

On Monday, I was supposed to be in court in Maryland to testify in a case brought against one of my supervisees in that area. On Monday, I was also supposed to attend the funeral of a friend who died unexpectedly, leaving all of us who knew him in shock. I talked to our organization's lawyer, and he was able to convince the judge to let me testify first thing Tuesday morning, so I was able to attend the funeral AND testify. Of course, my Monday night sleep took place exclusively on the red-eye from Los Angeles to Dulles International Airport.

There were several things I remembered, we all remembered, about my friend, Jack. The most important was that he was a simple man.

Earlier this year, he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. He and Ruby did not have much money, so celebrating the wedding anniversary in style was out of the question. Instead, they came to the Bible Studies group that he leads, the meeting of which that week fell on their anniversary. Knowing about the anniversary, I brought Middle Eastern food, which Jack loved, and others brought drinks and desserts. Jack was surprised and pleased -- even more so when I serendipitously ran into Fr. Ed, who had been working late, and he came by to join in the celebration.

Jack affected many others with his simplicity. A retired engineer, he hobbied in history. The level of his knowledge brought learning to all of his group, including those well versed in Biblical studies, like Sr. Maria, and those new to Biblical studies, like me.

Jack was the one I often went to when I ran into "oddities" within the church or among church members, such as the situation with the secular Franciscans that I discussed on my Modern Mysticism blog some time ago (see Tasked). Jack was also the only other lost lamb I had ever met personally who had, like me, experienced a hierophany that brought him, also kicking and screaming, back into the flock. (For those who have not yet read the story of what happened to me, you can find it on my Clan of Mahlou blog: My Conversion Story.)

In addition to the Bible Studies teaching and studying, Jack spent most of his time taking care of Ruby, who has many physical problems, including being restricted to a wheelchair much of the time. Jack never complained. He loved taking care of Ruby. He also had a child who was accidentally shot by a neighbor's child. Jack's son lived, and he never took anyone to court. "It was an accident," he said. Jack's granddaughter was killed in an car accident three years ago. Jack did not bewail his fate. "It was an accident," he once again said. He trusted God, and he knew that some things are, indeed, accidents.

Jack had one wish, not a strong one, but a wish nonetheless. He wanted to go to Jordan to see all those historical places he had studied. I planned to take him there, but he quietly slipped away in his sleep before we could make that wish come true. Somehow, I think Jack would simply say, "It was not meant to be," with full acceptance of the lot life offered him.

Jack was the epitome of humility. His life served as an example to all of us in his class. In Bible Study, he speak with a soft voice such that one had to be quiet and listen attentively. Somehow, it gave his words greater weight.

Jack's funeral was also simple, followed by a reception pieced together by the nuns in our local convent and some of us parishioners. Two priests celebrated the Mass at Old Mission: Fr. Ed, the pastor here, and Fr. Phillip, who came down from the St. Francis Retreat Center. (I say "came down" because the retreat center sits on a hill on the edge of town.)

I was honored to be able to write and read the prayers of the faithful to a full church. Simple people seem to gather more friends than do more complicated types. As I passed back to my pew, Ruby whispered to me how much she liked the prayers, so I handed her the sheet from which I had read the following, which represent a couple of the intentions.

That our friend Ruby, buoyed by gratitude for 50 joyful years together with Jack, be blessed with renewed vigor and self-confidence and pass through this valley with increased faith, hope, and love.

That Jack’s entire family be comforted in its grief and find consolation and peace of mind through today’s Mass, the support of friends in the weeks to come, and the influence of the same deep and abiding faith so frequently expressed by Jack.

In keeping with Jack’s personal example of humility and love, that all people put aside their personal grievances, anger, and prejudices in order to help others and serve God. We pray to the Lord.

Jack was Ruby's ever-present human angel in life. He will be her ever-more-present heavenly angel in death. With simple people, you can count on things simply to continue.

(Note: I have no pictures of Jack or of his funeral. I have only my memories. So, I selected a picture of a simple bouquet of flowers from the Internet. It seemed appropriate.)

Tickled Pink with Embarrassment

I spend a fair amount of time teaching the principles of servant leadership to new managers and working with all levels of managers on implementing my leadership policies of servant leadership, reverse evaluation, and shared governance. I try very hard to practice what I preach, and I ask God for help every day. However, it is not easy to practice what you preach when it is in the area of servant leadership.

