“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott
“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott
This post continues a series entitled intersections. As I reflect on my life’s journey, various intersections along the way come to mind. My ambition was for a straight and narrow path. but, that’s not how life goes.
Reviewing intersections in my life I have written about, I realized salvation was missing. Perhaps it should have been one of the first and I’m not quite sure why it wasn’t. Hopefully this writing will provide an answer.
If you stop to think about it, salvation is a big deal. It’s not unusual for someone to celebrate their heavenly birthday, marking the occasion of their salvation. “Have you been saved?” “Are you saved?” are go to conversation starters for evangelists. Pretty much everyone would say they want to be saved. In our western Christian context, generally, that would mean being saved from eternal punishment in hell.
That’s where my salvation story begins. I do not remember the exact date, but I was twelve years old and my family was living in Paducah, Kentucky. It was a Sunday morning worship service at the Broadway Church of Christ. The preacher was Brother H. A. Dixon. For reasons you might imagine for a twelve year old boy, I had been thinking a lot about my sinfulness and the prospects of hell should I die. As usual, the sermon concluded with an invitation to come forward and be baptized by immersion for the forgiveness of your sins and salvation from eternal punishment in hell and eternal life in heaven with God and Jesus. It was an uncomplicated and elegant solution to my angst. As the invitation song, probably “Just as I Am”, was being sung a cappella by the congregation, I made my way from the balcony to the front of the auditorium. I was greeted by Bro. Dixon and, to my great surprise, my mother joined me to be baptized (that’s another story for another time). I was properly baptized “I now baptize you In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins” and completely immersed. I recall the elation and relief I felt being saved. At least I thought I was.
Salvation, as I soon came to understand and, for most of my life believed, was “YES, BUT “. I could confidently say “Yes, I am saved” because I was baptized. However,that confidence was quickly mitigated by, “BUT”.
The list of “BUTS” was long: Consider a few of the “You are saved as long as …”
…you are not living a sinful life.
…you have asked and received forgiveness for sins of both commission and omission since you last asked forgiveness
…you are a member of Christ’s true church.
…you are faithfully attending church.
…partake of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday.
Those are just a few of a much longer list. Any thought that salvation meant eternal security, better known as “once saved, always saved” , would be rejected immediately. I was never quite sure if that rejection came because of biblical/doctrinal understandings or because it was what the Baptists believed. I lean to the latter. The bottom line is, salvation was tenuous at best, always depending upon my continued measuring up. Rather than something received, salvation was a carrot on the end of a stick God continually dangled in front of me to assure my faithful obedience. Maybe that explains why I don’t celebrate a ” heavenly birthday”.
As I stated at the onset, salvation is a big deal, a really big deal. How one understand their salvation or lack of it, shapes the whole landscape of their life, as it did for me.
This post is not the end of the story. The occasion of my baptism was a memorable event that is the Ebenezer of my salvation. It began a spiritual journey that continues as I write. The path from that day to today has been long, seldom straight and often difficult. My journey has brought from “YES, BUT” to “YES”.
The next post, Intersections – Salvation (2), will focus on my story of salvation between “Yes,But” and “YES”
This post continues a series entitled intersections. As I reflect on my life’s journey, various intersections along the way come to mind. My ambition was for a straight and narrow path. but, that’s not how life goes.
Over three decades ago, Ford Motor Company and the rest of the American automakers awoke to the threat of Japanese automakers. The competition was real and the future of the big three automakers, General Motors, Ford and Chryler was not certain.
It was in that context that I was first introduced to Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Of course, we did not meet personally. His philosophies and principles have had a profound influence on Ford Motor Company and for me, as well as american industry in general. The following Wikipedia excerpt Provides some insight into the depth of his influence on Ford.
Ford Motor Company was one of the first American corporations to seek help from Deming. In 1981, Ford’s sales were falling. Between 1979 and 1982, Ford had incurred $3 billion in losses. Ford’s newly appointed Corporate Quality Director, Larry Moore, was charged with recruiting Deming to help jump-start a quality movement at Ford. Deming questioned the company’s culture and the way its managers operated. To Ford’s surprise, Deming talked not about quality, but about management. He told Ford that management actions were responsible for 85% of all problems in developing better cars. In 1986, Ford came out with a profitable line of cars, the Taurus-Sable line. In a letter to Autoweek, Donald Petersen, then Ford chairman, said, “We are moving toward building a quality culture at Ford and the many changes that have been taking place here have their roots directly in Deming’s teachings.” By 1986, Ford had become the most profitable American auto company. For the first time since the 1920s, its earnings had exceeded those of archrival General Motors (GM). Ford had come to lead the American automobile industry in improvements. Ford’s following years’ earnings confirmed that its success was not a fluke, for its earnings continued to exceed GM and Chrysler’s.
