The good in a bad resume

In the “What’s Trending” segment on The Today Show last Friday, July 24, Savannah Guthrie reported on an advertising executive who sent out two resumes. The first was your typical resume showing successes and accomplishments.

But the second resume highlighted his failures. For example, under “experience” he wrote: “Worked on three losing pitches; Failed to produce anything worthwhile in my first year here.” Beneath “non-skills” he put: “Could be more punctual.” And under “missed honors” he wrote: “Have yet to finish a book I started writing years ago.” He even listed “bad references” and gave their names and emails.

Guess which resume got the most responses? The “bad one.”

When Guthrie referred to the second resume as the “bad one,” The Today Show’s host, Matt Lauer echoed, “the honest one.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be honest on a resume?” Guthrie then asked, to which Lauer sarcastically replied, “When was the last time anyone was honest on a resume?”

As Billy Joel sang years ago, “Honesty is such a lonely word.”

Why do we try so hard to hide our failures or at least make them appear better than what they are? A football coach once gave this advice on dealing with failures: “When they’re about to run you out of town, get out in front and make it look like you’re leading a parade.”

But most mistakes eventually get uncovered, and sooner or later, they find out you’re the goat and not the leader of the parade.

We fear the consequences of revealing the truth about ourselves. As leadership expert John Maxwell observed, too many people live by the dictum, “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all the evidence that you’ve tried.” Maxwell says of failure: “We hide it, deny it, fear it, ignore it, and hate it.”

But there is something admirable about people who are secure enough with themselves to be honest about their shortcomings.

In the Seinfeld episode, “The Opposite,” George Constanza (Jason Alexander), decides to do the opposite of what he has always done, which often involved a lot lying about himself. The Seinfeld characters are hanging out in their favorite diner, when George notices an attractive young lady looking his way. So he does the opposite, and instead of being his usual cowardly self and doing nothing, he boldly approaches her and says, “Hi, my name is George.  I’m unemployed, and I live with my parents.” Rather than telling him to get lost like George expected, she seems pleasantly surprised and in an inviting voice says, “I’m Victoria. Hi.” George raises is eyebrows, shrugging his shoulders with an “I can’t believe this is working,” look as he glances back at his friends.

It may not work exactly like that in real life, but being honest about yourself has advantages. As political commentator, Randi Rhodes, said, “It takes two seconds to tell the truth and it costs nothing. A lie takes time and it costs everything.”

Of course, we don’t need to share all our deep, dark secrets. Too many people could get hurt if we recklessly share what would be better left unsaid.

So what to do about those failures? Charles Kettering, the great inventor, maintained that we should learn how to fail forward. He gave three suggestions for doing that: (1) Honestly face defeat; never fake success. (2) Exploit the failure; don’t waste it. Learn all you can from it. (3) Never use failure as an excuse for not trying again.

I would add a fourth suggestion to Kettering’s list: Turn your mess into your message. No matter how bad your resume, your story, your life history, God is not through with you.

After all, the Bible is filled with people with bad resumes. Moses had a crime record (murder), a physical handicap (speech impediment), and a bad temper, which had something to do with his crime record.

What would Joshua put on his resume?  Under “leadership,” he could have written, “Stretched what should have been an 11 day hike into a 40 year journey to the Promise Land.”

David’s resume would have included murder, adultery, and being a negligent father.

Simon Peter? Violent crime (Slashed off a Roman soldier’s ear); Failed in a stressful leadership situation by denying his Lord three times.

What about the Apostle Paul? A felon (as an accomplice to murder); had little patience with the young disciple John Mark, refusing to include him in a missionary journey.

What about the Lord Jesus Christ himself? Had someone written his resume from the scene at the cross, it could have read, “Failed to defeat the enemy; only a handful of his followers remained with him; lost everything.”

And the resume would have been honest.

But incomplete.

And so is yours.

If you don’t give up hope.

A Doggone Day

My mom’s voice cracked, then it went silent.  I looked again at my cell phone to make sure I’d called the right number.

“Mom? Is this you?”

The next voice I heard was that of my older brother, Mark, speaking for Mom because she couldn’t.

The day had come. They would have to give Zoe, Mom’s Maltese of many years, to someone who could care for her. Dad, now 91 years old, has fallen twice in the past month trying to care for Zoe, his last fall being serious enough to require hospitalization. And Mom, at 93, isn’t able to care for the mainly blind and frequently incontinent 98-year-old (dog years) pet that has other health issues as well.

When Mark and his wife Joy went through Zoe’s belongings with Mom, she wanted to talk with me, to tell me it had come to this, and ask me to pray for God’s help to walk her through it. By the time I noticed the missed call and was able to return it, she had become too emotional to speak.

This has been far from easy, for Zoe has been like a member of Mom’s family.

Mom is certainly not alone in having such a fond affection for a pet.  Joe Yonan, an editor for the Washington Post, cites a 1988 study in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling that found that among a group of dog owners, 38% ranked their pet to be closer to them than any family member.  He notes that other research comparing how people grieve over pet and family members has come to different conclusions, but at least for Mom, her pet has definitely been part of her family.

