Input Requires Listening.

Have you ever been to a meeting where your input is asked for but no one listens?

I think it is the most frustrating aspect of being involved with “Process” and groups that seem to thrive on it.

The nice thing about my job is I get to pick who I work with and don’t have to put up with this “process sharing” much anymore.

Personally, I hate process. I think a lot of process gets in the way of productivity and progress. A lot of groups that think they are progressive are actually just process producers. (I don’t mean progressive in a political way)

I think a lot of process is just an excuse to do what those in charge want to do and pretend to listen to the underlings.

If people really want input they need to shut up and listen. They need to forget about protecting the territory they think they own and for the good of those involved and the good of  the project or event, listen for a change.

I used to put up with it and try to convince people to listen. I don’t play the game anymore.

Instead I allow them to be the experts and do it their way. They don’t need me they need process.

Walking away is really quite freeing.

Each of us is allotted a certain number of breaths on this earth. Someday, I will have to take my last. I would hate to waste one of them on process or those who pretend to listen.

When You Spend the Day with Kids.

When you spend the day with kids you realize how cynical life around you has become.

When you spend the day with kids you’re reminded that imagination is endangered, easily lost and many times overlooked with age.

When you spend the day with kids hope is a word with meaning not something easily added to a sentence to get a vote or persuade an audience.

When you spend the day with kids you wish you could go back, just for an hour, and recapture that “Thing” that they still have and you desperately wish to find again.

When you spend the day with kids elections, arguments, party debates and the right and the left seem so silly.

Yes, when you spend the day with kids life seems fresh, real and more ahead of us than there is behind.

It’s no wonder Jesus told us to come to Him as a child. Yes, He understood the value of being childlike. Perhaps it’s time we take His childish words more seriously.

Why Didn’t You Vote?

I’m curious, why didn’t you vote? I read in the paper where 20% of voters in Lane County have voted so far (as of Friday).

I may have to do with the fact that the ticket is pretty boring and both presidential candidates are decided. It could also have to do with the fact that there aren’t a lot of contested races.

It may also have something to do with the fact that in Lane County there are 55,000 voters who are not Republican or Democrat and therefore aren’t eligible to vote in this closed primary system we have.

Why didn’t you vote?

Mother’s Day 2012

When the boys were little we spent every Mom’s Day hiking somewhere up river. But as they got older and had jobs it got more difficult getting together. This year it worked out and we found ourselves, again, all four doing what we used to do. Kind of a cool day.

My Mom Doesn’t live here anymore.

Mother’s Day is a little odd when you don’t have a mother anymore. Yes, I will always have a mom but she doesn’t live around here anymore. She didn’t abandon me she just left.

She went to live with my dad, her mom and dad and a lot of other relatives a few years ago. She left no forwarding address so I can’t send her a Mother’s Day Card. I can’t call her to wish her a “Happy Mother’s Day” because there’s no cell service at her new home. Apparently she doesn’t need to talk with anyone anymore, I don’t know.

Today, she truly understands all that she put into my life and all that she meant to me. No Hallmark Card can explain it better for she now see’s deeper than I do all the little things that she was and how they made a huge difference in my life.

I don’t think my mom needed to try to be the right mom she just was the right mom for me. She didn’t have to “Do” anything she simply had to be. She loved me in ways I will never know and she no longer needs to worry about what I’m doing or whether I make the right choices.

The last thing my mom said to be before she moved out of her retirement center and into her permanent home where she will live until I join her, was: “Rick, you know you will be fine.” With that she gave me her quirky little smile, waved and I walked away from her room with a tear in my eye.

I thought she was talking about my (at that time) upcoming cancer treatment but her words ring true long after that moment ended.

I will be fine but I still miss my mom. There are things only she could understand. She didn’t completely “get” me but she always “let” me, be Rick.

Happy Mother’s Day mom, wherever you are? Oh, you could write you know it wouldn’t kill you

People Are So Angry

Tell someone you are a Republican and they automatically think you are rich, you don’t want to help people and you hate people who are gay.

Tell someone you are a Democrat and they think you are anti-development; you hate big business and would do anything to spend more money and raise taxes.

How is it that we put bumper stickers on our cars asking people to open their minds and their hearts and yet excuse such harsh judgment of one another?

I just don’t get it. We settle for candidates that are weak and say stuff like: “ he or she is better than the alternative.”

Is settling the best we can do in this country? Have we as voters lost the ability to elect a candidate, not because they agree with our every whim but because they stand on principles and are willing to compromise?

Perhaps we are the problem? Perhaps we are so lazy we are looking for a savior rather than someone to represent us?

When did we become a people looking for someone to agree with us rather than a leader and I’ve never met a leader I completely agreed with?

It’s no wonder I pay little attention to your anti-Obama bumper stickers or your open your parachute, pro-choice, pro-life messages.

We aren’t looking for answers we’re just looking to be right.

We don’t want representation we want replication.