“We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.” 
W.H. Auden

It was 2004.  Spain was rocked by an Al Qaeda terrorist attack, killing 200. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced plans for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in April and the PLO founder, Yasir Arafat, died in Paris.  In its mid-September final report on Iraq’s weapons, the U.S. confirmed it found no WMDS.  Congress extended tax cuts slated to expire at the end of 2005.  In November George W. Bush was reelected defeating John Kerry.

At Super Bowl XXXVIII Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction with Justin Timberlake. Martha Stewart began serving her five months in prison in July.  Dan Rather found himself in the middle of a firestorm regarding the authenticity of documents used in a 60 Minutes segment.  Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Christopher Reeve, Tony Randall and Estee Lauder died.    President Ronald Reagan was laid to rest at his Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

In March NASA announced it detected signs that water had once covered a small crater on Mars while in June Michael Melvil became the first person to pilot a privately developed aircraft into space. The Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, gathered 10,625 athletes from 201 nations to compete in 301 different events. American swimmer, Michael Phelps, was the superstar of the Games, tying the Olympic record by winning eight medals, six of them gold.  Larry Page, co-founder of Google, became an instant billionaire in August when the company went public.

In the late Fall, through the invitation of a mutual friend, I met Steve for the first time over breakfast.  The purpose of our meeting was for me to introduce myself and the character & ethics work of Passkeys Foundation with the possibility that Steve’s publishing and media organization might explore becoming a primary voice to the business community as I prepared to expand the Ethics In America Awards program to honor a notable American annually.

Seven-plus years later, I can look back on that first meeting in the light of multiple conversations and events which have since occurred to provide me now with my personal template to understand the distinguishing characteristic of leaders and their potential influence for good.  Steve has been a personal example and mentor for a singular message I have been exploring with the OC business and professional community since 1996: Be an Influence for Good.

For my reader to appreciate my Steve Lesson, I invite you to reflect on a person who has come your way professionally to constantly underscore their interest in you… what you are doing… how you are succeeding… how you are pursuing the edge of you… the best of you… to be the contribution and face of good in your personal and professional life.

Identifying The Someone who has offered this connection with you will help you unlock the significant story of how unique individuals come our way to move us forward. 

Steve Churm has been such a man for me.  I cannot spend time with him without experiencing his pixie dust magic that affirms and calls forth the best awaiting further expression in me.  He has a perpetual, locked-in storyline that looks outward to affirm another.

When looking at the Churm Media brand, it is easy now for me to quickly notice that this organization is built on communicating the good news of people doing good things in O.C. Whether it’s the Hot 25, leading edge Women in Business, emerging Entrepreneurs… Trusted Brands… you name it… Churm Media looks outward specifically to find and authentically communicate the story of Good… everywhere present.

As an individual Steve is the mind and heart of this Churm Media brand.

 I fondly remember how excited Steve was to personally interview John Wooden in the summer of 2005 for a feature article that would appear in OC Metro about America’s Coach.  Steve took his son with him to meet Mr. Wooden in his home.  Coach Wooden had been an inspiration to Steve for years.  Not only did Steve now have a reason to write about him, he also could introduce his son to an American hero who was always championing the best in others.

With a steady, articulate way… in the demanding and difficult professional world of media… Steve pursues a singular brand vision that I liken to Aesop’s Fable of the tortoise and hare.  While the hare moves with spurts and stops, the tortoise moves steadily toward the finish line. Steve is the steady and curiously interested one who is in perpetual motion to get the new, compelling story that affirms the good works of another and then communicates it to a public that is eager to learn about what The Good is looking like in O.C.

Imagine with me as you place ten people in a room with Steve for an hour.  Become one of those ten as I have been on several occasions with him.  At the end of an hour, pretend canvassing the group of ten to ask a question: With whom did you have your most meaningful conversation?  I can promise you there will be a consistent majority opinion when Steve is in the room. Why? What’s the awareness he holds to make it so?

Steve carries the mind that Howard Gardner, Harvard University professor and author, wrote about when he described the highest level of human thought… the ethical mind… which Gardner describes behaviorally as a mind that constantly looks outward into the world with a question: What kind of person do I choose to be at home, at work and in the community?  I see Steve exploring that question in his relationships with others to find the good that is happening. Then, he uses his professional skills to communicate the story into society’s marketplace.

The O.C. community is blessed to have a focused messenger-in-its-midst who sounds the note of The Good.  In hindsight I know I am the beneficiary of a breakfast meeting that turned into an ongoing professional connection with this one who simply cannot spend time with you without making you walk taller… think brighter… dream larger… reminding you that you do matter!

Lighthouse beacons like Steve come our way to shine their light on the stories of Good happening in the lives of others. Such individuals understand the timeless wisdom expressed long ago by Confucius, “He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own.”  

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’”
Victor Frankl

It was 1980.  The United States broke diplomatic ties with Iran in early April. At the end of the month eight US servicemen were killed in a desert raid to rescue American hostages in Tehran and the Shah of Iran died in July.  Ronald Reagan was elected President in November defeating the incumbent, Jimmy Carter.  On December 8 John Lennon was murdered in New York City.

Media Mogul Ted Turner launched the first all news network, CNN. Voyager I reached Saturn identifying 14 moons and more than 1,000 rings. Three researchers, including two from the US, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing methods to map the structure and function of DNA.  Famed Track and Field star, Jesse Owens, died as did Director, Alfred Hitchcock and Supreme Court Justice, William Douglas.

The Grammys awarded the Album Of  The Year to Billy Joel’s 52^nd Street.  The Big Screen introduced what would become three classics…Raging Bull, Ordinary People and The Elephant Man.  Wimbledon witnessed a Men’s Finals Classic when Bjorn Borg defeated John McEnroe in a five-set thriller. In the greatest US sports triumph, the Men’s Olympic Hockey Team upset the Soviets in the 4-3 Miracle on the Ice Win and went on to defeat Finland 4-3 to take the Gold Medal at the Lake Placid Winter Games.

