I loved him, once.
My father used my love
To snare him, and
Named his price of
100 Philistines.
He paid 200,
With a smile,
And my
Father was afraid.
I loved him, once,
When he held me
In his arms, when
Our love was one.
The night of the spear,
I eased him through
The window, to
Escape my father’s hate.
My father gave me
To another,
Breaking one contract
To forge another.
I loved him, once,
When he forced me back
To his household,
When he was king.
But that day,
That day the ark returned,
That day of processions
Of priests and lyres,
Of officials and clanging cymbals,
Of king in linen dancing
In the street,
That day I died.
I saw my husband, my
Lover, the one
Who took my father’s crown
For his own head,
I saw him dance,
Not as a king might
But as the drunken peasant
He was, with
The other peasants,
The other shepherds
Dancing with him.
That day,
Embarrassment
Became shame
Became anger
Became fury
As cold as
Any sharp stone,
A jagged edge of hate.
My one desire was
To aim my father’s spear.
That day,
I let him see
My anger-flash,
My spit of contempt
With its tongued
Dagger point.
And now I sit
In this room,
Daughter of a king,
Wife of a king,
Surrounded by gold and
Fine cloth and
Wine and servants.
I sit in this place,
Waiting for his
Voice, his
Touch, his
Love.
No child I carry;
Only gall in my stomach.
I wait until I die.
But I loved him, once.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Performance Reviews: The Good
Good performance reviews happen. Yes, they do. In my own career, they’ve been relatively rare, but I’ve had some good ones. And from those experiences, and talking to a lot of people about how to improve reviews, I’ve learned some ways to do it. I don’t always succeed, but I know what to strive for.
There are variations of the good performance review.
The We’ll-Do-This-By-the-Manual Review. These are the reviews by bosses who will follow the HR guidance document to the absolute letter. They move step-by-step through each goal, each discussion question, and each key performance factor. There’s not much emotion or personality – these are bosses who are good people but a little uptight. But they cover what needs to be covered and there are no surprises.
The Well-Intentioned-And-Not-Ideal-But-Generally-Okay Review: This is the one conducted by bosses who are uncomfortable with the process (and a lot of bosses are uncomfortable with the process) and they know that, so they try to work through it and go a little bit beyond their comfort factor. They don’t surprise you; they move through goals and expectations and tell you your overall rating or appraisal. These are the diligent, decent people who understand the purpose of a review but don’t want to move too deeply into that area of vulnerability – for themselves and the person being reviewed – that truly good reviews require.
And, ah, the best reviews. The best reviews don’t start with a manual or guidelines. They start with a philosophy of people. This shouldn’t be a surprise. How you do a performance review – how anyone does one – is a good indication of one’s general attitude toward people. The context is different, but the model is Jesus and the disciples.
So here’s where I start, or where I try to start, and you won’t find this in the HR manual: #1 I believe in the intrinsic value of each person. And I believe we all have the same intrinsic value, because we are all made in the image of God. That doesn’t mean we’re all the same. We have different skills and level of skills, different degrees of intelligence, different lots of things. But because we’re made in God’s image, in God’s eyes we have the same value.
In practice, this translates into treating each person with the dignity and respect they deserve, trying to find what aspect of works really excites them, and helping them achieve to the fullest extent possible. Someone on my team may be the best writer ever created, but he or she has the same inherent value as anyone else on the team, and I have to help them figure out how to utilize their specific gifts.
From there, you look at what the manuals and guidelines tell you, and you’d be surprised how much of what they contain is biblically based, even thought the people who wrote the stuff probably weren’t aware of that. But there are biblical principles which have indeed permeated our society, and continue to do so. If they ever stop permeating our society and our workplaces, we’re all in major trouble.