Like anyone else, I am vulnerable to stress upon occasion, and currently there is an inordinate amount of stress as we are poised for explosive growth. Right before Christmas, we reached the zenith of need for new personnel to be identified and the hiring process started and a nadir of activity. Learning the latter, I went in search of the manager of a particularly needy division and found his door locked. The associate manager told me that he was on vacation. I sort of remember approving the time off, but that was much earlier and before we knew that we would need globs of new people in January and February. I was furious that he would take vacation without having completed the hiring that needed to be done and without even bringing me up to date about it.

"Please call him in," I instructed the associate manager, "and, unfortunately, you will not be able to take vacation next week as you planned; no one can be away until we have an adequate number of personnel for the taskings that will appear right after Christmas." After that and until the manager showed up, I proceeded to take over the hiring process for one of the understaffed programs among several growing ones in this particular division, looking over the resumes and recommendations of applicants, and setting the program director about arranging interviews.

I understood from interactions after his arrival that the manager was upset, but I did not know how much until he sent me a note on Christmas Eve, telling me that he had been too distressed to attend Christmas Eve Mass with his family. I wrote back, urging him to go to Christmas Day Mass, that we could discuss issues of work at work on Monday, and that God can often put right what man has messed up. The short story is that he did go to Mass, and he said it brought him some inner peace

After everything had quieted down and we had all returned from the New Year holiday, I had a chance to talk to the associate manager about training some of the new supervisory staff brought in for some of the projects and emphasized the need to help them understand the concepts of servant leadership.

"Let me ask you a question," he said. "Do you consider your behavior last week appropriate to the servant leader model?"

When I queried what he meant, he referred to my calling in his boss from vacation and those rather difficult days between Christmas and New Year when we all had to work.

"Was there some kind of resentment about being called in from vacation?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "It was your reaction."

"Was I rude?" I am not without the capacity to be rude, never intentionally, but, you know, in a work world, things you don't want to happen do happen.

"No, you were polite," he said. "It was your body language. We could tell that you were angry with us and that made it difficult to work as effectively, well, certainly as efficiently."

I had not even realized how I had let that stress level take me over and then splash onto them. The associate manager was right; it was not a good example of servant leadership. Every day I begin my morning prayer by asking God to prevent me from harming anyone. Hm...I guess I was not listening to God that day. I wonder how many times He tried to reach me!

The conversation with the association manager reminded me of the time that 12-year-old Lizzie, having started a course in psychology at Northern Virginia Community College under a gifted student option, sat me down at the kitchen table and said, "Mom, we must talk."

"And what must we talk about?" I asked her.

"Your disciplinary techniques," she replied.

"And what is wrong with them?"

"Well, Mom, they are pretty haphazard, chaotic, and really nearly nonexistent."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for example, when you punish us you should not expect us to remember that we are being grounded or doing some other punishment. You should remember, too!"

Guilty as charged, I supposed she was right, and she left, happy that I seemed to understand the error of my ways but not at all convinced that I would be able to change. She was right on both counts.

I hope, though, with my managers that, with God's help, I can change.

Back to the associate manager, he was clearly aware of my willingness to discuss the situation with him, both from the point of view of appropriateness on my part and as an example of how managers should not handle stress. He was, though, very unlikely aware of my real emotional reaction. I was tickled pink that he was not afraid to address the issue with me, to tell me how what I had done made him feel, and to suggest how I might better have handled the situation. So, in spite of the somewhat embarrassing and uncomfortable feeling I had from not having practiced what I preached, I had something important: proof that I have indeed established an ambiance of servant leadership; otherwise he would not have presumed to correct my behavior.

Should I have had any doubt about that, the morning after came the clincher. I apologized to the manager while it just happened that the associate manager was in the room. The manager accepted my apology with grace: "We have to work together as a team, or we will never survive this avalanche of new tasks." Just exactly what I have been teaching (but apparently not quite so well modeling)!

I am very proud of my managers although I am less proud of myself. Perhaps what happened was a gift from God in spite of my not listening to Him very well that day. I was given the opportunity to develop greater humility. And that is always a useful and needed opportunity.