This tale about my friend, John, is one of my personal touchstone stories of life purpose and meaning.   It is the timeless prodigal story of the restoration of the damaged self.  Writing these words immediately returns me to a relationship with a man who, thirty-two years ago, began showing up for Sunday morning services at my church in mid-January, 1980.

Whatever John was hearing on Sundays was apparently essential life food.  Not until late February would we meet face-to-face when John made an appointment to see me.  On that first visit he gave me the 30,000 ft. Fly-Over of his personal and professional life….with a poignant tagline.

John was in his mid-fifty’s married with two adult children.  He had created a remarkably successful career in the insurance world, building a practice that placed him at the top of his industry. Yet, as he told me that day, his professional achievements paled to insignificance as he now looked at the landscape of his disastrous personal life.  Though still together in marriage, he and his wife lived in two separate worlds that rarely found common ground.  His adult kids had no significant relationship with him.  Neither sought out a relationship with their father. 

And the tagline?  John had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

At that first meeting, I learned that John’s deteriorating health was not his biggest concern.  Rather, his illness had pointed him to the context of his life choices that had done harm to his wife and his children over many years. What do you do to get it right when you have gotten it wrong for so long?  John wanted an ongoing conversation with me to probe into that question.   That day we began a relationship. I was the second member of John’s two-man reclamation team.  In a brief and most memorable six months.  I became a witness to the hopeful fact that it is never too late to fix what is broken.

John and I met every couple of weeks.  Our meetings might be likened to the weigh-in moment on TV’s Biggest Loser. For John, getting on the scales required my listening to his reporting about how he was reconstructing the broken bridges with his wife and children.  John’s work was to restore trust that had been shattered by years of relational neglect.   He quickly learned that declaring his desire to fix what was damaged required that he hear and understand the pain he had caused his wife and children by neglect over many years.

Really listening to the damage he had created was tough work for John. He discovered that his desire to make things right did not necessarily make things right.  Every person’s season for restoration is a delicate play of the psyche.   John could not force another’s healing.   As he pushed up against this fact, he became more contemplative. His thinking moved ever so gently from what can I do with the time I have to… what can God do in His timing?

Then came the eventful Saturday morning in early July.  John and I sat in his backyard patio.  He remained a man on a mission.  Bridges had been partially restored with his family through his persistent belief that the damage of the past could be fixed.  But, could he be free in his mission journey to be all he wanted to be to his wife and his kids in the time he had remaining.  That was John’s earnest question that beautiful Saturday morning.

As he gave voice to his big question, his truthful speaking and my intense listening entered a vortex of awareness that might be likened to an energy field of all good, present and available to him and me. I described this energy to John as I said, “John, it seems like if I could touch your forehead, you would know this energy as yours. 

He said, “Touch my forehead.”  As awkward as that moment was for me, it was purposed for the movement of John’s mission. When I touched his forehead, the energy surged through me like a 220 electrical current traveling to him.  We both bathed in this remarkable energy for a couple of minutes.  When it left, John and I knew something magnificent had occurred.

John lived three more weeks.  During that time, he was a 24-7 saint-in-the-making to anyone and everyone who entered his life!  Everything he said and did was filled with love.  He was a free and joyous man.  During those three weeks his wife and children connected with their husband/father in ways that were so fulfilling that the past relational pain disappeared effortlessly…for all.  In the end only one person needed help…me!  John gave me the help I needed in our last conversation.

It occurred on the phone twenty-four hours before he died. He was totally alert.   I said, “John, if that energy we experienced together could do what it did for you and your family, I wonder if it might physically heal you now?

John came my way in that moment with a gift. “Russ, I know how you wish that would be so for me, but it is not to be for me.  Do not worry.  Nothing is amiss. The mission has been accomplished. I love you.” 

“The heart is the first feature of working minds.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

It was 2000.  Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old Cuban boy at the center of an international dispute, is reunited with his father after a federal raid in Miami. In July the Concorde crashed near Paris, killing 113. In an early October nationwide uprising, Yugoslavians overthrew President Milosevic.  One week later on October 12, U.S. sailors on the Navy destroyer Cole died in a terrorist explosion. In mid-May, the “I love you” virus disrupted computers worldwide and in late June, the human genome was deciphered.

The year ended with the closest presidential election in decades. George Bush secured re-election to a second term when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to the manual recount of Florida votes and on December 12th ruled 5-4 there could be no further recounting.

Oprah Winfrey debuted the O magazine.  After drawing more than 18,250 Peanuts cartoon strips, Charles Schulz died in his sleep after a battle with colon cancer.  Kathie Lee Gifford called it quits co-hosting Live! with Regis & Kathie Lee.  Madonna and Guy Ritchie married in a lavish wedding at Scotland’s Skibo Castle. Erin Brockovich hit the Big Screen as did Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Gladiator.

In an All New York World Series, the Yankees defeated the Mets in five games. The Lakers defeated the Pacers in six games to win the NBA Championship and Venus Williams won Wimbledon in straight sets beating Lindsay Davenport.

In mid-February, 2000, I drove to Hemet in Riverside County to take Frank Goble to his doctor for the last time. For nearly four years, I had been Frank’s executor and primary overseer of his custodial care needs. Our relationship dated back almost thirty years to the early 1970’s when Frank served as a Board Member of The Santa Anita Church.

One of the most brilliant and expansive thinkers I have ever encountered, Frank was an engineer who changed careers to take on his big interest: The mind and how we learn.  His influence was broad nationally. Author of The Third Force, he spent months with the famous psychologist, Abraham Maslow, making the complex theoretical mind of Maslow user friendly to the public.