#2 Do it all the time. Performance reviews should be an ongoing fact of life in the workplace, and almost on a daily basis. When a problem arises, you deal with it on the spot, and you keep the problem to the individual(s) affected. When something good happens, you celebrate it on the spot, and you celebrate with the whole team. And when performance is appraised and communicated all the time, there are…
#3 No surprises! No one should come into a performance review and be slammed with something they knew nothing about, that no one ever told them about, and comes from so far out of left field that it’s absurd. Surprising people = instant loss of the boss’s credibility. Don’t do it.
#4 Be fair. You may have started out the year with a set of goals and expectations, but a lot of things can change during 12 months. So when they do, when new major projects or responsibilities arrive, you and your employee discuss it at the time it happens and agree that the goals have to change as well.
#5 Be honest. In an ongoing process, honesty and candor are critical. No one can have even a ghost of chance to improve their performance if you never bring up the fact that there’s a problem. I was once thrust into the position of, having become a people leader for the first time, being told that one individual on the team needed to be fired, that performance had lagged for years. When I asked how the individual had responded to this when told (presumably), I learned that nothing had ever been communicated. Ever. For years.
#6 Use the formal reviews for a purpose. The formal review times should be done with a specific purpose in mind, since you’ve been doing the ongoing process all along. If your organization has a mid-year review, use it to calibrate goals set months earlier. Do they still apply? Has something changed? Does something need to drop off or be added? For the annual review, do a wrap-up of the individual’s performance but then spend most of the discussion in planning the next year’s goals for the overall team and the individual. Make use of that knowledge and experience. Solicit ideas and suggestions. Talk about how things that were learned during the year can be applied. Talk about how this fits into the larger organizational picture. And ask for feedback on your performance (and you should have been doing that all along, too).
I’d love to say I practice 100 percent of what I preach here. I don’t. I fall short. Sometimes I really screw up. But the model is what I strive to do. And if you lead people, then you have a special responsibility. I would call it the shepherd’s responsibility: to serve.
There are variations of the good performance review.
The We’ll-Do-This-By-the-Manual Review. These are the reviews by bosses who will follow the HR guidance document to the absolute letter. They move step-by-step through each goal, each discussion question, and each key performance factor. There’s not much emotion or personality – these are bosses who are good people but a little uptight. But they cover what needs to be covered and there are no surprises.
The Well-Intentioned-And-Not-Ideal-But-Generally-Okay Review: This is the one conducted by bosses who are uncomfortable with the process (and a lot of bosses are uncomfortable with the process) and they know that, so they try to work through it and go a little bit beyond their comfort factor. They don’t surprise you; they move through goals and expectations and tell you your overall rating or appraisal. These are the diligent, decent people who understand the purpose of a review but don’t want to move too deeply into that area of vulnerability – for themselves and the person being reviewed – that truly good reviews require.
And, ah, the best reviews. The best reviews don’t start with a manual or guidelines. They start with a philosophy of people. This shouldn’t be a surprise. How you do a performance review – how anyone does one – is a good indication of one’s general attitude toward people. The context is different, but the model is Jesus and the disciples.
So here’s where I start, or where I try to start, and you won’t find this in the HR manual: #1 I believe in the intrinsic value of each person. And I believe we all have the same intrinsic value, because we are all made in the image of God. That doesn’t mean we’re all the same. We have different skills and level of skills, different degrees of intelligence, different lots of things. But because we’re made in God’s image, in God’s eyes we have the same value.
In practice, this translates into treating each person with the dignity and respect they deserve, trying to find what aspect of works really excites them, and helping them achieve to the fullest extent possible. Someone on my team may be the best writer ever created, but he or she has the same inherent value as anyone else on the team, and I have to help them figure out how to utilize their specific gifts.
From there, you look at what the manuals and guidelines tell you, and you’d be surprised how much of what they contain is biblically based, even thought the people who wrote the stuff probably weren’t aware of that. But there are biblical principles which have indeed permeated our society, and continue to do so. If they ever stop permeating our society and our workplaces, we’re all in major trouble.
