Friends, Family, and Freedom

Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays.  There are lots of things that make it special.  One is it is a warm weather holiday and I love warm weather.  Secondly, it is full of family and friend get-togethers.  One of our favorite recent traditions (Debsue and I) is to attend Blossom and the inaugural Cleveland Orchestra season debut.  This year was no exception as we attended on Wednesday night.  Third and most importantly, it reminds us of the freedom we have in this country.  There are many places in this world where they do not have the freedom that we have in the USA (how would you like to be in Egypt now as they wrestle with those freedoms?).  Freedom that many men and women died for.  We need a day like Independence Day to remind us of this.  So it is not just a day off, but one to remind us of the sacrifice of freedom.  I took this video at Blossom to encompass what is best about this day. 

Known as a Dad

He was a very accomplished individual. A partner with a private equity firm, former CEO of a public company, and a CPA. He was very active in multiple boards and was on the Board of Regents of Pepperdine University. Yet I just knew Mark Kirk as Allie Kirk's dad and he was a good one at that. My daughter Bethany and Allie are close friends having gone to school together at Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy. Mark passed into the presence of the Father this past week. It is fitting that the memorial service is on Father's Day because that was really Mark's major accomplishment. As a business guy, I want to be successful and make my mark in the world. However, that pales by comparison to my primary role on this earth as husband and father.

I remember going to pick up Bethany at the Kirk house (usually after some sleepover) and seeing how Mark interacted with his kids. By every account, he was a great father. I also have an image of passing Mark and his wife Robin on my way to work simply holding hands while walking in Hudson. It is interesting that while I did not know Mark very well, I knew him well enough; yet did not realize how accomplished he really was until reading his obituary. I knew him simply as Allie's Dad. But then that really is the highest calling.

The other thing I knew about Mark Kirk was that he had a relationship with Jesus Christ. That, he openly stated and that he lived. So it is comforting to know that he has passed out of this life but is in the presence of his Lord and Saviour. He had a relationship with his "Abba Father", the intimate word the Scriptures use for Daddy. On Father's Day we celebrate that he is united with his Daddy. Dad is the ultimate accomplishment.

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Leadership Cleveland Class of 2013

I must admit that I was initially very intimidated.  I was accepted into the Leadership Cleveland Class of 2013 a year ago.  What I knew about LC was that it was a great experience and lifelong relationships were formed.  Once I found out who was in this year's class, I was even more intimidated.  Executive of Cleveland City Schools, Executive Director of United Way, Chief Admin Officer for Westfield Group, Chief Operating Officer at Sherwin Williams were some of the people in this year's class.  What I found out is that they intentionally put a variety of people from different areas such as corporate, non-profits, education, government, and small business (e.g. me).  There were 69 of us and we were the 35th class for LC. 

They put us together for a retreat right away in August and that broke the ice very quickly.   You get to know people pretty quickly when you are on their team for tug-of-war.  We were the Green Team.  Each month then we would have sessions focusing on a particular theme.  For example, Education, Quality of Life, and Economic Development.  I learned a lot about our city.  Yes, it has issues, but it is truly a great city and there is a lot going on right now.  I am also particularly proud that our classmate, Eric Gordon is leading a renaissance for Cleveland Schools.  Eric is a humble guy who has a passion for these kids.

Our end of year retreat was a visit to Nashville.  We learned about an up and coming city, but I think it also made us realize that we have similar assets here in Cleveland.  I am particularly proud to live in this great city and region.  But I think that the best part of Leadership Cleveland was the friendships that I built, friendships that will extend well beyond our class year.  Our class has adopted a mission of lakefront development and revitalization of the downtown corridor.  We also will continue to support the plan for Cleveland schools.

P.S. The picture above was by Hidden Moments (wife Debbie's photo biz).

Broken Spokes

Yesterday, I took my bike into the bike store. I had two broken spokes on the rear wheel. The young man who was obviously much more knowledgeable on bikes than I am asked me how long I had been riding on the broken spokes. I said "much of last year on the one and a few weeks on the second one". He kind of grimaced and said "Oh, that is not good". I asked him why. He said that when a spoke goes, the rest of the wheel takes the added pressure of the damaged spoke so that you could very much damage the wheel if you continue to ride the bike. Point taken, my damaged spoke was inflicting stress on the rest of the wheel and now the potential damage is much greater.

How much my broken spoke reminds me of the effect my sin has. My sin may seem like just a little broken spoke, but it has the potential to damage me, my relationship with God, my relationship with my wife, my co-workers, etc. Yes, we all sin, but the cavalier attitude we have towards sin is like my cavalier attitude towards my broken spoke. I did put duct tape on the spoke after all. We need to take a hard-line towards sin and deal with it right away as I should have done with my broken spokes. If we don't, we have the potential to inflict damage to the wheel.

