Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Work

Beyond Work is our line of resources for people and community leaders looking for something new and innovative outside, be it a new job, career change, or personal development outside of work.

  • 6 Steps for Planning and Implementing Effective Extended Leave

    6 Steps for Planning and Implementing Effective Extended Leave

    Earlier in the week, our post was a reflection on why I will be taking a walkabout, or an extended amount of time away from work this fall.  Each person on our team will be taking four to six weeks off at some point within the next six months.  

    Whether it is taking time for intentional rest, reflection, and/or deep work or going out on maternity or extended sick leave, stepping away from anything at work requires preparation beforehand in order for the time away and the people providing support during the time away to be a success. Here is a roadmap for doing so: 

    1. Plan/proactively discuss with your team the timing of your absence and the roles and responsibilities they will have while you are away.  You can read more about my team’s discussion on the timing of my absence in the last post, but the next step in this for me has been thinking through and communicating with them about who will do what while I’m out. We will do the same as each person takes leave. Some things are natural, given that many of the projects I work on and the people I work with have at least two of our team members providing support.  There are some things where you may be the only person with a knowledge base for execution, so planning proactively gives you the time to provide cross-training, introductions, information, and or tools needed for success. 

    2. Communicate proactively with the external contacts you interact with regularly that you will be out with.  For the past two weeks, I’ve emailed or called every client and/or potential client that I interact with to let them know that I’m going to be out, for how long, what this means in terms of what they should or shouldn’t expect from me (for example, I will not be checking email during this time), and who their new point of contact will be on our team.  I will say that in doing this, EVERYONE I’ve talked to has been supportive and encouraging in taking the time away.  They are appreciative of the heads-up and connection(s) with our team for the project to continue in my absence. 

    3. Start saying “no” based on your scheduled time away.  In the past two weeks, I’ve said “no” to more things than I have in a long time.  Both personal and professional.  It really helps you realize how much stuff you say “yes” to without even thinking about it.  “Yes, my calendar is clear on the date you asked to meet with me, so yes, I’ll meet with you” happens a lot without a thought about whether or not the meeting is necessary or if you even want to meet with that person.  We commit to things without thinking about them and then wonder why we can’t find the time to do the most important things. It’s pretty liberating and reflective to take back your time. 

    4. Set guardrails and systems around being able to maintain your no and the margins the time away should provide.  I know my email will be a problem for me. It is the mechanism in which I say yes to most things because most things come in the form of calendar invites via email or requests for this or that via email.  So, for me, I will not be checking and responding to emails while I’m out.  To ensure I do this, someone on my staff will be changing my email password for me on the day I go out.  She will also check the box once a week to make sure there are no emergencies she and the team need to tend to (this will help me maintain my sanity of not checking it) and I will set up an out of office reply explaining that I’m out, points of contact for specific needs, and when I will return.  You may not need to go to the extreme of getting someone to change your password (if you do, you have a lot more self-control than I do, because checking email is such a habit for me), but know yourself well enough to deploy the guardrails needed for maintaining the integrity of your leave. This may mean deleting social apps on your phone, disconnecting your wifi (or getting someone to change your wifi password), or setting standard times around the do not disturb feature on your phone.  Figure out what you need and solicit any help needed to do so. 

    5. Reflect on what these planning exercises are telling you. As mentioned earlier, delegating responsibilities to others may help you realize they need to be cross-trained on a certain task or function to be successful.  Saying no because you’re going to be out may help you realize you need to say no indefinitely to certain things.  It may be telling you that you have a problem with your social media or email usage and need to get a healthy grip on it.  All these planning items can help you succeed in an absence and the reflection on them can help ensure long-term success upon your return. 

    6. Reflect on the purpose of your time away and what you hope to accomplish in taking it.   Before you go out, write down two or three things you want to focus your time on while out and post them for yourself in the form of yes or no questions you will see every day. Mine are: 1) Did you rest and restore today? 2) Did you read/research and write/create content today based on your purpose? 3) Did you play with your kids today?  Don’t overload yourself with more than three to four questions.

    Framing the questions in the second person as “you” has been shown to be helpful in training the brain to eliminate “chatter”. It gives your brain a word that naturally offers more grace than using the first person “I”.  Like the book, Chatter states, “Doing so (using ‘you’ to refer to yourself) is linked with less activation in the brain networks associated with rumination and leads to improved performance under stress, wiser thinking, and less negative emotion.” Some questions you may have if you’re recovering from surgery or bringing a newborn home may be: Did you rest today?  Did you do something to help your body recover today? Did you refrain from checking work email today?  You know what you need, so customize the questions for you. As you begin to heal and or accomplish what you want while you’re out, your questions may change. 