Although the impact of Deming on Ford was dramatic, based on his accomplishments In his career prior to Ford, they should not have come as a surprise. Wikipedia provides a helpful summary of his career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
My experience with Dr. Deming , came via statistical process control and his management philosophies. In the midst of the above mentioned crisis of Ford Motor Company, my job responsibilities shifted to initiatives that were derived from Deming’s consultation with Ford executive management.
One of the first impacts of Deming on our assembly plant was the hiring of a cadre of young and mostly female statiticians and the formation of a Statistical Process Control (SPC) group. They were commissioned with the task of implementing SPC throughout our plant, which proved to be a daunting assignment.
Concurrent with SPC came Employee Involvement (EI), a joint initiative between the United Autoworkers Union (UAW) and Ford Motor Company. Also a derivitive of Deming’s influence and the Japanese competition crisis, longstanding UAW/Ford anomosities were transcended as they joined forces against a common foe.
My responsibilty in EI was introducing and orientating every hourly employee, 40-50 at a time in an eight hour class. The plant popoulation was around 1500-2000 hourly employees at that time. As SPC was met with much skeptism by salaried employees, EI was met with equal, if not more, suspicion by hourly employees. That experience is worthy of its own post.
The radical nature of Deming’s methodologies and philosophies became most apparent when introduced to management and salaried employees. If the hourly ranks were fearful, management was terrified. The implications of adopting Deming’s management philosophies were a clear threat to the prevailing culture of Ford Motor Company. Change is hard enough, but when your career depends on making changes which are completely contary to all you have been taught; and makes skills that got you whatever measure of success you have achieved obsolete, it is terrifying. For management, the change required was not optional, get on board or get off.
The following are a few quotes from Deming related to his mangement philosophy. I believe they will help in understanding its radical nature.
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
“Learning is not compulsory… neither is survival.”
We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.
In God we trust, all others bring data.
We know what we told him, but we don’t know what he heard.
……the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people to do a better job with less effort.
Best efforts are essential. Unfortunately, best efforts, people charging this way and that way without guidance of principles, can do a lot of damage.
Management is responsible for 94% of the problems”
“Inspection does not improve the quality, nor guarantee quality. Inspection is too late. The quality, good or bad, is already in the product.
Put a good person in a bad system and the bad system wins, no contest.
Two basic rules of life are: 1) Change is inevitable. 2) Everybody resists change.
The greatest waste … is failure to use the abilities of people…to learn about their frustrations and about the contributions that they are eager to make.
If you wait for people to come to you, you’ll only get small problems. You must go and find them. The big problems are where people don’t realize they have one in the first place.
During the meeting, our division president asked Dr. Deming, “Is there hope for GM?” Dr. Deming’s reply: “Sometimes you have to wait for people to die.”
Via Eric Budd – “In attempting to understand why he might say something like this, I ran across this quote, ‘A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.’
A leader is a coach, not a judge.
He that would run his company on visible figures alone will in time have neither company nor figures
Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.
My job respnsibilty after EI was as an internal consultant to management, working with an external consulting firm hired by Ford. Our assignment was to facilitate senior management’s transition from traditional mangement philosophies to a participative management phililoshophy. That, too, is worthy of another of another post.
This excerpt from Deming’s writings may be helpful in providing understanding why I would write about my encounter.
The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge.The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people. Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. My encounter with Dr. Deming was transformative and it shaped my life for good. The profound knowledge and principles referenced have permeated my life, family, faith, culture and politics. I fully realize that what I have I have shared leaves many unanswered questions. It is my ambition to write additional posts on the what, why and how my Dr Deming experience has played out over the past 3+ decades.
If you are so inclined, you can engage Deming on your own. His writings and writings about he him are widely accessible. If not, you can wait on my future posts.
This post continues a series entitled intersections. As I reflect on my life’s journey, various intersections along the way come to mind. My ambition was for a straight and narrow path. but, that’s not how life goes.
Recently, during a much appreciated breakfast with Grandson Grayson, he asked a question, “Is retirement fun?”
That launched a protracted response that was probably more than he wanted to hear. Regardless, the question prompted me to continue my series of posts on intersections along my journey.
I believe Grayson’s question betrays some contemporary concepts about retirement. Primarily, retirement is viewed as the time of life when we enjoy the fruits of our labor, the culmination of the American dream. It is the good life, happiness, golf, beaches, travel, vibrant sexuality, financial security, and certainly fun, essentially a perpetual vacation. Such a vision shouldn’t come as a surprise, it is the relentless message of media.
The problem is, that imagery, like most of the ads we consume, does not depict reality, but creates an illusion. That illusion dominates our expectations of retirement. Perhaps you have visited Florida a in the winter when the annual migration of snowbirds is at its peak. There seems to be a prevailing sense of urgency to find the proverbial “pot of gold” at the end of life’s rainbow. You quickly learn not to get in the way. Sometimes it feels like shopping at Walmart on Black Friday. I have observed that many seem to have a attitude of entitlement, often reflected in their dour countenance, if not in outright anger.
I am coming to understand their state of mind. They bought into the media created illusion of retirement, investing their money, dreams and energy. Now, receiving the dividends on their investment, reality sets in, they have been scammed and they are pissed.