In the late 1960’s Frank founded the Thomas Jefferson Research Center in Pasadena.  Throughout the decade of the 70’s the research center explored the changing cultural landscape of American education.  Much of the research focused on reporting on the movement away from character and values driven curriculum in America’s K-12 schools.  By the early 1980s, Frank’s ground breaking best seller, The Case For Character Education, became the motivation for the center to change its focus and its name to become The Jefferson Center for Character Education, the first nationwide, research-based character education resource organization in the United States.

In the Fall of 1999, I had Frank placed in a dementia and Alzheimer care center in Hemet. Frank’s Winter Season had been full of turbulence during the past two years. As his mental and emotional capabilities deteriorated and his daily care became more complex, this move had been the right one.

In late January Frank’s decline appeared to be accelerating. Our visit to his physician was purposed for the doctor to evaluate additional end-of-life care. There had never been a time I visited Frank that he did not know me.   Such was the case this time. He acknowledged me with a smile and a brief greeting. Except for those words, it was obvious that the hour-long drive to and from the doctor’s office made no sense to Frank.  He was totally without energy for the journey.  Nevertheless, we were off to the doctor with no conversation as Frank slept his way to the appointment.

Our time with the doctor was brief.  I cannot remember whether Frank had any meaningful interaction with him. Soon we were on our way back to Hemet. Silence was the atmosphere again as Frank slept.

It was not until I parked the car at the care center that the extraordinary occurred.  Before I could open the door to assist him out of the car, Frank came alive!  It was the Frank I mistakenly thought no longer existed.  It was Frank, the man I had admired for years, learned from and been inspired by.  Frank was present. 

He showed up and started up. While these words are not his exactly, they capture the moment as he looked intentionally at me saying,

“Russ, I want to thank you for all that you have done for me these past few years.  You have been the person who has helped me greatly in my needs and you have done so with care and with respect. I want you to know I am grateful.”

I was stunned. Where did this come from?  How did these words come forth now? 

 “Frank, you are welcome.  I am glad I could be that person for you.”

Frank said nothing more. He was done.  I would visit him two more times in the next two weeks. He would say nothing.  A day after my final visit, Frank passed.

My meaningful moment with this giant of a man who mentored me to carry on the character education legacy he had started, reveals much about the mind and its mysterious, intentional power to create anew for good.

The mind that spoke through Frank’s awareness was totally alive.  In that moment Frank became his whole self…again.  He was given a moment to do what was his natural instinct…to be a giver. That was Frank. And, for whatever reason, he was given this moment to be himself fully at his best and I was the blessed beneficiary.  

You, my reader, may have a personal story like this one.  I like to think of these stories as heart songs.  When such encounters occur with magnificent clarity, they underscore The Why of our brief time together on planet earth.  We understand more clearly why specific people come our way to sing their heart song and in doing so, deepen our appreciation for the enriching life music of others.

“Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.”
 Karl Barth

It was 1986.  On January 28, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven astronauts.  In late February President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after ruling for over twenty years and was succeeded by Corazon Aquino. A major nuclear accident at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl power station put the world community on high alert.

In June the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed abortion rights and in August William Rehnquist was approved as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

We Are The World, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, was the song of the year at the Grammys. Haley’s Comet yielded new astronomic information on its return visit. The FDA approved a first-ever genetic-engineered vaccine for Hepatitis B.

The iconic American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, died as did Britain’s famous Duchess of Windsor. The amazing Mets defeated Boston in the World Series; Ferdinand was the Kentucky Derby Champion; and Penn State went 12-0 under Coach Pa to take a national NCAA Football Title

From January to August, 1986… my 40th birthday year… I took a gut-check life ride. Twenty-six years later through a 20-20 vision rearview mirror, I can see clearly beyond the clouds of unknowing that surrounded a confusing time that was both frightening and freeing, offering me the prodigal story of re-choosing life again.  Surely, it was my time for a Wild Mr. Toad Ride!

In May, after serving eight years as Sr. Minister of a community church in Santa Rosa, I informed my Board I was resigning my position. This decision was formed out of a spiritual experience I encountered during Easter Week when I visited a Catholic church in the Valley of the Moon near Jack London State Park in Sonoma County. Simply stated, the experience reframed a major life perception.  I needed to integrate the experience into my life.

Most men measure themselves by the yardstick of being in control, in charge, moving in a self-determined goal direction. What happens when this self-measurement stick fractures?  What does a man do when Command and Control is not a useful personal management tactic? What major adjustments can a man encounter when his perceived personal strength is insufficient for maneuvering in his life river?  That was Spring, 1986.

The decision to leave my ministry was the initial action item of what was the beginning of a grace-guided journey that uprooted me, my wife and our very young family on a God guided journey from Santa Rosa to Mission Viejo. 

In July my friend and professional colleague, Dr. Jimmy Adamson, invited my wife and me to have lunch with his wife and him.  By now he knew I was leaving Santa Rosa.

A delightful Old Scot with a ceaseless twinkle in his eye and a good word for anyone who took time to listen, Dr. Jimmy had been the Senior Pastor of the Santa Rosa Presbyterian Church for years.  He and I had forged a special collaborative bond in the early 1980’s to shape what was named The Redwood Empire Sing-Along-Messiah.  Jimmy and I were the community visionaries who brought the faith community together in a big annual Christmas event, which celebrated its 31st program in the holiday season last December 2011.

When the four of us sat down for lunch, Jimmy wanted to know all about the move our family was making. As I shared the “back story” that surrounded my decision, he took on the focused listening of the Sage.  I don’t remember what I said that made Jimmy know I felt quite vulnerable about this big move our family was taking…motivated by thoughts and impressions that in no way could be defined as career clarity. But, surely, Dr. Jimmy listened with discernment that understood I had arrived at a fork in the road.

At some point I must have taken a moment to pause which became Dr. Jimmy’s entry point to ask me an unforgettable question. To this day it remains with me.  His question and subsequent explanation is enshrined in my Personal Pantheon of Timeless Wisdom.