    Finally, you may not be at liberty to decide if and when you get to take an extended time away from work.  But if you are a person in a role where you can impact policy at your workplace, consider how you might drive the conversation around the need for people to take more than a standard week or less of vacation annually and what business results it might achieve.  At the very least facilitating dialogue around how you can provide autonomy by structuring work differently (four day work weeks, hybrid work arrangements, mental health days, etc.) in order to impact workplace wellbeing and productivity could lead to substantial gains in recruitment and retention.  If you’d like more information on the research related to this, see our previous post on readings for reflection.

  • Taking a Walkabout

    Taking a Walkabout

    It’s funny what will put you over the edge to make you bite the bullet on a decision you know you’ve been needing to make for quite some time. 

    Mine was a Hollywood movie star’s memoir.   Prone to reading a lot of business books and fiction, memoirs have become more and more of an interest for me in the last year or so, but not the pop culture icon type.  

    However, I’d heard a snippet of an interview with Matthew McConaughey on Sunday Today with Willie Giest on his bestselling memoir Greenlights and was intrigued. While in the airport in Dallas looking for the next thing to read, I saw it and picked it up.  While in Texas, why not read about a hot Texas boy’s life, I thought.  

    My husband and I were in Texas for the wedding of a dear family friend that was supposed to happen a year prior but was delayed due to COVID. I was about to finish my latest summer fiction and knew I needed something else to peruse sitting poolside at the swanky hotel we had booked on points.  I thought McConaughey’s reflection on his life so far would be another easy read just like the chick flick summer fiction I had finished reading and just like the movies I know him most for. 

    I was wrong.  It was a deeply reflective read.  A “Greenlight” McConaughey would say.  One I needed.

    ***

    The day before picking up the book, I was sitting on our back porch for a quarterly planning meeting with my team.  The vibe of the porch sets itself for a type of casualness that makes things feel not quite like work, but the setting was doing no such thing for all of us.  With computers in front of us and phones at our sides, we were all distracted.  One team member was concerned about this email, another concerned about this text message. I tried to talk about a topic while simultaneously trying to figure out why the heck lunch hadn’t been delivered yet through the Panera Bread app on my phone.  

    Trying to lay the groundwork for our plans for the next quarter, we were all lost in the distractions of right now. 

    The constant “distractions”  or stresses each of us had been faced with over the last year or so- all of a different variety- was seeming to take a toll in a similar fashion. My toll seemed to explode through the year of COVID. A year of constantly navigating the stress of the unknown which included never knowing if my kids were going to be home for “school” and therefore rendering it necessary for me to change all my work plans.   A year of trying to salvage one business before it even really began.  Feeling like I was never going to be able to make a plan and stick with it ever again was always at the forefront.  Not being able to plan is not how I’m wired.  

    Add to this a house fire that left us dislocated for a while and unexpected stress on some of the people I love the most and of which I could do nothing about, I felt like I was another person entirely.  The organized, type A, on top of things wife, mom, and business owner felt like I had all but vanished.  

    Maybe this had been coming on for more than just the time period of a global pandemic.  In looking back over pictures posted for our Horizon Point ten-year anniversary,  I realized I was pregnant in more than half of them.  During my decade of growing a business, I had been pregnant or nursing most of the time.

    So you might imagine that my toll was resulting in extreme fatigue.  Like, can’t shake it no matter how much you sleep fatigue. This all led me to be frustrated with everyone and everything, especially myself.  My husband had borne the brunt of this, although I would imagine some of the challenges of this toll brought to the forefront some important truths about the imbalance of expectations between men and women and the extra load I still seemed to carry at home and with the kids even though we both have demanding careers.  He is more involved and supportive than most men, but when I joked about having a COVID hangover, he looked at me like I was crazy.  The inconsistencies of juggling work and kids during a pandemic hadn’t been his burden to bear.  Nor had been growing human beings and nursing them. This is something I’m glad my husband and I are actively discussing and trying to address now. 

    Other tolls for the team resulted in two team members spending time in the emergency room in the spring with chest pains and other related issues.  Anxiety will tell the body something is wrong, and if it has to, it will get your attention by making you feel like you are having a heart attack.

