Late Again

A lesson to have learned at least thirteen years ago

Late Again

A light flashed on my phone.  It was another text message.  As I glanced down at it I could feel a sense of surprise radiate from deep within my chest.  It was from my friend Alan’s assistant asking me to schedule a time to meet.  My surprise was derived from knowledge that Alan has a very heavy business schedule and I had just met with him to discuss business not long ago.  At the same time, I looked forward to our expected time together, without knowing the purpose of our reunion.

When I walked into Alan’s office he greeted me warmly and asked me to sit down as he continued to his own chair.  Once seated, he warmly said that he had been thinking of me over the past couple of weeks and wanted to see if everything was alright.  An opening such as this to a meeting is rare indeed!  I couldn’t and can’t think of another time when one of my meetings began in this way.  It caused me to stop, take a deep breath and think.

As you know, thinking can happen much more quickly than real time, so I was able to mentally travel to thirteen years earlier.  At that time, I was facing virtually the same business and life challenges.  And, this time?  My mind was racing back and forth.  I knew the path of this race very well.  There was no need to worry about the path because it was so well worn.  That is, it was well worn up to this exact point.  Now, there was a fork in the road!

The fork in the road offered two paths forward.  I asked myself one question.  “What did you learn last time?”  This one question stopped the race with the past and opened the door to a new path.

I lifted my eyes back to meet Alan.

“I’ve been here before.”  I said.

That’s when he reached forward, offering me a book while telling me how reading it had changed his life.  I reached forward as well and thanked him for his kindness and generosity.  I also told him that I’d read it and let him know what I thought.

Well, I’ve been reading it, while walking the unknown path forward.  It has changed my experience by offering new insights.  I’ve learned a lot, but the thing I wanted to share with you is that reading it has allowed me to see that “I’m late.”  Life offered me these same lessons thirteen years ago and I chose not to learn what was offered then.  So, life gave me the same lesson to learn these many years later.

Now I’m able to see a different light flashing.  It isn’t the text message alert on my phone.  It’s a notification in my heart.  It’s another kind of message.  And, I can feel a sense of surprise radiate from deep within my chest.  Life itself is asking me to learn something I’ve avoided and needed.  At this very moment, my surprise is derived from the knowledge that I’m late.  At the same time, I feel a sense of comfort.

Life cares enough about each one of us to continue to offer needed lessons, no matter how late we are!

Who is Rescuing Who?

An email from Anna Pernell & The International Rescue Committee

Who is Rescuing Who?

Just before 5:00 pm yesterday afternoon I received an email from Anna Pernell.  It caught my attention, even while meeting with my Cooperative Venturing Team to strategize the launch of a new biomedical device company currently spinning out from the University of Utah, because Anna is with the International Rescue Committee.

The International Rescue Committee is a service group that assists refugees through their own launch, a new hope and life in the United States.  I’ve worked with them as a volunteer advisor to help support new entrepreneurs for several years.  Anna’s email was a request for help, which seemed fitting to receive while engaged in Cooperative Venturing and its timing helped me to expand my incomplete impression of who a refugee is and where they come from.

Perhaps, too often, we think of refugees who have come here to begin anew, as foreigners, strangers, someone completely new to our cities, towns, and neighborhoods.  People who share no connection to who is here and what they’ve created here over generations.  Yet, as my eyes raised above my hand-held computer to settle on the people gathered around a large conference room table another kind of cooperative venture seemed to emerge as a truth in hiding.

You see, much earlier in the week, I stole a moment to catch up with another friend who seemed gloomier than is his usual demeanor.  As we sat talking together he became an audible artist creating a panorama of how his life has been changed by the taking-in of his daughter and her young children.  He described how he has assumed a new, intimate role in the nurturing and teaching of his grandkids.  My heart was touched as he explained how living together has changed him and them.  How they are now much more of one heart, simply because he has allowed them to become prominent partakers in a newly forged, cooperative venture into a brighter future.  Our visit together opened my mind to the possibility that mutual, brighter futures can be created in our community whether refugees come to us from Colorado, California, Nigeria, Iraq or our own families.

Thirty percent of all American households are now multigenerational.  That means at least thirty percent of us could be characterized as being smaller, yet just as important, rescue committees engaged in cooperative venturing.  My own experience has allowed me to be of service to immigrants from foreign countries, different states, cities and even family members who lost their home to a fire. All of this has led me to understand that there are many more refugees needing shelter, love and assistance than I had previously imagined.

As my imaginings waned and my focus returned to the Cooperative Venturing at hand.  I allowed my eyes to glance back down to my hand-held computer.  It was still just before 5:00 pm in the afternoon.  Anna Pernell’s email had caught my attention, even while meeting with my Cooperative Venturing Team to strategize the launch of our new biomedical device company currently spinning out from the University of Utah.  Because, Anna’s email was an invitation to you and me to recognize that we are surrounded by many kinds of refugees that need us, just as much as we need them.

Woolly Aliens

Delivery of two young, angus steers

Woolly Aliens

I looked up to see a little twist on what it means to be a chauffeur.  Instead of a long black limousine, Randy was driving his long truck & trailer, filled with two young, black angus steers toward me.  I had never thought of Randy as a chauffeur before, but I smiled as he rolled up and said hello.  Since he was delivering the beasts to my place, I slid into the passenger seat of his truck and we continued driving until we reached a pasture gate.

I jumped out of the truck, opened the gate and Randy drove through.  We almost repeated the entire process at the next gate, but there was a slight variation.  I opened the gate, Randy backed his truck & trailer to the opening, we opened the trailer and we both waited.

Our wait time was brief as the two steers cautiously extended their noses to take an examination sniff, then extended their necks forward and let their front legs down to meet the soft damp ground.  The rest of their hulking bodies followed and each steer’s legs propelled them forward toward another gate.

This final gate welcomed them with lush green grass as well as new, larger and inquisitive bovine friends.  It was a post card scene, so Randy Salt and I leaned on the rail fence, soaked in the sun, admired the snowcapped mountains as a prodigious contrast to the bright blue sky and watched the small herd of black angus cows get to know each other.  Because they were kin, it took little time for them to become comfortable with each other.  As is their ritual, the herd began a tour of their new home for the new arrivals as we watched.

As you know, a tour includes stops.  This tour was not the exception.  There was the refreshment stop, to show the new members of the family where they could quench their thirst and the “meet the neighbors” stop.  It was the “meet the neighbors” stop where all comfort in the pasture suddenly changed.  These were neighbors of a different kind!

A different kind, in this case, is sheep.  The new steers came from a strictly cattle ranch.  They had never encountered smaller, wool covered creatures in their youth.  So, their behavior was a perfect model of, inquisitive, yet apprehensive questioning.  They stood back:

Snorted.

Demonstrated their strength.

Stared. 

Then they inched forward. 

Then back. 

Forward again.

Acceptance!

The steers completed their apprehension process in a very few minutes.  When they were finished, the woolly aliens across the fence had transformed into neighbors!

Randy and I looked up to see a little twist on what it takes to turn someone new and different into a neighbor.  Instead of brooding aggression and worry, steers and sheep simply take a little time to learn about each other and when they do, they discover they have a lot in common and live comfortably and happily as neighbors.

Randy and I, neighbors ourselves, drove his long truck & trailer, no longer filled with two young, black angus steers toward the pasture gate.  I had never thought of Randy as an alien before, but it caused me to smile, just a little, as we rolled along.  I wondered what my impression of him would have been if he had come to visit me dressed as a sheep.

“No matter!” I said to myself.

I’ve taken the time to get to know Randy a little bit so, we’ve become friends and neighbors!