What did Dr. Jimmy say?  “Russ, have you ever heard of prevenient grace?”  Not only had I not heard of such a term, I could not imagine what he had up his sage sleeve.

“Russ, it is theology. It’s the wee-bit of information we Scottish pastors love to think and talk about.   And it sounds to me like you would value knowing.”  He had entrapped me in his lair of wisdom.

“So, what is prevenient grace, Jimmy?”

“It means the grace of God is the good that goes before you to set a course for you to follow… to be led… as you find the courage to do so.  Your effort is to know you are being led until His leading becomes your effortless action.”

His words were like a spontaneous wind that entered my spiritual sails, filling me with the vital force of clarity and providing me a desired pause from the weighty pain of personal effort that had held my sails flapping in turbulent psychic winds. 

The rhythm of prevenient grace was the lesson I was to experience. 1986 was the beginning of a new chapter of learning that twenty-six years later would provide me with rich appreciation for what it means to stand to the side of personal effort and stand in receptive listening to the force of good that forgives us… fills us… fuels us… and moves us intentionally forward along a path that has been prepared for us to pursue.

Dr. Jimmy’s conversational moment with me was sacred time. His words were the whisperings of truth from the thunder of Silence that seeks our attention to help us move where we need to move, learning to practice placing our hands on the tiller of our own ship, knowing we have guidance to move in His purposeful direction.

Why did Dr. Jimmy come my way at lunch in June 1986?  For me, there is no doubt. As the 20th century Swiss theologian, Karl Barth stated, it was an encounter of grace finding expression in my life.

“Passion is energy. 
Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”
Oprah Winfrey

It was 1975.  The Vietnam War ended as the city of Saigon surrendered and remaining Americans were evacuated.  John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman were found guilty of the Watergate Cover Up.  President Gerald Ford escaped two assassination attempts in September, 17 days apart.  Andrei Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Aristotle Onassis died as did the Yankee’s famous manager, Casey Stengel. On the last day of the year, a first class stamp jumped in price from $0.10 to $0.13!

Saturday Night Live premiered on NBC with George Carlin hosting the first show. Home videotape systems were developed by Sony. E.L Doctorow published Ragtime and Saul Bellow released Humboldt’s Gift. At the Grammys Olivia Newton John won record of the year with I Honesty Love You.

At Wimbledon, Arthur Ashe defeated Jimmy Connors in straight sets; UCLA defeated Kentucky for the NCAA Basketball Championship and the Cincinnati Red won a seven game thriller over the Boston Red Sox.

By the spring of 1975, Judy and I were closing in on seven years of married life while living in the hillside community of Sierra Madre just north of Arcadia. It was April 19th when our first child, Leah Kristine, was born at Arcadia Methodist Hospital. The great joy of this moment was tempered by the fact that my mother was in the same hospital being treated for cancer.

The birth of a first child to rookie parents has its own set of unique remembrances and emotions. Judy and I had taken the child birthing Lamaze Training so that I could be her Labor Coach.  Judy was a champ and I made myself feel important.  We both look back on the shrimp dinner Judy ate at Bob’s Big Boy as the real catalyst to a successful birth!

In our small 1,200 square-foot-home, we had prepared a Nursery for our little one that included a wall painting of bold flowers done by an artist in our church.  Little Leah’s room was alive with multi colors, surely created to match her-bigger-than-life personality that we would soon experience.

Cloth diapers were the norm at that time. What that meant for Dad was needing to have the ability to skillfully place the diaper pin in, through and around what seemed like a thick blanket instead of tidy little diaper. How well I remember with great trepidation the very first time changing Leah’s diaper.  I was certain I would poke her with the pin… forever damaging her skin, but more so, her psyche which would no doubt be perceived someday as the root cause of any unconscious angst she might have experienced!   But, somehow, I muddled through the anguishing moment… which is really not bad a description for what most dads do with pretty much every aspect of parenting.  We stumble forward discovering routines that somehow become our way for developing our parenting and nurturing abilities!

Judy and I fondly recall our first Christmas with Leah, just eight months later. After we decorated our Christmas tree, finishing the job late in the evening… we awakened Leah to show her the tree!   That would be the last time we ever woke any of our yet-to-be family of four children once they went night-night.  Ah, but the magic of Christmas with a first child!

What singular life gift has Leah bestowed upon me after thirty-seven years of walking along side her through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood with marriage and children of her own?  The gift she has offered is the capacity to passionately embrace and jump feet first into life…joyously…whatever it offers along the way.  Leah began teaching that lesson right away. I am a learner of the lesson that she practices as an accomplished artisan.

In her early years we had Mrs. Mantei stay with Leah each morning until noon while Judy worked a part time job. Daily, Mrs. Mantei took Leah on walks around the neighborhood.  Nothing escaped Leah’s notice.  Everything she saw or touched became a treasure to hold, to share with others, or to bring back so we could see her daily bounty when we arrived home.

Soon after moving to Santa Rosa in 1978, we were doing a home improvement painting project in Leah’s room on a Saturday afternoon while trying to keep a watchful eye on her as she played in the front yard.   A brief time passed when suddenly and very much to our amazement, Leah entered the house with a person she had invited off the street to come see her bedroom upstairs!  She wanted everyone to share in her world.  It would not be long before Leah would be the neighborhood mayor hosting all things special going on in a young, family-infested neighborhood.

Leah’s inexhaustible energy to passionately, enthusiastically explore life has become her brand.  In her teens she took on a job at The Gap and achieved a level of leadership excellence that when she entered college at UC Riverside, she continued to develop her management role throughout a college career that she completed in 3½ years.

Her passion to engage others in the world of sales has placed her at the head of the class at every organization where she has served in the demanding pharmaceutical industry. No one who works with Leah can escape her call for excellence and joy to produce good work as a team.  

Two years ago when Leah and her husband, Michael, celebrated the birth of their first child, I found it curious and thrilling to observe Leah purposefully shift her energy into her mothering role with all of the vitality she had developed in her professional world.