    I had been worried about everyone’s health including mine and feeling some guilt about how I had maybe contributed to it all. 

    So in the midst of our distraction state, I stopped and broached a subject with my team that I had put on the agenda but we weren’t to yet.  Now was the time to call this to everyone’s attention. “I want us to consider all taking sabbaticals over the next few months,” I said. 

    I think that got their attention.  All looked up from their phones and computers. 

    I asked some questions, they asked some, there was some reluctance, some sparks of, wait, I think she is really serious. Is she?  She’s going to pay us not to work? 

    There was a discussion about what a sabbatical really is.  One team member suggested what would be most helpful she thought would be the opportunity to take a long weekend once a month.  I told her to block off her calendar for this if that is what she felt like would help.  She did.  I also told her to figure out when she wanted and needed the time for more of an extended break.  

    A week later she told me she needed that extended break sooner rather than later, and blocked off her calendar. 

    One team member said she was good right now. Her workload easing somewhat from the first quarter where she was almost drowning.  “I don’t need it right now, but someone else may,” she said. 

    I asked her to consider when she might need it, prompting some things that I knew might be coming up for her.  She emailed me the dates in early 2022 when she plans to take a little over a month off. 

    Another looked at me and I said, “I want you to pick a time period of four to six weeks to take off. And I want you to do it at a time where you can actually have some downtime, where you aren’t mired into pouring into all your kids’ activities too.”  

    She said she’d take the month of November. 

    “Block your calendar,” I said. 

    I am so blessed to have a fabulous team at my side.  We are all givers to the core, and I think that is what brings us a lot of competitive advantage in our business.  But, as the book Burnout describes, we all have “Human Giver Syndrome”.

    It states, “Human givers are expected to offer their time, attention, affection, and bodies willingly, placidly, to the other class of people ‘the human beings’.  The implication in these terms is that the human beings have a moral obligation to be or express their humanity, while human givers have a moral obligation to give their humanity to the human beings.”  The paragraph goes on to state, “Guess which one the women are.” 

    It’s time for all of us to get our humanity back. 

    I looked at the calendar before the meeting and felt as though taking mid-August through the first week in October would be the best time for me to take off.  One because there wasn’t much I’d committed to yet other than a speaking engagement in Florida, and two because I could flank my time with a fifteen-year anniversary trip with my husband and end it with a fall break trip with my family. 

    So it comes time for me to express my need for a sabbatical, and I’m hesitant to say when I want to take off.  My hesitance comes from two places.  First, because as one of our team members says every year, “Just wait until September” with the knowledge that September is always our busiest month. Can I take off during what we have seen to be over the past ten years the busiest month on the calendar for our business? And two, if I take this time period off, I’m going first. And “leaders eat last.”  

    Nonetheless, I share the time period I want with my team and lunch arrives.  The team member that has worked with me the longest accompanies me to the door to get the food. 

    “I don’t think I can take that time period off,” I say.  “It would mean me going first…” 

    She seems to know exactly what I mean by this. 

    “I think this would mean you are setting the example.  You don’t know how much an answer to a prayer you offering this to us is for me. And you need it too.”

    ***

    The first time I heard about sabbatical was my freshman year in college.  Assigned to write about really anything I wanted in a freshman honors seminar, I somehow chose the topic of the intersection of religion and politics in Alabama.  This is a topic that was interesting and complex almost twenty years ago and has gotten even more so in recent years. 

    In pouring through the literature and research on the topic, I came across a thesis called “The Least of These” by a law professor at The University of Alabama.  Whether she wrote this information or took the time to talk about the publication across the state and country while on sabbatical, I can’t recall, but what I remember is that she was able to produce such a work and promote it because she took time away from her regular work duties.

    Her piece was thought-provoking and thorough and one with which I aligned a lot of my thinking with. It’s taken me almost twenty years to realize that sabbatical, commonly taken in university settings as a “period of paid leave for study or travel” is also “of or appropriate to the sabbath.”   

    A period of rest.  A period of restoration.  Of which comes, in this professor’s case and what I hope to in mine, a period of time for deep thinking and work of which comes clarity and meaningful output.  Purpose-driven work that only undistracted time can produce.

    McConaughey calls this a “walkabout” in his memoir.  Describing a period in his life following the notoriety his role in A Time To Kill brought about, he evokes his own walkabout in his life.  Page 147 of his book  is a poem titled “why we all need a walkabout”:

    We need to put ourselves in places of decreased sensory input so we can hear the background signals of our psychological processes….