Of course, there are some who find the retirement “pot of gold” just like there are some people who live in multi-million dollar mansions on the beach and drive Bentleys. Can I say we just need to “get real”?
What follows are some thoughts on what I see as realities of retirement.
Retirement is not the end, it is the beginning of the end.
Generally, we seem to think of retirement as an event, a day of endings, no more … get-ups … going to work … et al. Certainly as an event, retirement is the occasion of endings. but it is also the beginning of the end. Because the period of our lives that we are entering is a transition, the term retirement, I believe, is inadequate. For that reason, I suggest a better description would be autumn.
Autumn is transition rather than termination. When we view the full scope of our lives, autumn is most akin to adolescence in reverse. Adolescence is transition from child to adult, moving from dependence to independence, immaturity to maturity, achieving and acquiring personally and materially.
Autumn is the reverse, transition from independence to dependence, from achievement and acquisition personally and materially to diminishment and release of everything, sooner, if not later. The most profound reality of the retirement event is that the end is coming, no exceptions. The wild card for us is that we have no guarantee how long our autumn will be.
For most people, that’s not a problem. Everything we see and hear, excepting those funeral director ads, presumes there is no end. It seems to be okay with most people, which explains why, at least in part, we are susceptible to being scammed. Understanding the tentativeness of our mortality makes autumn planning a crap shoot of sorts, but I guess that’s true of life.
Currently the average years of autumn in the United States is 18 years. Reasonably, we should plan for that length of time. Note: I am 77 years old and have been in autumn 20 years! I said it is a crap shoot.
Autumn Financial Planning
Given the Ideal of an American dream autumn, the primary focus of autumn planning is necessarily financial. No matter what one’s autumn turns out to be, finances will be an concern. Typically, the beginning of autumn means the cessation of ordinary income. Without provisions for other sources of income, autumn can quickly turn to winter. A key factor in planning for autumn is realistic understanding of the amount of money that will be needed to sustain your expected lifestyle, starting as early as possible saving to assure the monies will be there when needed. It sounds simple, but the complexities and demands of life, coupled with illusions of immortality, make financial planning a challenge.
Planning for Autumn
As it stands now, nearly 1/4 of our lives will be spent in autumn and all indications are that it will continue to increase. Preparing for autumn is clearly necessary. Financial implications, as mentioned, are a primary concern. Not withstanding financial factors, there are other considerations which are important and require planning.
Autumn is an era of our lives that is fraught with uniques challenges. Unlike our adolescence where our aspirations looked to the future, our autumn lens is a rear-view mirror.
Autumn brings a paradox of regret and celebration, lament and joy. Coming to terms with one’s mortality has a way stripping away illusions. If one’s worth and purpose and meaning is centered in work and/or career, prompt cessation of them will likely produce a deep sense of loss. Worthlessness and lack of purpose and meaning are real challenges in autumn. To the extent that our worth and purpose and meaning are inextricably bound to our pre-autumn identity, we will struggle with transition to a new reality.
Some would argue, despite loss of extrinsic sources of worth and purpose and meaning, there are new and different opportunities to fill that void. That is certainly true. Many are content with golf, gardening, volunteering, social activism, religion, et al. Unfortunately, not all of such opportunities are bulletproof, meaning they will withstand both enviable and unexpected realities of autumn. Did I say autumn is a crap shoot?
A deficiency of retirement planning primarily focused on finances is that it ignores the equally important need to plan for provision of transcendent resources. Resources that can transcend and/or mitigate the arduous and uneven journey through autumn. Resources which are mostly intrinsic and lend themselves to addressing issues of worth, purpose and meaning.
Such resources, as I currently perceive them, would primarily be categorized as relational, …family, service, employment, volunteering, reading, writing, et al.
The possibilities are myriad. It is my intention to plant seeds and encourage the idea of autumn planning beyond finances.
Candidly, what I am suggesting was not an objective part of our retirement planning experience. If I had a do over, here are some thoughts on what I would consider in addition to financial planning.
I would engage in a serious self-assessment of my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health with the intention of achieving clarity regarding the sources of worth, meaning and purpose in my life.
Once I had clarity on that reality, I would assess the vulnerability of those sources relative to my anticipated retirement plans/dreams.
Subsequently, modify any current plans/dreams to minimize potential negative impact on the quality of my mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health in the autumn of life.
Next, assess financial plans against the new vision and adjust accordingly.
Live happily(worthfully, meaningfully, purposefully, healthfully ) ever(?) after.
I am of the opinion, that to a significant extent, our autumn experience will mirror our lives up to that point. To that end, as with financial planning, the earlier the above thoughts are appropriated and acted upon the better autumn will be. There is no time in our lives that has more potential for the beautiful things life has to offer.
Over three decades ago, Ford Motor Company and the rest of the American automakers awoke to the threat of Japanese automakers. The competition was real and the future of the big three automakers, General Motors, Ford and Chryler was not certain.