Leah’s magical mind captures much. She carries an aesthetic sense for beauty that is found in her home.  As a mommy she is on the lookout constantly to find fancifully fun hats for her two youngsters, Addison and Hudson.  Whether it be discovering a new wooden toy or instrument; swinging on the swings at the nearby park; or just going for a walk, her kids know that life is a passionate adventure with their mommy.

Leah’s life path touches her family, friends, and colleagues with authentic enthusiasm.  Her life reminds me of a statement by William James, “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”  For me… as one who learned early to shoulder responsibilities…my first daughter, Le-Le, continuously comes my way to lift my shoulders, reminding me to walk lighter, live with a joyous heart and act passionately to lift up others.

“You were born an original … Don’t die a copy.”
John Mason

It was 1978.  In mid-September A Framework for Peace in the Middle East was signed by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin after a 13-day conference at Camp David.  In December these two leaders received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Pope Paul II ushered in his multi-decade papacy in October following the ever-so-brief 34-day papal reign of John Paul I.  Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey and America’s Norman Rockwell died. In November, Jim Jones and his followers committed mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in London.

Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams produced the song of the year, Love Theme From A Star Is Born. In May the great racehorse, Affirmed, won the Kentucky Derby while in the Fall Classic the Yankees defeated the Dodgers 4-2, featuring Kirk Gibson’s memorable homerun.

On April 10th my dad, Chester Arthur Williams Jr., celebrated his birthday. Thirty-four years later, April 10, 2012, Dad would be turning 99 years old. He celebrated his last birthday with his family the morning of April 10,1993. That afternoon, he passed on. My brother, Doug, was at his side.

Parents are soil for their children. Parental soil is life information that feeds the roots of a child.  Three kinds of life information are found in the mixture of parental soil:  Soil of Life Process; Life Pain; Life Purpose.

Children are profoundly influenced, but are not to be defined by their parent’s soil.  This distinction determines whether a child becomes the new product of nature… as Ralph Waldo Emerson described… or lives as the effect of parental soil, never fully claiming the parental purpose of feeding a child to become a distinct, individuated Self.

My dad’s s soil was shaped for such influence. He was the ethical, upright man. I could share many tales about my dad’s soil and how it fed me. I offer three stories that symbolize the three kinds of information children can assimilate from their parents on the journey of Self-awareness.

Soil of Life Process: It was July 1978.  My wife and I with our two youngsters were pulling up stakes moving to Santa Rosa, California, where I would become pastor of a small community church. Fifteen months earlier in April 1977, Dad had lost his wife, Virginia, to cancer. Since her passing, I had been a major pillar of emotional support for him. That was changing dramatically. 

In his condo we said our goodbyes and then walked together to our car.  Dad waited until we were buckled in. Then, he walked away. I recall he moved just a few yards, when, unexpectedly, he turned and came back. Judy rolled down the passenger window as Dad stuck his head inside, looked right at me, and stated boldly: “Russ, I want you to remember one thing. Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.” With those final words spoken, he turned away.

In that moment, Dad reached deeply within himself in the midst of his own life process to declare His Best… and offer it to me!   This father, who always supported me… returned for one last word to move me forward as a newly appointed captain leading a new team. As a coach he wanted me to practice a BIG play in my new, professional playbook.  He was so right on!

Soil of Life Pain: In his heart dad was a thoughtful educator… a life student of geography and history. In 1986, I met with him. I was exploring a perplexing problem.  I asked if he could reflect back upon the time when he was about my age, raising a family and pursuing a life insurance and estate-planning career. My question to Dad was straightforward:  “Were you happy?”  

Paraphrasing, he responded, “I never thought about being happy. I had a family to feed, bills to pay, kids to send to college. It takes lots of money. My happiness was not a consideration.” 

Then, I asked, “Did you like your business career? He replied, “I never liked it, but I did it well.” Those two comments, I believe, were not just my dad’s personal and professional biography.  They were a template story of The Greatest Generation. These working warriors knew duty was the priority. Responsibility was the obligation of duty; personal happiness was an abstraction.

That conversation confirmed what I understood to be Dad’s life understanding. While happiness remained elusive, he was a noble product of his time having achieved dignity as a man of responsibility, exercised with excellence of achievement.  I, too, had learned to model this lesson and had now encountered the pain of dutiful soldiering. I knew I needed to transform this story in my lifetime.

Soil of Life Purpose: Dad was a most capable sales professional. In the late 80s I asked him, “How were you so successful selling life insurance to your physician clients?   He said, “I had a strategy. I phoned a prospective client asking, ‘Would you like to meet me for your 9 a.m. Appointment With Life?’  Bewildered, but curious, most prospects said yes.”

At his first meeting with a client, Dad began his sales pitch asking, “Do you remember Johnny Appleseed and how he cast seeds on the soil as he crisscrossed Ohio? 

The client always remembered the folktale. Then, Dad dug deep. “I have a question. Why, did Johnny throw those seeds on the soil? Was his goal to return someday, sit under apple trees, and eat apples?”

Dad always received a blank stare of bewilderment. Then after a pregnant pause, he said, “Do you suppose Johnny cast those seeds so that he might plant trees under the shade of which he would never sit? Is it possible you are here to explore how to use your wealth in ways to outlive you, bringing good to your family and others you care about?” Dad built his career on the purposeful question of life legacy, contribution, and significance.

Dad came my way providing rich, meaningful soil. He loved me and I loved and respected him. He did his good parenting work. He fed my roots with understanding of the essential life values lesson, personal responsibility.  Likewise, his life soil became the irritant for me to unearth and explore the pay dirt of happiness… a life nourished by God, our heavenly Father.