#2 Do it all the time. Performance reviews should be an ongoing fact of life in the workplace, and almost on a daily basis. When a problem arises, you deal with it on the spot, and you keep the problem to the individual(s) affected. When something good happens, you celebrate it on the spot, and you celebrate with the whole team. And when performance is appraised and communicated all the time, there are…
#3 No surprises! No one should come into a performance review and be slammed with something they knew nothing about, that no one ever told them about, and comes from so far out of left field that it’s absurd. Surprising people = instant loss of the boss’s credibility. Don’t do it.
#4 Be fair. You may have started out the year with a set of goals and expectations, but a lot of things can change during 12 months. So when they do, when new major projects or responsibilities arrive, you and your employee discuss it at the time it happens and agree that the goals have to change as well.
#5 Be honest. In an ongoing process, honesty and candor are critical. No one can have even a ghost of chance to improve their performance if you never bring up the fact that there’s a problem. I was once thrust into the position of, having become a people leader for the first time, being told that one individual on the team needed to be fired, that performance had lagged for years. When I asked how the individual had responded to this when told (presumably), I learned that nothing had ever been communicated. Ever. For years.
#6 Use the formal reviews for a purpose. The formal review times should be done with a specific purpose in mind, since you’ve been doing the ongoing process all along. If your organization has a mid-year review, use it to calibrate goals set months earlier. Do they still apply? Has something changed? Does something need to drop off or be added? For the annual review, do a wrap-up of the individual’s performance but then spend most of the discussion in planning the next year’s goals for the overall team and the individual. Make use of that knowledge and experience. Solicit ideas and suggestions. Talk about how things that were learned during the year can be applied. Talk about how this fits into the larger organizational picture. And ask for feedback on your performance (and you should have been doing that all along, too).
I’d love to say I practice 100 percent of what I preach here. I don’t. I fall short. Sometimes I really screw up. But the model is what I strive to do. And if you lead people, then you have a special responsibility. I would call it the shepherd’s responsibility: to serve.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Performance Reviews: The Bad
At the High Calling Blogs Tuesday, my friend Bradley Moore (Shrinking the Camel) posted “How Important is Your Image?” The article is about the peer review process as part of an individual’s overall performance appraisal, and then goes deeper into a discussion about image and performance. Over the years, performance appraisal processes have become something of a major industry. And there are all kinds of facets to them – peer reviews, performance reviews, results reviews, L-180s (where team leaders are appraised anonymously by their team members), and L-360s (where an individual is appraised anonymously by supervisor, subordinate, peers, colleagues on other teams), among a lot of others.
While the article was mostly about whether or not image was more important than performance, and what kind of image that was, I keyed in on the performance review part. I hate performance reviews, and not because they aren’t (theoretically) valuable. The comment I posted on Bradley’s article went something like this:
I’ve had performance reviews for almost my entire career, except for the four years I was an independent consultant. I can recall a few that were okay in terms of how they were conducted, many that were totally inept, but very few that were good. When I started doing them myself for people on my team, I generally had no role models to emulate, and basic HR guidelines that rarely applied, except for what to avoid doing. So I looked to biblical principles — be fair, be honest, talk about the hard stuff, give credit where it was due, and always affirm the worth of the person.
I should have added that performance reviews should go on all the time and not just once or twice a year. The mantra I chant until I drive people crazy is “No surprises at mid-year and annual reviews. No surprises. Not one surprise, good or bad.” My theory here is, if a problem comes up, you deal with when it happens, not months later. If someone is a consistently poor performer, you’re doing no one any good by saying nothing or trying to transfer them elsewhere. Or if someone deserves recognition or celebration, you do it right then, when everyone understands and sees the connection. So, no surprises at review time.
If you think I speak from experience, you are entirely correct. Too much experience. Since college, I’ve had six employers, seven if I include myself. Before I graduated from college, I had three, so formally and informally, that makes a total of 10. And from those 10, I’ve collectively learned there are at least four kinds of bad performance reviews.