When they moved to a retirement facility, Mom and Dad said “good-bye” to their home of many years, precious belongings, familiar surroundings, and proximity to friends.  Then Mom gave up her car, along with driving.  And now it appears Dad may too have to find an alternate mode of transportation. Like many others who continue to grow older, they have become more and more confined to one place as the world often seems to become smaller and smaller. All this can produce a profound sense of loneliness.

Through all the change, Zoe has been Mom’s constant companion. And now she has to release Zoe, too.

Zoe dances around in circles whenever Mom returns after they’ve been separated, even if Mom’s been gone for only an hour or so. And Zoe has her perch beside Mom in her chair. Mom talks to Zoe, and Zoe seems to understand. They watch TV together, nap together, and sleep together.

One time I made the mistake of referring to Zoe as “the dog.” Mom nearly stomped her foot, quickly reminding me that Zoe is not “just a dog.”

In Mom’s world, Zoe is truly more than a pet.

Novelist Dean Koontz described what many pet lovers feel: “Once you’ve had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.”

And so I grieve for her grief.

Many of the common tips for helping seniors cope with the loss of a pet---find a new hobby, take a class, connect with friends, exercise with a group in tennis, golf, or swimming--- somehow don’t ring helpful with Mom, at 93.

When I was in fourth grade, a car ran over my dog.  It happened in the morning on a road that was frequented by high schoolers driving to school. Dad was angry with the imaginary teenager speeding down Hightower Street, “probably late for class,” but Mom sat down and put her arm around me while I cried. I don’t recall anything she said.

Just knowing she cared helped.

The best I can do for her now is listen as she shares her pain.

It’s not much.

But I hope it helps.

When the church bells stop ringing

I couldn’t understand what my two-year-old grandson, Eli, was saying. We were at our church’s playground, and as I was pushing him on the swing, he was asking me something I couldn’t quite make out.

Finally, I got it.

His Kentucky boy accent had his word for “bells” sounding like bales, as in bales of hay. He wanted to know about the “church bells,” not from our church but from St. Augustine Catholic Church, our neighbor on the other side of the block, whose church bells had just rung.

“They ring every 15 minutes,” I told him and immediately knew I was talking over his head.

“Don’t you like the way they sound?”

He nodded in agreement.

“I wanna see ‘em,” he said.

And so we trekked across the parking lot and church lawn to see the Catholic bells.

Along the way, I thought of how helpful the fifteen minute ringing intervals were to me that day, since my cell phone had died, and I had no wristwatch.

Way back when, in the days before cell phones or wristwatches, church bells helped people order their day. Church bells were originally a means for calling people to prayer and worship. Some of the early church missionaries would call people to worship by ringing hand bells. In 400 AD, Paulinus, the Bishop of Nola, introduced the use of bells as a means of calling monks to prayer. In the seventh century, Pope Sabinianus officially approved the use of church bells to call people to Mass.  By the ninth century, most European churches were using church bells.

Don’t worry, I didn’t share that bit of history with Eli. But I did take him inside the church and show him the old bell rope.

Whenever I see a church bell rope I think of the late Corrie ten Boom, Holocaust survivor. She likened forgiveness to pulling the church bell rope. To get the bell ringing, you have to tug on it awhile. As long as you keep pulling, the bell keeps ringing.  “Forgiveness is simply letting go of the rope,” ten Boom said. “It’s just that simple.”

But letting go of the rope doesn’t mean the bell immediately stops ringing. It has momentum and will continue to ring for a while. Similarly, you will likely  have lingering feelings of anger, resentment, and bitterness even when you have chosen to forgive. If you wait until you feel like it, you’ll probably never forgive.

“If you keep your hands off the rope, the bell will slow and eventually stop,” said ten Boom, whose sister and father died in the Holocaust.

As I pointed to the rope, I thought of how holding on to the rope can be enjoyable, even comforting, for as long as we hang on to the rope of unforgivness, we nurse our wounds and even wear them as a badge.  

But doing that can be deadly. An unforgiving spirit contaminates other emotions, and so we move from grudges, to hatred, to retaliation.

Letting go of the rope is not easy. But it’s liberating.

It can happen, by the grace of God.

And it’s necessary if we are to respond fully, authentically to the church bells in our life and their call for us to worship.

Standing outside St. Augustine on our way back to our church, the bells ring.

Eli squints up at them in childlike wonder, for there is something powerful in hearing those bells resound.

And knowing ten Boom’s story, something even more amazing when they stop.

The power of others’ prayers

At the close of a visit with friend who has spent more time in the hospital than either he or anyone anticipated, I asked him what I could do for him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he said as plainly as his physical condition would allow: “I want you to pray for me.”