    In this solitude, we then begin to think in pictures, and actualize what we see….

    Whatever the verdict, we grow…

    We tend to ourselves and get in good graces once again.

    Then we return to civilization, able to better tend to our tendencies.

    Why? Because we took a walkabout. 

    I get it. I like it. 

    ***

    While in Dallas, I’ve gotten to have a mini walkabout.  I’ve spent time alone with my husband eating and drinking and socializing our way through Dallas on a wedding weekend. I’ve sat by a pool where someone delivered me freshwater before my glass was ever empty and a cocktail when I was ready. I read without interruption.  All things I’ve needed.  Or maybe all this extravagance is a want. First-world problems are what I’ve almost always had the fortune to have.

    But on Sunday afternoon, lounging by the pool with my husband and finishing McConaughey’s memoir, I realize that I’ve just begun to have enough time in my mini walkabout to think, to think deeply.  And it’s over.  Tomorrow I’ll go back to all the “sensory input” and to-dos.  To a beautiful life of course, with so much to be thankful for, but one in which I’m growing increasingly unable to see because I’m exhausted.

    I sit with my feet in the pool by my husband in silence.  We’ve gotten to the point in our trip where we’ve talked a lot to each other, caught up on a lot of things and thoughts, laughed a lot, and are now content to sit together silently.  It’s peaceful.  It’s reflective.

    I look up at the clouds.  There are white fluffy clouds moving one direction and above them, gray, wispy clouds moving the other. 

    “Look,” I say to my husband, “there are two kinds of clouds, moving in different directions. I’ve never seen that before.” 

    And I silently think that the gray ones are higher in the sky.   And I think I’d rather be that maybe moving in a different direction than the way I’ve been conditioned to move, but higher nonetheless.

    With that, I do something I don’t do much of if at all as I’ve aged- as life has gotten infinitely more complex and stressful but also infinitely more joyful all at once- I jump into the pool.   

    ***

    As I write this, I’m keenly aware of all the people in this world who don’t know nor may ever have the freedom to take a walkabout.  For the single mom who can’t break or pause because if she does, mouths won’t be fed and roofs won’t stay overheads.  To the employee who would be fired if they ever even attempted to suggest they needed more than one week at a time for a vacation.  Who would never allow themselves to take more than a few days at a time (and usually still work while “off”) because this is what their heads, their employer, and the world tells them they have to do to be “valuable.” 

    But all the research is there about how much people need rest and reprieve in order to be productive, in order to thrive, and in order to be creative.  To produce their best work. To be human.  I’ve been shocked by the number of conversations I’ve had just this week about people’s physical health crumbling because of the mental health issues they are dealing with by being overworked to the point of exhaustion.  Some of this is self-imposed, some of this is cultural and systematic, some of it is unique to the pandemic world we are living in, and some of it is due to technology. But none of it is good.   (If you’d like to delve into the research on how we got to this state and what it is doing to us, two good books to read are Do Nothing and Burnout.) 

    But as the professor who took a sabbatical to produce deep work impacted the conversation about tax policy in Alabama from a Christian perspective, so too might my time to rest and restore and to think deeply lead to more purposeful output that can impact these challenges I’m describing now.  Maybe it is a catalyst for impacting individual situations (like the single mom) and workplace mindsets that keep us all desperately needing a break. 

    Later in Greenlights, McConaughey describes another period in his life where he intentionally called a red light in order to wait for the best greenlight.  Realizing that the rom-coms he had become famous for served a purpose and a place- and created a whole heck of a lot of wealth for him- he was able to realize he wanted something different for himself.  A role with more purpose and meaning.  So he waited it out. For almost two years. 

    That waiting led him to win an Oscar.  

    And maybe, more importantly, it allowed him an opportunity to watch his young kids grow and be a dad without distraction.

    *** 

    I think one of the fondest memories my kids have of me is running full force in just shorts and a sports bra into the ocean to them.  While on vacation after an extremely hot run,  the only thing that seemed natural for me to do was to run full force into the ocean with half my running clothes still on.  Not prone to impulsivity and to having just a sports bra on without a top, my kids were shocked I think.  But after the jolt of the shock, they giggled and giggled.  We played and played.  And I cooled off.  They still talk about this and it happened almost three years ago. 

    I want my kids to see me more uninhibited, more fun, more free, less distracted, less frazzled.  I need to reset and maybe you do too. 