“If you’re alive … you got to make a lot of noise. As I see it, if you’re quiet, you’re not living. You’ve got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.”
Mel Brooks

It was 1992.  George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin met on Feb 1st to proclaim the Cold War had ended.  In June the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right to an abortion.  The curtain closed on the twenty-year career of Johnny Carson hosting The Tonight Show and in November babyboomer Bill Clinton was elected president.

Lawrence Welk died while the champagne music he created plays on. Alex Haley, author of Roots, passed on, as did famous actor Anthony Perkins, whose movie career was forever linked to Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, Psycho.

Natalie Cole teamed up technologically with her father, Nat King Cole, to create the innovative record and album of the year, Unforgettable. Compact discs became the preferred medium for recorded music, surpassing cassette tapes while at the Oscars The Silence Of The Lambs won best picture.

Tennis Great Steffi Graf, recognized by many, including Billie Jean King, as the greatest women’s tennis player, easily won Wimbledon. At the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the IOC permitted professional athletes to compete, which brought home a Gold Medal for America’s first basketball Dream Team.

On a Saturday evening in October, my wife and I were two of twelve dinner guests at a beautiful home in Pasadena. We had been invited by a woman in my congregation who had bid and won a catered dinner party with special guest of the evening, Dr. Leo Buscaglia, whose fame as a PBS speaker in the 1980s had catapulted him into a world renowned best-selling author… at one time having five books simultaneously on the New York Times Best Seller List.

A USC faculty member who gained fame on the USC campus for his non-credit course titled Love 1A, Buscaglia was inspired to create the class as a result of being moved by a student’s suicide and the subsequent exploration of human disconnectedness and the meaning of love.  His work grew to explore the social and mental barriers that inhibit the expression of love between people.  By the time of his death of a heart attack in June 1998, his books were published in seventeen languages and he was known by many the world over as Dr. Love. 

All of the dinner guests sitting in the living room waiting for Dr. Love to arrive that evening knew one thing: Leo was a hugger. Hugging had become his calling card, a tangible expression of his insight into unlocking love… it must find contact to be real. He did not disappoint as he arrived to greet each of us with a hug and a smile filled with palpable joy.  We all knew something and someone special was here for dinner!  We were about to be blessed big time with the most delicious entre of the evening… the joy of love’s expression.

One of Leo’s quotes captures my experience of this man that evening. He wrote, “I’ve learned people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I can’t recall one thing Leo said as we sat together around the dinner table.  But, I can tell you how he made me feel… my wife feel …and everyone else feel that evening.  But, before I describe Leo’s pixie dust of love, let me describe what I did not feel.

Think about a world we experience daily.  It’s a buttoned-down world; it’s a play-your-cards-close-to-your-vest world where we can be continuously, cautiously on guard.  Perhaps we’re self-conscious, tightly and likely insecurely wrapped in ourselves, or maybe fearful of being judged. At worst we may possess a life MO that has concluded we’re simply better than others as we carry a snooty arrogance that is perceived by others as a punch in the gut.

Does joyous love carry a different way?  Is there something important to capture about joy that has a noise… found first in our thoughts?  I believe so.  I certainly felt so in my encounter with Leo…a lion with an infectious roar.

Joyous love begins in a thought process that looks outward … seeing … honoring … enjoying … learning … caring … touching.

That was Leo.  He was larger than life with a joy of Love looking Outward.  It communicated a unique feeling I awkwardly express: “I see you. I want to know more about who I see before me. I value what is before me.”

That evening with Leo revealed a man on a mission of joyous love.  He focused on each of us individually.  He wove a tapestry of love’s significance as he encouraged each of us to tell a little smidgeon about our life. We all had gathered expecting to enjoy Leo. He made sure we left with the discovery of our appreciation and enjoyment of each other.  

He intricately threaded our lives together by weaving one person’s story into another…into another…creating a fabric of joyous love encountered when people find a safe space to be affirmed as a person of worth.  Because of Leo’s joyous intentionality, we found that special space…which by evening’s end displayed a multi-dimensional life quilt.

Leo once wrote, “The person who risks nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live!”

What is a big life risk? How about joyous love as a big, noisy thought: Live to bless another?  For me Leo Buscaglia fertilized the roots of this growing lesson in my life. He boldly demonstrated that we need not travel daily in a desert of disconnectedness with others. We can become an oasis in that desert as we risk to authentically touch another with an affirmation of worth.

Practicing love’s thought patterns demands our best. We can explore our best as we purposefully encounter The Leo Lesson that comes our way to offer another the meaningful feeling of receiving a cupful of love’s joyous expression.

“Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.”
Alan Cohen

“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was 1985. Ronald Reagan took the oath of office for a second term and Mikhail Gobachev grabbed the stage of leadership in Russia, signaling the beginning of Post Cold War reforms. PLO terrorists hijacked an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, resulting in the Italian government being toppled.

Madonna went on the road with her first-ever touring show and Rock Hudson became the first star to die of AIDS. The era of desktop publishing arrived while Coca Cola made a public relations blunder by reformulating its 99-year-old coke to attract a younger audience. The public erupted. Soon after Classic Coke was reintroduced. Amadeus won the Best Picture Award. Tina Turner received a Grammy for What’s Love Got To Do With It. In December Congress enacted the U.S. Budget-balancing bill!

In the Russell Williams world of They Came My Way, Bob Harris had been my life coach on persistence and perseverance from 1978 to the present. Still today, Bob remains my Mush On Motivator without peer!

In 1985 Bob focused his laser mind, once again, to push me through the doorway of a problem that had me frozen in emotional turmoil.  But before looking back on that event, let me cameo my friend, Bob, one who clearly knows… it is always too soon to give up.

Bob built his life success and significance on pitchin’ and pluggin’!  Those words are his; they capture who he is.  To understand what they might mean to you, my reader, recall a life event when you were up against it and things seemed just too hard. Zero-in on that life event recalling the feelings you encountered. Bob could write his autobiography about managing feeling moving through such events while appreciating the steely sentiment of a 20th century courageous bulldog, Winston Churchill, who said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” 

Bob’s biography is more than a hang-in-there life story when confronted with arresting feelings.  Bob understands an essential insight that has led him through multiple chapters of challenge dating back to joining the Army in 1941.