The Zinger. You’ve had a bang-up performance year, you’re firing on all eight cylinders, and choirs of managers have been singing your praises. Your boss knows it and appreciates it. But he can’t give you a 100 percent positive review, because he never had one like that, he doesn’t want to give you the big head, and he believes that no one does all good. So he comes up with – the zinger. This is a simple comment designed to throw the individual totally off balance, something that has never been spoken about, something so totally out of left field that you can’t respond as your boss smilingly adds it to “development needs.”
I had one boss who turned the zinger into an art form. All of us who reported to him experienced it, and we occasionally took bets on what he’d come up with for the current year. For me, it usually some variation of “You’re not aggressive enough.” The first time he hit me with it, I didn’t know what to say. It worked so well that first time that he tried it again the next year, but I was ready and asked, “And how did that affect my performance?” That flustered him. The third time he pitched it at me again, but he had an answer to my question: “It didn’t affect your performance, but it affects management’s perceptions of you.” So I started getting more aggressive – with him. When I said that’s what he had told me to do, he said, “I didn’t mean with me!” Third time was the charm. He went on to something else.
The Non-Performance Review. The non-performance review happens when your boss doesn’t like doing reviews, and will talk about absolutely anything other than your performance: sports, the weather, his kids, your kids, his car, the carpeting on the floor, the light fixtures, you-name-it. It’s not that there are problems he wants to avoid talking about, it’s just he hates – hates! – getting so personal and has learned that a performance review, done properly, makes him as vulnerable as it does you.
Over the years, I’ve had performance reviews that offered opportunities to discuss movies and Broadway plays, the latest non-fiction bestseller, problems with other people on the team (like peers), favorite cocktails, restaurants and pets, among other things. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get back to the subject at hand. And then the time would elapse, and the boss would breathe a huge sigh of relief.
For these, you have to pay close attention to what gets written down, because you won’t know what your appraisal is until you see it. (I refused to sign one of these once – an act deemed equivalent to starting the French Revolution.)
The Image Review. This type of performance review has less to do with your performance than it does with your boss’s perceptions of the perceptions of “management,” which he’s often responsible for. So the image review becomes a kind of tea-leaf-reading exercise, in which you try to discern which “perceptions of management” are actually your boss’s own personal perceptions and which belong to someone else. And who "management" actually is.
This one is tough on the person being reviewed. It helps to have some years of experience here, because you have to know how things work and you have to be fast on your feet in responding. I was once told, for example, that “management” had a problem with my team leadership capabilities because my people liked working for me, the expectations being, apparently, that you were a better team leader if they didn’t like you, so treat them badly. So I said, “Look at their performance and tell me how it could have been improved by browbeating them.” The response was a sullen look. I wish I was making this up.
The Hybrid Performance Review. This one usually combines the Image Review and the Zinger. Performance is barely mentioned; instead, you get a combination of “management’s perceptions” and a series of zingers. I may hold the record for this, in fact. In one one-hour review, performance was discussed in less than 15 seconds – a kind of grunt – and then it was a series of perception zingers, all of which were totally baseless and some of which were actually the perceptions about my boss, and we both knew it.
I would like to say I did the kind, understanding, Christian thing. I didn’t. I was so outraged that I fought back, and hard. I refuted everything. Met with a “but this is management’s perception” response, I hit back with “and you were responsible for almost all of that,” and then explained that in detail.
This wasn’t a performance review; it was a boxing match. No, that’s too nice. It was an ugly street brawl. Bridges got burned. It was just plain bad. Whenever you have one of these with your boss, you lose. By definition.
As I said in my comment to Bradley’s post, it all should down to this: Be fair. Be honest. Talk about the hard stuff when it happens, not during the review. Give credit where it’s due. Always affirm the worth of the person.
And no surprises.
Tomorrow: the good review performance reviews.