    Although I don’t have the runway of wealth that McConaughey did to support extended walkabouts in the form of years, the theory of it and the need for it is not lost on me.  I can take a month or two with it fulfilling the same intent.  I do have a fabulous team at work that will support things in my absence and I will support them in theirs as they each take their turn.

    By taking a walkabout, I hope I’m giving others a green light to do the same, of which comes the clarity to pursue things of true meaning and value.  Here’s to the possibility of diving in, either literally or metaphorically or both, into the beauty of the one life we each have to live and modeling for our kids and others that they have permission to do the same. 

     

     

    If you would like to dive further into reflection on this topic, here are some readings (some of which are referenced in the post) that I’ve found to be valuable: 

    Greenlights 

    Do Nothing 

    Burnout

    Scarcity 

    The Common Rule

    The 4 Day Week

    Fair Play

  • Business Observations Of an Intern

    Business Observations Of an Intern

    After working as a high school intern for Horizon Point Consulting for two summers, I’ve picked up on some themes and practices that seem to make this company successful. In the name of full disclosure, I don’t have official confirmation that these are “company ideals.” These are simply my observations of their values that lead to overall success and respect from their clients and partners. 

    The biggest thing I have noticed is Mary Ila’s generosity. I have been so humbled to be a recipient of her love for over a year now, but the longer I have known her, the more she shares with me about her work in the community, with nonprofits, and with individuals. I realize that her generosity in time, effort, and resources is not just a product of abundance. It isn’t simply present just in the good times. It seems to be the foundation on which she has built her business. She runs Horizon Point with a unique approach: “How can I bless others? How can I give back?” instead of the far easier and far more common: “How can I benefit from this? What can I get out of this deal?” Surely there is a time and place for both thought processes, but Mary Ila shows me that it is possible to consistently prioritize others in business. Because of this approach, she has gained the respect of so many in our community, in turn creating more opportunities for her to share her skills with even more people. 

    The other thing that sticks out to me is far more basic, yet seeing it play out in a real company solidified an abstract concept for me: communication. Horizon Point does a great job of encouraging all types of communication within the team. Whether it is a planned meeting with the members keeping each other updated on current or upcoming projects, or a simple follow-up email to let someone else know what you’ve just done, open conversation ensures efficiency and the best results. 

    Surprisingly, I realized I also had to communicate with myself. I thought I had a pretty good memory until I revisited a spreadsheet I had made only the day before just to find that I had highlighted certain rows with zero memory of what any of my markings meant. After working closely with the professionals at Horizon Point, I realized that they stayed organized and efficient by writing down thought processes that seemed obvious at the time but would prove very forgettable if a note was not made. Communication, with oneself and with others, was modeled beautifully. It wasn’t until I saw that play out in their lives that it finally clicked for me. 

    Through observing both the big picture, foundational business practices, and the day-to-day tips and tricks, working at Horizon Point has given me the confidence to enter the workplace. Mary Ila has generously given me insight into the “how” and “why” of her business. This has given me a better understanding of a wide variety of fields and has encouraged me to explore many options as I enter my first year of college this fall.

  • Now’s the Time to Upskill

    Now’s the Time to Upskill

    I attended a great workforce summit in my community this week. The keynote was with the Department of Commerce for our state and provided updates on the direction and focus of their department ending with a promise to rise to the challenge and encouraged attendees to do so also.

    Throughout the afternoon, I listened to educators and industry panelists who had a common goal of growing a strong, engaged workforce. As I reflected on the presentations provided and conversations I had throughout the day, I thought about how important lifelong learning is and how NOW is the time to upskill as several people re-enter the workforce.

    There are numerous avenues to upskill. Here are a few of my favorites:

    Community Colleges – locally we have some amazing community colleges that offer a plethora of courses and work closely with industry to provide training. Check out what community colleges have to offer in your area!

    Online Video Courses – you need only an internet connection to benefit from thousands of courses online. Udemy is one of my favorite providers of online courses. I’ve personally taken a few of their courses; I was able to do this on my own time, at my own pace &  it was super cost-efficient!

    Credentialing – depending on your career field, credentials are often available. Credentials are a great way to verify your skillset. Look for credentialing opportunities through organizations like the Center for Credentialing and Education. They often offer materials to prepare for credentialing also.

    Whatever your next move, upskilling is a great way to get there!

