Disturb Us ...

There are times when you hear something that is not necessarily directed just at you, it's shared with a wide audience and you happen to be a part of that audience, but it feels like it was spoken at just the right time and place so that you would hear it.

As I sat, listening to the below prayer by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, specifically the part about our dreams coming true because we dreamed too little or sailed too close the shore, I felt the message settling in.

It isn't that I've dreamed too little ... my dreams are pretty big.

It's that I need to take a different path to get to them, and I keep talking myself out of it ... convincing myself I'll likely fail or the potential financial impact will be too great or I won't have the time I need to make it work. The reasons rotate based on the day ... maybe even the hour. Regardless, they are the wrong reasons to keep close to shore where I feel safe.

It's exactly what I needed to hear.

I think ... :-)

Disturb Us, O Lord

(This prayer is attributed to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake)

Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves,
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life when,
having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly,
to venture into wider seas where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
Amen

This Space for Rent

Actually, the space in the picture - the Kilauea Point Lighthouse in Kauai - is very much not for rent ... though, if it were, I'd be interested. Actually, this post isn't about rentals at all ... or Kauai ...

I've been quite fortunate with the bosses to whom I've reported in my professional life. One in particular ... the last one to whom I reported before becoming self-employed, is probably the most special to me (don't tell the others!). I often think fondly of her when I'm working, because I can't just pick up the phone (we worked in different states) and run an issue by her or chat with her to ease the stresses of the day. It makes me appreciate the role she played in my professional life all the more!

This week, she sent me a lovely e-mail message with birthday wishes. Her message was filled with the wonderfully clever and subtle humor that I miss experiencing on a daily basis. And, it reminded me of one of my favorite stories about her.

We were in the midst of a very large audit (even when things are functioning fine, audits still manage to bring an immeasurable amount of tension to your work life!). The auditor (a lovely individual, don't get me wrong!) assigned to our division would send us e-mails signed with her name followed by every acronym you could possibly imagine, e.g. Mary Smith, MBA, CPA, CISA.

This was a few years ago, and - at about this same time - many people in the company had taken to adding inspirational phrases to the end of their e-mails. Something like ‘Laugh and the whole world laughs with you’ . . . or maybe something a bit more eloquent and moving. Our auditor had one of those inspirational phrases too.

On one particularly grueling, never-ending day, my boss sent me an e-mail late in the afternoon. Normally, she would just sign her first name. But, on this particular e-mail, she included her first name, middle initial, last name, followed by MBA, SPHR, ABC, FBI, CIA. That alone was enough to make me smile. What made me laugh out loud, was the "inspirational" quote that followed all the acronyms: “THIS SPACE FOR RENT.”

Even in the midst of an audit, she could be counted on to bring a smile to my face and joy to my work. How's that for the best kind of boss?

Have a wonderful weekend -
Kelly S. Hoeckelberg, BBA (even as a joke, it feels silly adding that!)
"If your ship hasn't come in, swim out to it." :-)