While the article was mostly about whether or not image was more important than performance, and what kind of image that was, I keyed in on the performance review part. I hate performance reviews, and not because they aren’t (theoretically) valuable. The comment I posted on Bradley’s article went something like this:
I’ve had performance reviews for almost my entire career, except for the four years I was an independent consultant. I can recall a few that were okay in terms of how they were conducted, many that were totally inept, but very few that were good. When I started doing them myself for people on my team, I generally had no role models to emulate, and basic HR guidelines that rarely applied, except for what to avoid doing. So I looked to biblical principles — be fair, be honest, talk about the hard stuff, give credit where it was due, and always affirm the worth of the person.
I should have added that performance reviews should go on all the time and not just once or twice a year. The mantra I chant until I drive people crazy is “No surprises at mid-year and annual reviews. No surprises. Not one surprise, good or bad.” My theory here is, if a problem comes up, you deal with when it happens, not months later. If someone is a consistently poor performer, you’re doing no one any good by saying nothing or trying to transfer them elsewhere. Or if someone deserves recognition or celebration, you do it right then, when everyone understands and sees the connection. So, no surprises at review time.
If you think I speak from experience, you are entirely correct. Too much experience. Since college, I’ve had six employers, seven if I include myself. Before I graduated from college, I had three, so formally and informally, that makes a total of 10. And from those 10, I’ve collectively learned there are at least four kinds of bad performance reviews.
The Zinger. You’ve had a bang-up performance year, you’re firing on all eight cylinders, and choirs of managers have been singing your praises. Your boss knows it and appreciates it. But he can’t give you a 100 percent positive review, because he never had one like that, he doesn’t want to give you the big head, and he believes that no one does all good. So he comes up with – the zinger. This is a simple comment designed to throw the individual totally off balance, something that has never been spoken about, something so totally out of left field that you can’t respond as your boss smilingly adds it to “development needs.”
I had one boss who turned the zinger into an art form. All of us who reported to him experienced it, and we occasionally took bets on what he’d come up with for the current year. For me, it usually some variation of “You’re not aggressive enough.” The first time he hit me with it, I didn’t know what to say. It worked so well that first time that he tried it again the next year, but I was ready and asked, “And how did that affect my performance?” That flustered him. The third time he pitched it at me again, but he had an answer to my question: “It didn’t affect your performance, but it affects management’s perceptions of you.” So I started getting more aggressive – with him. When I said that’s what he had told me to do, he said, “I didn’t mean with me!” Third time was the charm. He went on to something else.
The Non-Performance Review. The non-performance review happens when your boss doesn’t like doing reviews, and will talk about absolutely anything other than your performance: sports, the weather, his kids, your kids, his car, the carpeting on the floor, the light fixtures, you-name-it. It’s not that there are problems he wants to avoid talking about, it’s just he hates – hates! – getting so personal and has learned that a performance review, done properly, makes him as vulnerable as it does you.
Over the years, I’ve had performance reviews that offered opportunities to discuss movies and Broadway plays, the latest non-fiction bestseller, problems with other people on the team (like peers), favorite cocktails, restaurants and pets, among other things. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get back to the subject at hand. And then the time would elapse, and the boss would breathe a huge sigh of relief.
For these, you have to pay close attention to what gets written down, because you won’t know what your appraisal is until you see it. (I refused to sign one of these once – an act deemed equivalent to starting the French Revolution.)
The Image Review. This type of performance review has less to do with your performance than it does with your boss’s perceptions of the perceptions of “management,” which he’s often responsible for. So the image review becomes a kind of tea-leaf-reading exercise, in which you try to discern which “perceptions of management” are actually your boss’s own personal perceptions and which belong to someone else. And who "management" actually is.
This one is tough on the person being reviewed. It helps to have some years of experience here, because you have to know how things work and you have to be fast on your feet in responding. I was once told, for example, that “management” had a problem with my team leadership capabilities because my people liked working for me, the expectations being, apparently, that you were a better team leader if they didn’t like you, so treat them badly. So I said, “Look at their performance and tell me how it could have been improved by browbeating them.” The response was a sullen look. I wish I was making this up.