  • For Lucy

    For Lucy

    We have had the privilege of doing work and life with Lucy Orr as a company and a family over the last couple of years. She has helped us with so many things at Horizon Point and MatchFIT. She performs each task with excellence, professionalism, and a joyful spirit.  She brings this same sense of self when keeping our children. She brings sparks of joy and excitement into their lives.  We will be forever grateful for Lucy and for all she has done for us.

    In reflecting on all Lucy has taught us (and as I still try to selfishly and actively plot ways to keep her from leaving us in the fall to study at the University of Virginia), I want to share the hope we have for her. This hope I have for myself and my team at home and at work and for the people in my community.

    That hope is living in the AND.

    Dear Lucy,

    A couple of weeks ago while you were in the throes of AP exams to wrap up your high school career, I walked into a beautiful room, with a beautiful view for a meeting about education in our community. Your uncle called the meeting. Your dad was there. I hugged a few of the men around the table and one – in all forms of the gentleman I’ve always known him to be – pulls out a seat for me.

    I’m the only female in the room. I’m the only one under the age of 40 in the room.

    Although this dynamic is not uncommon in my professional life, I wonder: Why am I here?  Why was I invited to sit around this beautiful table with this beautiful view with these wildly successful men?

    It’s not that I’m intimidated to be around the table, just perplexed by the invitation. I’ve got a little over an hour to do what I think is to sit and listen before I need to get in the carline to pick up the kids from school.

    The school system leader is invited to share with the group the good and bad of what is going on. As your uncle states, our community can only be as strong as our public schools, and so begins a conversation about test scores and demographic makeup and what things can be done to move the needle in the right direction.

    These men talk about ideas, big ideas. These men talk about solutions, big solutions. Novel solutions. And my God, I’m so glad to be around this table with people who think, and think big, and have resources at their disposal to deploy big. I’ve needed a conversation like this. One that isn’t mired in the logistics of getting shoes on kids in the morning and invoicing clients and making sure all the ships run exactly on time so we can all make it to the next thing. A conversation that is about making an impact.

    I respect these men around this table, and maybe I’m here because they respect me and my voice, or at least my voice when it comes to education. As we dive deeper into what has been done wrong in the past that has caused some of the problems the school system faces now, I question whether or not we need to play on a different board all together when it comes to moving forward in a positive direction. What would we do if we broke the “rules” and what results would that achieve? They all seem to listen. I also question what I don’t understand, and as your dad states, sometimes progress isn’t happening quite simply and literally because a left turn is too dangerous.

    Our conversation is interwoven with demographic trends and the questions that these trends seem to invoke. How do Hispanic kids perform compared to white kids? How do white kids perform compared to black kids? Why do black and Hispanic kids perform worse than white kids? How is parental involvement different based on demographics? Why aren’t there many middle-class black kids in our district? What does that mean? I sit and listen more, but I can feel myself getting agitated by the nuances of the conversation.

    I’m also, like the gentleman sitting next to me, realizing we’ve gone overtime on this meeting. “What time is it,” he asks me. I flash the time on my phone clock to him while I think I’ve got about four and a half minutes before I have to leave to make it to the carline in time.  The ships have to run on time.

    To try to wrap the meeting up, the gentleman beside me thanks the school leader for his time and gives his word that he will support what is necessary to make a difference in the district.  He’s done it before and I know he and his peers around the table will do it again.

    But the conversation seems to be ending on a note of hopelessness, in particular about kids in the district on the margins – the Hispanic kids and the black kids if we want to make it easy and lump everything into demographic subgroups.  As the school leader said earlier in the meeting, the district performs on par or better than surrounding districts when it comes to white kids. It doesn’t with the minority subgroups.

    As the gentleman beside me closes with a story to illustrate this, particularly with black students, I feel the need to speak up again.

    “Well, if all of us around this table would help one black kid, maybe the story would be different. It’s hard. But it’s worth it.”

    I also want to say, this isn’t a black or white or Hispanic issue so much as it is a socio-economic issue and the conditions that have created a society of haves and have nots that largely fall along racial and ethnic lines. We all want to boil things down to the metaphorical and literal black or white because it is so much easier. Our brains can draw easier conclusions this way. The school district’s charts are so much easier to understand this way. OR is easier than AND. AND is gray.

    The school leader looks back at me and says nothing. I think he knows I’m being for real because he’s seen my husband literally help one black kid through their mutual involvement in youth baseball.  Not just once, but for years over years.

    And with that, the meeting is over. People rise from their chairs and I dart out the door for carline.  I can do this meeting AND make carline in time.