Bob secretly carries what I call the Persistence Provision, which offers hope, optimism, expectancy and a pathway forward whenever we get kicked to the side of the road. Long ago, Bob discovered that not giving up invites the demonstration of the Persistence Provision to transform destructive self-conversations into positive, life affirming thought and action. He learned and he practiced the Persistence Provision: All feelings are intended for self-observation leading to right action for good. Bob lives the Persistence Provision as a daily rhythm like the sun’s arrival each morning in the eastern horizon.

The Persistence Provision template, practiced as steady personal and professional clarity, does transform the dross of negative emotions into the gold of productive, life affirming outcomes.  And, without question, it demands the pursuit to excel on the turbulent seas of this thing called Life.

Let me take you back twenty-seven years to June 1985 when I re-experienced Bob’s commitment to the Persistence Provision. I was an unhappy camper sitting in an emotional ditch at the side of the road with a trailer full of oh-ain’t-it-awful-feelings surrounding a professional problem I believed was harming me.

Along came Bob. His focused attention was not to sit and commiserate about my miserable emotions. He was there to ask if I was ready to get myself out of the ditch. That timeless life question was presented by Jesus to a crippled man at the pool of Bethsaida two thousand years earlier. The question is powerful; it can be unsettling.  It is not laden with judgmental condemnation. Rather, it is factual inquiry to help an individual observe their own emotional process that can lead to action.

It’s true that all self-conversations filled with blame, resentment, guilt, or victimization are crippling. Such emotional energy never activates the Persistence Provision.  Rather, it is only the non-judgmental observation of feelings that serves as the catalyst to move toward positive action.

Was I ready to stand at the side of my feelings in an experience of self-observation preparing to take action?  Yes. Within a few days I solved the problem even as the residue of emotional angst lingered. I knew my action was purposed for good. I moved forward with understanding that one’s values must show up as behavior, not squandered as unresolved feelings leaving us in a cul-de-sac going nowhere.

Fast forward to 2012.  Bob and I talk about once a month. He admits his body has slowed down but his mind is as sharp as ever.  Recently in a conversation to wish him a happy 94th birthday, I asked how he was feeling about his knees that had been giving him some problems.  

“Russ, I am doing great!  When I take my walk each day, I remind myself that I have a lot to do.  I am very pleased to be celebrating my 74th birthday.” 

It was quintessential Bob at it again transforming emotional dross into gold by changing his age!  Pitchin’ and plugging’? Why, of course. That’s Bob’s DNA acquired through bulldog, purposeful behavior.

He’s a man I respect who has come my way for over thirty years bringing blessings as he embodies the Persistence Provision.

“Who said anybody has a right to give up?”
Maria Wright Edleman

“Make each day your masterpiece.”
John Wooden

It was 2005. George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term as president. Pope John Paul II died in early April. On July 1st Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement. CBS News anchor Dan Rather stepped down in March and Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, died in August.

Ray Charles was honored at the Grammy’s for Genius Loves Company, a collaborative masterpiece with famous artists. Client Eastwood produced the Academy Award’s Best Picture, Million Dollar Baby.

Cancer replaced heart disease as the #1 cause of death for people over 85. At Cal Tech, astronomers found an icy planet believed to be larger than Pluto. At Wimbledon, the invincible Roger Federer defeated Andy Rodick and Venus Williams outlasted Lindsey Davenport in a three–set thriller to become Champions on the grass.

It was September 2005, when Passkeys Foundation, the non-profit I founded in 1979, presented the 10th annual Ethics In America Awards program at The Grove in Anaheim.  An audience of 700 were enthralled listening to the wit and wisdom of ninety-five-year-old John Wooden, America’s Coach, in an hour long, on-stage interview prior to him receiving the evening’s prestigious award.

When Mr. Wooden arrived, I had the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with this leader of integrity. These minutes were the capstone of my Wooden Encounters that included two previous occasions when I had been in the audience to hear the transparent voice of truth from an exceptional life mentor, Coach John.

When we think of master artists of history, we leap to the pantheon of artistic genius where we find Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Picasso and O’Keeffe.

So, too, in the imaginary pantheon of history’s Noble Ones, the 20th century encountered a man of spiritual stature, The Wizard of Westwood, whose unequalled-never-to-be-seen-again success on the college hard court was overshadowed in his last 37 years with a legacy influence as a Mentoring Master of timeless values communicated with simplicity and authenticity to inspire millions throughout the US and around the world.

What was John Wooden’s life? For me, the verdict is in. It was a masterpiece authored by God.

Every so often, a person walks onto the stage of public life to offer the vision of a masterpiece life, a work of spiritual art expressing extravagant influence for good. Such a life is painted on a huge canvas revealing behaviors and relationships filled with vibrant, life-affirming colors of perennial values that have guided the human experience through the ages.

Mr. Wooden had a masterpiece canvas influenced greatly by his father who helped to shape seven performance character axioms that became his life credo:

Be true to yourself.
Make each day your masterpiece.
Help others.
Drink deeply from good books.
Make friendship a fine art.
Build a shelter against a rainy day.
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

When such Life Art is on display, it reminds us of our possibilities to model, practice, and embody the fundamentals of virtues-driven living. Such mentoring masters use words, deeds, and relationships to point us to our True North…growing our personal insight to become an Influencer for Good.

Saintly voices of humanity are both students and teachers. They are life learners who walk with humility and openness. They do not seek attention for themselves.  They teach with compassion and clarity, continually offering hope to those who struggle. These mentoring masters are Wisdom Keepers who discover their life is not theirs alone.  They become vessels through which God finds form and function to offer grace in service to others.