The Hybrid Performance Review. This one usually combines the Image Review and the Zinger. Performance is barely mentioned; instead, you get a combination of “management’s perceptions” and a series of zingers. I may hold the record for this, in fact. In one one-hour review, performance was discussed in less than 15 seconds – a kind of grunt – and then it was a series of perception zingers, all of which were totally baseless and some of which were actually the perceptions about my boss, and we both knew it.
I would like to say I did the kind, understanding, Christian thing. I didn’t. I was so outraged that I fought back, and hard. I refuted everything. Met with a “but this is management’s perception” response, I hit back with “and you were responsible for almost all of that,” and then explained that in detail.
This wasn’t a performance review; it was a boxing match. No, that’s too nice. It was an ugly street brawl. Bridges got burned. It was just plain bad. Whenever you have one of these with your boss, you lose. By definition.
As I said in my comment to Bradley’s post, it all should down to this: Be fair. Be honest. Talk about the hard stuff when it happens, not during the review. Give credit where it’s due. Always affirm the worth of the person.
And no surprises.
Tomorrow: the good review performance reviews.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Remember: It's About Hope
I’ve been reading about David lately, and writing a few poems. He’s a complex character – hero, victim, villain, shepherd, king, almost deposed king, warrior, murderer, fugitive, lover, poet . It’s that complexity and occasional contradictions that draw me to study him. He was human! And with all of the things he did and didn’t do, he was still the “man after God’s own heart.”
David is most closely associated with the Psalms. It’s no surprise that the Hebrew word for remember is mentioned 41 times in that collection of songs. (The word is used a total of 149 times in the Old Testament, and if you add in all the variations, it’s almost 200 references.)(And just so you know, there are 66 references in the New Testament.)
If anyone had a lot to remember, it was David. And in Psalm 25, he used the word three times:
“Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love,
For they are from old.
Remember not the sins of my youth
And my rebellious ways;
According to your love remember me,
For you are good, O Lord.” (Psalm 25:6,7)
My study Bible describes this psalm as a prayer for defense, guidance and pardon. At what point in his life David wrote it is not known, although the “remember not the sins of my youth” make it sound like he was older. Was it when he was being pursued by Saul? When his son Absalom almost seized the throne and publicly humiliated his father? When he had Uriah killed to cover up the affair with Bathsheba, or when their baby was dying? Or was it during a time of war and battle?
Any of those situations might fit, as would others, but the point is that David, in his despair, called upon the Lord both to remember and not remember, the “not remember” being a kind of confession and a seeking of forgiveness. And David, who was a man after God’s own heart, knew of God’s great mercy and love – and claimed it.
What’s fascinating for me is that, for David, remembering was ultimately about the future, and thus about hope. For me, David is the great example of remembrance and hope.
(To see other posts on “remember,” visit the blog carnival over at Peter Pollock’s place, Rediscovering the Church.)
David is most closely associated with the Psalms. It’s no surprise that the Hebrew word for remember is mentioned 41 times in that collection of songs. (The word is used a total of 149 times in the Old Testament, and if you add in all the variations, it’s almost 200 references.)(And just so you know, there are 66 references in the New Testament.)
If anyone had a lot to remember, it was David. And in Psalm 25, he used the word three times:
“Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love,
For they are from old.
Remember not the sins of my youth
And my rebellious ways;
According to your love remember me,
For you are good, O Lord.” (Psalm 25:6,7)
My study Bible describes this psalm as a prayer for defense, guidance and pardon. At what point in his life David wrote it is not known, although the “remember not the sins of my youth” make it sound like he was older. Was it when he was being pursued by Saul? When his son Absalom almost seized the throne and publicly humiliated his father? When he had Uriah killed to cover up the affair with Bathsheba, or when their baby was dying? Or was it during a time of war and battle?