    School pick-up for us includes picking up one black kid on the “other” side of town from the bus so he can eat a meal with us, do homework with us, and play ball with us. This is the routine three or four days a week in the spring.

    After this meeting and school pick-up, we run by your home to drop off fresh strawberries and notes of encouragement from the kids about your AP Exams.  One of my kids’ fondest memories from the previous summer is picking strawberries with you.

    “Lucy needs some fresh strawberries,” Andrew says after I tell him that you can’t babysit this week because of your tests, so we go get strawberries.

    Our black boy- that you of course know as Cortez- asks if he can go to the door too in order to deliver the strawberries.

    “Sure,” I say.

    Your precious mother smiles the smile so unique to her. It is the purest expression of her giving spirit. I realize you get the spirit of excellence and joy both from her AND your dad as the boys bound out of the car towards your door with the strawberries.

    She thanks them profusely as your brother waves from inside. I can see Andrew swell with pride as your brother speaks to him, and I think again, man if my kids could just turn out to be half the kind of people you and your siblings are, I’d count us as beyond blessed.

    The boys bound back into the car and Cortez says, “Man, I love that house.”

    He didn’t even walk inside.

    “Yeah,” Andrew says, “It’s the best, even the backyard.”

    And we drive on towards homework and dinner and baseball. Cortez drives on with us with a little bit more exposure than he came with when he got in the car.  To your mother’s smile, your brother waving, and to a home that he “loves” not just because of the looks of it, but because of the way the people that live there made him feel.

    ***

    A couple of months ago, I traveled to Turkey with my dad.  The trip was exhausting and invigorating all at once.  I learned a lot, met a lot of neat people, and quite honestly experienced a ton of anxiety about being gone from my family and work for that long. I worried about not being present at the baseball and soccer games, about not being there to put shoes on in the morning before school, and about making sure everyone was picked up from the carline and the bus stop on time. About leaving a work project that had dragged on forever thrown on my staff with a “Good luck, figure it out.”  And all this hit me in the middle of the night in Turkey.

    “Why am I here?” was something I asked on that trip over and over again too.

    The journey through Turkey followed some of Paul’s missionary journeys. So as I sat on a bus through the country, I read Galatians and Ephesians as I was traveling through what was the region of Galatia in the first century while heading towards Ephesus.

    I read, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control….If we live by the spirit, let’s follow the spirit.” (Galatians 5:22, 25) and I think of you. You display these fruits through and through.

    I continue to the book of Ephesians and find Paul in Chapter 5 talking about how wives should submit to their husbands and in Chapter 6, he goes on to talk about how slaves should obey their human masters.

    As we drive through the countryside, I stand in awe of how Paul traveled this route that will take us about three hours by charter bus on foot. How long did it take him with just his legs? I stand in awe of his commitment to spreading the gospel, to encouraging people to live by the fruits of the spirit, AND I can reflect that the words in Ephesians are a product of Paul’s time and culture and to the audience in which he was writing. And while most of what he wrote here is quite likely progressive at the time of his writing, I can realize that the fruits of the spirit if we listen to them would tell us owning another human being isn’t living them. I can realize that the standard that governs my marriage is and will be different for me and my husband then what Paul instructs. Submission isn’t necessary for either one of us if we seek to live in love through the fruits of the spirit.

    I can appreciate AND question. I can apply within context AND still stand in awe of a person’s journey and message.

    AND so can you.

    You can stand in awe of the material you get to learn in college AND question it and the people that present it at the same time. You can take your studies seriously AND immerse yourself fully in the college experience that isn’t academic and learn quite a lot as well.

    You can rest AND you can work hard. You can work hard AND play hard.

    You can respect me AND disagree with anything I’ve said before or now.

    In a time when everyone and everything seems to be so divisive, we can all realize that not everything- or really anything- has to be polarizing.  We can choose AND instead of OR.

    You’ll also be here one day, in your mid-thirties wondering at times, Why am I here? Why am I at this beautiful table?

    As I think about the anxiety I experienced on the trip to Turkey, I know it is because the notion of AND is being challenged in my mind, in particular in this stage of my life.

    You can’t be a good daughter traveling with your dad for over a week AND be a good mother and wife. You can’t experience the world in all its fullness by visiting far off places AND be respected as a responsible mom. You can’t be a good mom and wife AND run two businesses.

    You can’t be a good Christian AND question Paul’s words to the Ephesians. You can’t sit at the table with a bunch of men talking about big picture things and be excited about how this impacts community outcomes AND make it to carline in time.