John Wooden was such a man. He was a highly skilled spiritual craftsman, well-disciplined and purposefully precise in connecting good intent into significant action. He communicated and lived the one essential timeless message that measures human greatness and lasting achievement:  Live your life from the inside out with values that serve the good.

He was a pay-it-forward loving man, who acted with tender and steadfast  devotion…focused first on his wife, Nell and their family; nurtured as caring influence to a large circle of talented athletes, coaches and professional colleagues; and ultimately as gifted life skills guidance to millions of children, youth, and adults.

His passing in 2010 brought a tidal wave of rich, connected remembrance, including mine. And what did I recall? It was that September evening five years earlier when Coach John and I had that brief time together before Passkeys Foundation honored him as a national treasure.

In the 2012 edition of America’s March Madness, Coach John just may be looking on with immortal eyes, while colleagues, ex-players, friends and folks like me remember his timeless masterpiece. My fond refrain is the first line from a favorite Anglican hymn I sang as an acolyte in my youth.  It captures my appreciation for this one who came my way: I sing this song for the Saints of God… loyal and brave and true. 

Lord, help me to be one, too!

“I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They’re kinder.”
 Emma Thompson

It was 1953.  WWII Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower, was inaugurated President in January. Five weeks later, Russia’s WWII leader, Joseph Stalin, died in early March. The Cold War heated up in August with Moscow announcing the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. TV Guide hit the newsstands for the first time in ten cities in early April. New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Mt. Everest on May 29 and Playboy magazine appeared for the first time with Marilyn Monroe gloriously gracing the inaugural cover.

In one of the classic match-ups of NCAA basketball national championships, Indiana defeated Kansas 69-68.  Ernest Hemingway won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Old Man and the Sea while at the Oscars Gary Cooper was recognized as Best Actor for his iconic role in High Noon.  In medicine and science, the first successful open-heart surgery was performed in Philadelphia and James Watson of the U.S. with two English researchers made a major scientific breakthrough discovering the double-helical structure of DNA.

As a 2nd grader growing up in Arcadia, I experienced weekly lessons on kindness right in my own backyard.  Now almost sixty years later, I understand how those childhood encounters were the opening chapter of a lifelong personal journey discovering what it means to engage others with kindness.

Looking back, my remembrances are not full of rich content but rather of wisdom-shaping impressions about a man who I knew only as Kim, the gardener my father hired.  Like many skilled laborers who worked in the San Gabriel Valley after WWII, Kim was Japanese.  On the weekday afternoon when Kim worked at our home, I looked forward to playing in the backyard after school.  There was a reason… Kim.  I knew he always wanted to talk with me. It must have been kid stuff we talked about or maybe I just pestered him, I have no recollection. But, I do recall my feelings: I counted with Kim!  He treated me as Somebody.  That’s how it was… weekly.  I loved it.

Why is Kim on my They Came My Way list of significant people these many years later?  What lifelong lesson did he offer?  Jumping into that question requires I add something important I learned about Kim years later.

Kim was one of many Japanese-American U.S. citizens placed in internment camps from 1942 to 1944. The Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia was a center for 17,000 Japanese Americans who lived in the horse stables for three years.  It would be 30-plus years later during Ronald Reagan’s presidency that the US officially recognized its mistreatment of Japanese-Americans during these critical years following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

As a 7-year-old, I did not know about this piece of Kim’s life. But at some point in my early adult years, a question began to emerge in me for reasons that remain a mystery: Why was Kim kind?  Instead of expressing anger and resentment about his WWII experience, he became a man who demonstrated moral courage and personal clarity just like notable influencers whose biographies I had now read but who I never met… individuals like Corrie Ten Boom, Viktor Frankl, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Kim shared a bond with these individuals.  Each learned kindness through personal suffering.  Reflecting on Kim, I believe he did not become a victim of the unjust treatment he experienced.  Placed in harm’s way, he did not choose a path of retaliation or resentment. Rather, he created good from bad, transforming prejudice, hardship and stereotyping into kindly personal purpose. His difficult life chapter did not embitter him nor define him.

While Kim’s afternoon visits were fleetingly brief, what he stood for remained with me. He never stopped showing up in my thoughts and reflections about kindness.  At some point many years later, I asked myself, “What did Kim know that gave him clarity and resolve to express what I had observed as authentic kindness?   What was the spiritual and emotional key he held?

In the 1970’s I found my answer to Kim’s Way when I read the book I and Thou, written by the Jewish theologian, Martin Buber. The book drills deeply into the story of human consciousness exploring two worlds.  World #1 is where the bulk of humanity lives. Buber called this world, I-It.  In this world we think and feel about others as objects whose sole purpose is to serve our desires. The I-It World is defined by overt and covert manipulation.  In the I-It World we select a few to be screened arbitrarily as Thou… individuals of worth and dignity.

World #2 is the I-Thou World. This world experiences others with the understanding that everyone holds inherent dignity and worth in the eyes of God and we are His Eyes who can see others through this lens of awareness. Individuals thinking and feeling with the I-Thou Mind constantly mirror to others the dignity they seek to know about themselves.

As a young one I glimpsed the I-Thou World through the kind actions of Kim. Using his own pathway of suffering, he offered me the self-worth he claimed for himself. Purposefully, he claimed a world he envisioned as true that was not defined by the pain he encountered in his past.  He saw himself and others as worthy citizens of the I-Thou world.

Ever since the mid-70’s when Kim and Martin Buber creatively collided in my psyche, I have taken unsteady, yet purposeful, steps from the I-It World toward the I-Thou World.  If I am a plodder, I see Kim as a thoroughbred who showed me how the I-Thou World behaves one-on-one.

Were Kim to weigh in on my observations, I am guessing he might say, “I was nobody special.  I was just doing my life.” 

And my reply?  “Kim, while doing your life after WWII, you became a mentor of I-Thou kindness to a youngster who never forgot that you came his way.”

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.”
Henry James