Songs of Pain and Hope

I wrote someone about the hockey goalies I admired as a kid – the Washington Capitals’ Don Beaupre and the US Men’s Olympic Team’s Ray LeBlanc.  Not the biggest ones out there, but their courage and resilience spoke to me.  One of the skills I regret not picking up was learning to ice skate otherwise I would have love to give the ice version a go.  I did play a lot of street and the floor versions as a goalie.

This one is about not letting the bastards grind you down.

In high school gym class, we were in the street hockey segment of the semester.  So much fun and better than the running ones.  Still nothing as bad as the gymnastics segments in middle school where I could only do a forward roll and somewhat jump over the pommel horse.  But in street hockey, those hours emulating the butterfly style of saving shots paid off.  I was rarely scored on.  

This one time, however, I remember making a point blank save of a slapshot by catching it.  With my bare hand.  For some reason, I didn’t have my catching glove on that day.  One of my teammates exclaimed – did you see that?  And of course, some enticed rich kid minimized and dismissed it as nothing to write home about.

His name was James.  I’ve said previously that almost every Robert or Andrew I know are superior human beings (except one with the ugly wife).  My luck with James is more mixed.  Most have been arrogant bags including the one who made fun of eating chicken feet at a dimsum restaurant.  He was actually a graduate of an elite law school so we see how brains are not everything.

It wasn’t just a good save. 

It was a great one.

But he had to say something to ruin the moment.  I was too young and not confident enough to understand but it was just his insecurity speaking.  You would think people grow out of this but they often don’t.  I call it defensive arrogance.  Affirm and validate others, it goes a long way.

And if you can’t get that from some, they really aren’t worth that much to begin with.  I have some supremely talented friends who don’t really know it.  They have been surrounded by clowns of the same  cloth who can’t hold a candle to who they are.

When I was a teacher and manager, I would try to accentuate the strengths of whom I was in charge of.  When I had to grade or write performance reviews, I placed all the positives in writing and the things they had to work on verbally so it wouldn’t come back to bite them.  I didn’t receive the same treatment – I have one that makes me look like Jesus and Judas at the same time.  It was written by multiple people and I could tell who wrote what.  

The truly strong will carry you.  The weak will step on you.  Never forget that.  Don’t let the latter grind you down.

On a related note,

I sometimes think of how I would customize my goalie mask if I had played at a more competitive level.  Usually, goalless have something that is meaningful painted on theirs.  Back then, it would have been something different.  But now, I’d probably go with a dragon and monkey – the two Chinese zodiac animals of my kids and a combination of the Malaysian and American flag, which are virtually identical – the only difference being the former has a yellow crescent moon and 14 point star while the latter has 50 white stars.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Who protects the protectors?

That’s easy to answer.  Other than God, other protector. And here’s the thing, you don’t need to be in law enforcement or military to be one.  In fact, those fields have their own predators and cowards.  Being a protector is a character thing, it manifests and expresses itself in different ways.

We sheepdogs also wait for our Shepherd to rescue us.  He knows how we protected the sheep and fought off the wolves.  He knows how we got hurt and mangled.   He comes for us because we are his sheepdogs.

Who will know what we did?

A few family.

A few friends.

Those we impacted.

God.

And maybe most importantly, us.

Not a bad audience that.

We saw and experienced a lot of evil.  Professionally and personally.  We are tired.  What we’ve tried to tell others has mainly fallen on deaf unknowing ears. The most important people in our lives failed us.  

Miserably.

That’s why we did what we did. So few had our six.

Shame on them. 

The family and friends who had the power and ability to intervene but did not. 

We came for others. One day, no one will come for them.

We still let God build something new for us.  I don’t think it will be with just the existing pieces but with new ones.  The old pieces will somehow be incorporated into this new mosaic or whatever but it also dawned on me that they will play less of a role than expected.  I think that many of the pieces we think are so consequential in our lives are actually less so.  It may be the ones less expected that play a bigger part.

But as we already know – once one, always one.

That is the pride that only our true brothers and sisters know.

1. The destination shapes the journey shapes the destination.

2. Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness is your greatest strength.