    You can’t respect these men AND question things around their table. You can’t raise good kids of your own AND try to help raise a child that isn’t biologically yours, that has experienced a world that you can’t even imagine.

    But a blog post you wrote last summer hangs in my office to remind me that I can live in the AND. As you said:

    The last relationship that I noticed this summer impacted me the most deeply was the significance of family in work. I babysat for Mary Ila’s two older children regularly throughout the summer to give her a few hours at a time to focus on work, so I was able to learn from the intentionality with which she balanced these two things: work and family. This experience has shown me the blessing of valuing family. By constantly thinking of fun things we could do that her kids would enjoy or clearing entire days to spend time with them, she showed me that it is possible to work hard while prioritizing family. This balance definitely looks different for everyone, but it was so helpful for me to see such a wonderful example of this aspect of pursuing a career. 

    You’ll never know how much these words meant to me.  So I want to remind you of them too.

    ***

    You will go to the University of Virginia soon, and I’ll have to admit, I’m a little jealous.  My dad took my family there when I was in middle school and I stood in awe at what Thomas Jefferson created in Charlottesville.

    When I heard you were headed there, my thoughts drifted to Andrew who gravitates towards activities that involve his strong spatial abilities. Like building things and drawing things and playing chess.  And I think: we must go there so my kids can visit you and stand in awe too. And even though this child who is still struggling mightily to read on grade level- who thinks in numbers instead of words- I wonder, maybe he will be able to attend school there one day too, architecture school maybe.

    When we do visit you, my kids will stand in awe of what Thomas Jefferson built AND they will learn about how much of his wealth- and quite honestly much of his pleasure it seems- was built on the backs of people he owned, people who look like our friend who comes to do homework with us, and play ball with us, and see your sweet mama smiling on the porch with us.

    What if he lived during this time instead of today, I wonder?  What would have become of him?   What will become of him now? A child who does not have a problem with reading cognitively, but who did not know most of his letters halfway through kindergarten because kindergarten was the first time he was exposed to the alphabet. A product of a situation where no one sang the ABCs to him and all the men in his life except my husband are in jail or dead.

    But maybe.

    AND maybe he will go to the University of Virginia one day too. My boys from two different worlds could go together.

    ***

     

    Like me, an opportunity for a seat at beautiful tables will come more easily to you than it will for others because of your privilege. Because of where and who you were born to and the opportunities that it provided you to succeed before you even made all the right choices to do so.

    But I can’t help but think that it’s also the AND that puts us in the room, at the beautiful tables, with the beautiful views. With the best people and the best opportunities.

    It’s that I am a female AND a mother AND a strategic thinker AND someone who has great respect for the gentlemen sitting around me so I can challenge some thinking in the room. I’m in the room too and as I’m challenging others’ thinking, I’m challenging my own at the very same time.

    It’s the realization that Paul and Thomas Jefferson and all of us around beautiful tables are AND. We can be generous and kind, impactful and well-intentioned while at the same time also a little flawed in our thinking. We can stand in awe of those around the best tables and AND question at the same time.

    AND may not be what gets you a seat at the beautiful tables, but choosing AND will keep you there.

    ***

    Choosing AND instead of OR doesn’t mean you won’t need to find your no.  And it doesn’t mean compromising your values.

    It may mean saying no to the people that tell you you can’t choose AND, even when these people are the ones who love you the most.  It may be saying no to the voice in your head that tells you OR would just be so much easier than AND.

    Study OR go have a good time? No, that doesn’t have to be a black or white choice.  You can choose the AND by planning accordingly to do so.

    It will one day likely mean saying no to the commitment you are expected to take because you are a mom to be able to say yes to the commitment that you know God designed you to take because He lit a fire inside you about it. Like saying no to working a booth at field day so you can spend that morning providing leadership coaching to four budding entrepreneurs. And it may be about saying no to a person you highly respect that wants you to take on a commitment you know you just can’t because your family needs you.

    AND the beauty of the true kingdom is that your NO is and will be someone else’s AND.

    It will take constant discernment and prayer to figure out the difference between OR and NO for you. It will take the guiding of the spirit.  It’s hard. But it’s worth it.

    Lucy, I can’t wait to see the far-reaching impact you will have on this world. Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to live an OR life. Live in the AND. Listen to the Holy Spirit AND let love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control continue to lead you to the AND instead of the OR.

    We love you!