Any of those situations might fit, as would others, but the point is that David, in his despair, called upon the Lord both to remember and not remember, the “not remember” being a kind of confession and a seeking of forgiveness. And David, who was a man after God’s own heart, knew of God’s great mercy and love – and claimed it.
What’s fascinating for me is that, for David, remembering was ultimately about the future, and thus about hope. For me, David is the great example of remembrance and hope.
(To see other posts on “remember,” visit the blog carnival over at Peter Pollock’s place, Rediscovering the Church.)
Interview with a Speechwriter/Poet
I was interviewed (via email) by Maureen Doallas, one of my online blogging and tweeting friends who joins us for the Twitter poetry jams (plug here for TweetSpeak Poetry).
When she sent me the questions, I was surprised by how much research she had done -- Maureen knows how to do an interview right (and she has a lot to teach working journalists about this).
You can find the published interview at Maureen's blog, Writing Without Paper.
When she sent me the questions, I was surprised by how much research she had done -- Maureen knows how to do an interview right (and she has a lot to teach working journalists about this).
You can find the published interview at Maureen's blog, Writing Without Paper.
In the White Tanks
I've been reading The Wisdom of the Wilderness by Gerald May as part of an online book group discussion over at the High Calling Blogs led by Laura Boggess. In chapter 5, May talks about those moments when you're in a natural setting or wilderness and everything blends and focuses into one experience:
“But here’s the thing: IT’S ALL EXPERIENCE! Every bit of it, the oneness and the separation, the immediacy and the distancing, it all happens when it happens, and when it happens it’s as absolutely real as the snow and the tree and the sky. With just a little bit of grace, I can be here, really exist here, present, open available, immediate.” (page 82)
Flash back: Christmas week, 2006. My wife and I, along with Then-College-Freshman Son, flew to Phoenix for the holiday to visit with Graduated-and-Working Son, get to know Phoenix a bit, and visit with Significant Person in Working Son’s life. Significant Person is now Daughter-In-Law.
It was a great week. Phoenix from May through August may be awful for weather, but by December – it’s pretty close to perfect. Certainly perfect compared to what we left behind in St. Louis. We enjoyed mild temperatures, general goofing off, shopping (ah, Scottsdale Mall!), restaurants, and the Arizona Bike Trail (I enjoyed the bike trail; everyone else slept in).
One day, College Son asked, “Dad, what if we went hiking?” Given how rare those requests become after age 12, I leapt on it. The desk clerk at the hotel recommended what he called “the White Tanks,” the White Tank Regional Park on the far western side of the Phoenix metropolitan area. These were the mountains we always saw in the distance whenever we looked west. We packed some provisions and drove to the park.
The trails weren’t obvious, but we finally found one, and began hiking. We generally stayed in the lower elevations, but it was still a strenuous hike.
And it was dry, dusty and rocky – what you expect as the desert floor rose into the mountains. The trail we were on, one of several in the park, meandered near the front of the park but generally kept moving up. At times, the trail disappeared in a stretch of flat rock, and then we’d find it again.
When we reached the end (which was up and high), the view was breathtaking – the entire valley containing the metropolitan Phoenix area was below and stretched out before us. There were still higher mountains behind us, but this was enough a spectacular view in and of itself.
It was stunning – and in that moment, it all fused together – the view, the hike up the mountains, the desert, the dryness and dust, the rock outcroppings. It came together in that “all experience” May describes. For some time, we said nothing – just looked, watched and moved quietly. It was indeed an experience of oneness – everything together as one, including us.
Flash back: Christmas week, 2006. My wife and I, along with Then-College-Freshman Son, flew to Phoenix for the holiday to visit with Graduated-and-Working Son, get to know Phoenix a bit, and visit with Significant Person in Working Son’s life. Significant Person is now Daughter-In-Law.