 

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Power and the Prius

This blog is a continuation of my reflections of navigating from the power of German engineering contained in my BMW to my Prius C. I have noticed that I drive much more slowly and cautiously. When I had the BMW, I tended to drive aggressively because I had the power. Others may not have had the power but that did not matter. I tended to tailgate. When I got the Prius, I did not have that power and so I was much more cautious. Since the Prius goes from zero to sixty in about an hour, I found I needed to give a little more lead time when pulling out into traffic. I even noticed that my BMW had a manly horn the reflected the power. I am almost ashamed to honk my Prius horn. It sounds like someone is making an apology.

Another weird side note from my Prius conversion is it is actually more economical for me to drive slower. I am equal opportunity power-cheap person. So I am willing to sacrifice power in the name of fuel efficiency. My primary metric for driving to the office shifted from time (power) to mpg (economics). I would brag to my wife that I got to the office in 26.5 minutes vs. the 27 it took me yesterday. Now, I say that I got 67 MPG to get to the office. Of course, it took me 30 extra minutes to get there. Cheapness trumped power.

I don't want to over-spiritualize this conversion from power, but God knows just how much power we can handle. Some of us don't handle power well. We lord it over people, we abuse people, we demean people. Some of us can handle power well. God is an expert when it comes to knowing our power limits. A guy like Nebuchednezzar comes to mind. The Bible tells us in Daniel 4 that God literally yanked his human mind out and replaced it with an animal mind. What was the reason - his lack of understanding of his power. In 4:30-31, the king is reflecting on his power and admiring himself when God pulls his power "while the word was still in the king's mouth". Fortunately for the king, he realized after seven years and "he lifted his eyes to the heavens". His power was restored to him.

For me, it comes to converting power to responsibility. If I say I am the CEO of a company in context of power, I am in big trouble. If I say I am the CEO of a company in the context of responsibility, I am much more inclined to act and operate accordingly. I feel a sense of stewardship and accountability before God and our team. I am still prone to BMW type power pushes and pride is always standing at the door. However, I know that God will periodically remind me of my numerous human frailties and how I must daily depend on Him in the context of responsibility.

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Rescued at Last

We all in Cleveland are amazed at the news last night that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michele Knight were found after 10 years of being missing. What a joy for the family members that these women (children at the time) that once were lost are now found. They were drawn out of a literal slavery and are restored to their right familial relationships.

I am reminded by the fact that each of us were slaves to sin and our Heavenly Father desperately seeks to rescue us from this slavery and restore us to a rightful family relationship with Him. He doesn't give up searching and desiring for us to come home to Him. God is both our Father and our rescuer by providing the means to come to our rescue through His Son Jesus Christ. Imagine if these women had the rescuer present but did not call out for help. They would still be in slavery. We can cry out and ask for this rescue in the name of Christ and God has indeed promised He will rescue us. And it will be a joyful reunion when we come home.

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The Non-Owner Perspective

My wife and I buy cars infrequently and almost inevitably get over 100,000 miles on our cars.  So my car, a 2005 BMW X3 was at that stage with 118,000 miles where virtually everything was going wrong.  I drove all winter on bald tires constantly fighting the need to replace them because they were "high performance" tires that cost $1500 or so a set.  I also had some electrical issues and I drove all last summer with the air conditioning not working.  Why put myself through all this pain?  Because I know every BMW repair is at least $1,000 and we just could not afford it.  I finally reached a point last week however where I could no longer coax any more miles from "Fonzie" (we name all of our cars).  I knew we were coming to that point and we finally had a little money to actually deal with car problem. 

My attitude towards cars has changed substantially.  I now view cars as basic transportation.  While I don't think I bought the BMW ("Beamer") as a status symbol, I think I certainly enjoyed the status.  Thus, my trade-in car is (drum roll please) a Toyota Prius C and a bright red one to boot.  I guess I am confident in my manhood when people tell me I now drive a "cute" car.  I actually enjoy this car - it is fun to drive and it gets 50 MPG.  Now, unlike the Beamer, it goes from 0-60 in an hour so I have to be a little more careful about when I pull out in an intersection or pass someone on a freeway.  It is definitely an adjustment from the German engineering. 

I just finished an abstract of Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational.  In it, he talks about the High Price of Ownership.  He talks about the ongoing temptation to improve the quality of our lives by buying "stuff".  Debsue and I certainly have gone through that phase of our lives.  The cure to the problem of ownership according to Ariely is to view things as a "non-owner" and putting some distance between yourself and the item of interest. 

I can only think that biblically, this concept is spot-on.  God is not opposed to possessions.  But the problem is when these things possess us, not when we possess them.  Are we prepared to give up what we own on this earth?  Matthew 6:19-21 says "we are not to store up for ourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.  But instead up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal".  There are only two things that have eternal value - people and God's word.  There are no U-Hauls going to heaven.  The non-owner sees himself as stewards with what God has given him.  I can honestly see that truth as I struggle to live it.  Even now, the non-owner was playing with all of the little gadgets in his Prius this afternoon. 

So the next time you see me driving my "cute" Prius, just remember it is really not mine.  God has given it to me to manage to get from here to there as a non-owner.  I may even let you ride in it.