3. No skill, learn skill, practice skill, forget skill, instinctive action.

4. There is an audience of One.

(From the DA years)

I had election duty yesterday in West Philadelphia.  Pretty uneventful, although I got a bit lost driving back.  I realize I live very close to some rough neighborhoods.

By now, it is pretty clear that George Bush and the Republicans will have control over the presidency and the legislature, and probably the Supreme Court once several justices retire. 

I was going to write a sarcastic entry congratulating the conservative right, but decided against it.  I realize this is not the right attitude in being a citizen of this country.  

I talked to several of my former students last night and asked how and why they voted.  It saddens me that we have a herd mentality as Christians.  That being said, I have also observed this herd mentality in minority groups that are voters on the other side of the spectrum.   

It also saddens me to see that our nation is polarized and split along racial, ideological lines.  My prosecutor mentor in Minnesota observed that it was difficult for him to speak with his brother who he disagreed with on the course of this nation.  Apparently, friendships have also been destroyed because of this election.  

Perhaps Osama knew what he was doing all along.  The fissures of division were there all along – all it took was a precipitating factor.  The truth is that no single man will turn this country around.  It would be foolish to assume that one force (other than God) can reverse the consequences of many forces accumulated over much time.  Fighting crime and terrorism is much more than arresting perpretators or clamping down on insurgent groups.  

It all goes back to the human heart, our families, and our communities.  For all of Focus on the Family’s skewed and short-sighted thinking, they are dead-on on one point – that the family is a primary concern in our society.  It is not the government’s primary responsibility to legislate morality (although they do have to at some point, but in my opinion as little as possible), but rather the family’s.  This is the agent of change that will turn our nation around, if ever. 

Most of our families are broken, however.  I’ve taught enough kids and adult students as well as lived in my own to figure that out.  But we still rather focus on fixing things on the outside rather that which is internal. 

I used to teach a leadership / management course.  Yup, those who can’t do, teach.  Also used to live close to Harvard’s bookstore.  Really cool actually.  You can really develop a reading list from walking around.  The business leadership section was staggering.  If I wasn’t struggling with coming up with a comprehensible dissertation, I would have read more of these books.

I made peace with the following approach.  It is somewhat simple (or maybe simplistic), but it’s at least a starting point.  I would say, to be somewhat effective as a leader, a combination of the following is helpful (I did teach all of these in class).

Harvard Business School Literature, John Kotter – Normative, often needs good to perfect conditions to actually implement.  Does not fully work in extraordinary situations.  Does not fully account for human nature.

48 Laws of Power – Amoral, not immoral.  Read this. Trust me.  With discretion and meditation.  A few pages at a time.  Humbling.

Servant Leadership – Very tough sell, but it unfortunately is the way to keep one’s soul and actually lead effectively.  Again, tough sell, I didn’t expect my students to really buy into it.  Worth the try.

If I were more experienced, I would have done more Sun Tzu, Godfather, and John Boyd.  In the bullpen – Musashi, Zhuge Liang, Gracian, Machiavelli, Taoist work.

My DA Chief said that when a priest becomes a bishop, the first thing he loses is his spine.  Chief is insightful and funny.  And absolutely on point.  No need for specific examples but many of us can probably point to an example they know. 

This one is about integrity.  

It matters a lot and I think it’s more than just honesty for others, principles, the greater good, etc.  It is also about being true to oneself.  The other things I’ve mentioned are important no doubt but at the end of the day, Hamlet got it right – above all, to thine self be true.  Nothing, even if it doesn’t feel like it, is worth losing that.  Not position, popularity, maybe even “love.”  

It is painful and costly to stand alone.  

It might be worse to be labeled a coward.

I don’t know for sure but a thousand deaths and all.  

I think this príncipe is also valuable as a test for evaluating others.  My kids’ patron saint, USAF Colonel John Boyd said – Ask for my loyalty, I’ll give you my honesty.  Ask for my honesty, I’ll give you my loyalty.

Integrity is really hard to aspire to much less accomplish.  Everyone fails.  

Everyone.  

Most if not all of us have a price.  Just try to make sure it’s as high as it can be.

Although Thomas More, a real saint, does choose death over betraying his beliefs – to the point where he refuses to do something benign to preserve himself.  I don’t think I could have come close to that.

You may not be willing to lose your head.  But try to at least keep your spine.