It was a great week. Phoenix from May through August may be awful for weather, but by December – it’s pretty close to perfect. Certainly perfect compared to what we left behind in St. Louis. We enjoyed mild temperatures, general goofing off, shopping (ah, Scottsdale Mall!), restaurants, and the Arizona Bike Trail (I enjoyed the bike trail; everyone else slept in).
One day, College Son asked, “Dad, what if we went hiking?” Given how rare those requests become after age 12, I leapt on it. The desk clerk at the hotel recommended what he called “the White Tanks,” the White Tank Regional Park on the far western side of the Phoenix metropolitan area. These were the mountains we always saw in the distance whenever we looked west. We packed some provisions and drove to the park.
The trails weren’t obvious, but we finally found one, and began hiking. We generally stayed in the lower elevations, but it was still a strenuous hike.
And it was dry, dusty and rocky – what you expect as the desert floor rose into the mountains. The trail we were on, one of several in the park, meandered near the front of the park but generally kept moving up. At times, the trail disappeared in a stretch of flat rock, and then we’d find it again.
When we reached the end (which was up and high), the view was breathtaking – the entire valley containing the metropolitan Phoenix area was below and stretched out before us. There were still higher mountains behind us, but this was enough a spectacular view in and of itself.
It was stunning – and in that moment, it all fused together – the view, the hike up the mountains, the desert, the dryness and dust, the rock outcroppings. It came together in that “all experience” May describes. For some time, we said nothing – just looked, watched and moved quietly. It was indeed an experience of oneness – everything together as one, including us.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
David, Hillside
On my rock,
My rock on the
Hill,
I sit to watch
And tend
My father’s flock.
It’s lonely, this place.
Watching is
What I do, mostly,
Except to play
My stones and sling
Against the wayward wolf.
When I talk to the flock,
They baa-laugh
And move away from
The crazy boy.
On my rock,
I dream my Lord,
My Lord most
High,
Who drew me from
My father’s seed,
Knit me in
My mother’s womb,
Breathed spirit
Into my soul.
I feel his breath
In the wind,
His tears of joy
In the rain,
His heart in the warming
Of the summer sun.
He plays with me,
Sings to me,
Coaxes me from
My shyness
To talk with him,
A conversation of
Tender moments.
I hear his laughter
In the birds
Above me.
Then, his voice.
Even as he
Frolics with me,
His voice.
The time is coming,
My beloved.
I teach you, now,
So you will be, then.
He calls me beloved,
As he holds me
Like a lamb
In the palm of
His hand, kissing
My brow
With drops of
Morning mist,
Gently,
Like a lover.
(This week, for the Random Act of Poetry over at the High Calling Blogs, the subject is "Love in Character," a love poem written in character -- real or fictional. If you'd like your love poem in character included, you can leave a comment here at Seedlings in Stone.)
My rock on the
Hill,
I sit to watch
And tend
My father’s flock.
It’s lonely, this place.
Watching is
What I do, mostly,
Except to play
My stones and sling
Against the wayward wolf.
When I talk to the flock,
They baa-laugh
And move away from
The crazy boy.
On my rock,
I dream my Lord,
My Lord most
High,
Who drew me from
My father’s seed,
Knit me in
My mother’s womb,
Breathed spirit
Into my soul.
I feel his breath
In the wind,
His tears of joy
In the rain,
His heart in the warming
Of the summer sun.
He plays with me,
Sings to me,
Coaxes me from
My shyness
To talk with him,
A conversation of
Tender moments.
I hear his laughter
In the birds
Above me.
Then, his voice.
Even as he
Frolics with me,
His voice.
The time is coming,
My beloved.
I teach you, now,
So you will be, then.
He calls me beloved,
As he holds me
Like a lamb
In the palm of
His hand, kissing
My brow
With drops of
Morning mist,
Gently,
Like a lover.
(This week, for the Random Act of Poetry over at the High Calling Blogs, the subject is "Love in Character," a love poem written in character -- real or fictional. If you'd like your love poem in character included, you can leave a comment here at Seedlings in Stone.)
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