He knew people had been praying for him practically around the clock. But there is still comfort in having someone take you by the hand---especially when circumstances of life cascade over you till you feel like you are about to drown under the pressure---and praying on your behalf.

He received my prayer as if it were a precious gift---like a cup of cold water to a man who had gone days without drinking.

Does prayer help? My friend would answer with an emphatic, “Yes.” Christian novelist Ted Dekker said, “Prayer may just be the most powerful tool mankind has.”

Some studies seem to indicate that pray does have a powerful healing effect.

According to ABC News, one such study, conducted at Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, MO., divided 1,000 heart patients into two groups. One group was prayed for by a number of volunteers as well as the hospital’s chaplain, and the other group was not. The patients were not told they were being prayed for or that they were part of an experiment. The experiment was conducted over the course of a year, during which the patients’ health was scored according to pre-set rules by a third party who did not know which patients had been prayed for and which had not. The results: The patients who were prayed for had 11 percent fewer heart attacks, strokes and life-threatening complications.

Dr. James O’Keefe, who reluctantly agreed to help fellow cardiologist, Dr.William Harris, conduct the experiment said, "This study offers an interesting insight into the possibility that maybe God is influencing our lives on Earth," while admitting that as a scientist, “it's very counterintuitive because I don't have a way to explain it."

Dr. Elizabeth Targ, a psychiatrist at the Pacific College of Medicine in San Francisco, has also tested prayer on critically ill AIDS patients. She has found that patients who received prayer had six times fewer hospitalizations and that those hospitalizations were significantly shorter than those who were not prayed for.

And Harold G. Koenig, M.D., director of Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, told Newsmax Health that “studies have shown prayer can prevent people from getting sick — and when they do get sick, prayer can help them get better faster.”

There is much about this I don’t understand. Are my chances for healing better if I join a large church so I can have more people praying for me in a time of need, and if so, what about that poor soul who knows only a handful of people because he lives alone in a remote town? Or is it the fervency and power of the prayers and not necessarily the numbers of those praying? Or is it a combination?

I do know God hears when we cry out to him, whether it’s your voice alone, “In my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears” (Psalm 18:6), or the prayers of many together: “They (the early disciples) all met together and were constantly united in prayer…”(Acts 1:14).

When it comes to how prayer works, I don’t have it all figured out. But that doesn’t stop me from praying.

Prayer works, even if I don’t see visible results in the person for whom I’m praying.

Prayer works on me most of all. As Christian author Philip Yancey has said, “When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.”

Holding the hand of my friend in the hospital, I sense the yearning of a person desiring to know the love of God a little better and the heart of a man determined to live so he can tell the story.

And I know that though he is in a hospital bed, it is well with his soul.

Loving-kindness

The bumper sticker had only one word on it: “Loving-kindness.”

And as soon as I read it, I suspected Someone was trying to mess with my mind, for I was in no mood for such a one word aphorism as “loving-kindness,” my patience having been tested by the distracted waitress who forgot to turn in half of my lunch order.

We were traveling back from a restful trip to South Carolina, and the more I drove, the more I traded my new relaxed attitude for my old familiar drivenness, determined to reach my destination by nightfall. And vacation traffic was slowing me down.

I was passing a plain, white, mid-size, economy car, when I saw the bumper sticker: “Loving-kindness.”

The driver, in the car alone, resembled Clarence, the lovable angel in the classic movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, only this man looked a bit older and more weathered than the softer Clarence.

Lori didn’t notice my agitation because she was sleeping, pleasantly unperturbed by the traffic in front of us, or the memory of the waitress behind us---who was at least partially to blame for my agitation, or so I reasoned.

Then I saw the bumper sticker again, maybe thirty or forty miles after the first sighting.

“Strange,” I mused, “how did Clarence II get in front of me?”

By then Lori had awakened. After a few minutes, or maybe seconds, of observing my driving, she advised, “Remember, the main thing is that we get there safe and sound.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” I grumbled.

About 30 minutes later it happened again; I passed Clarence II a third time.

“Am I in the Twilight Zone or what?” I said, pointing to the “Loving-kindness” bumper sticker on Clarence II’s plain, white, mid-sized, economy car, explaining how I had already passed him twice before.

“How does this guy keep getting in front of me?” I asked, momentarily taking both hands off the wheel to emphasize the gravity of my question.

I didn’t so much as crack a smile when Lori giggled.

Thirty minutes later we stopped for a quick break and a cup of coffee.

As the young employee, an older teen probably getting some summer work experience, handed me the change, Lori innocently asked her, “How much is your ‘senior coffee’?”

Then the fun began.

“Oops,” the novice worker replied, “I guess I overcharged you. I’ll get the manager to override the cash register.”

Before I could say, “No, no, don’t worry, we need to get back on the road,” the teen had turned the other way to get the manager.

The manager, looking to be all of 25 years old, openly expressed her frustration with the younger employee, even though Lori apologized for having asked the price of the coffee in the first place.  And the stubborn cash register wasn’t cooperating with the manager, either. All the while, Lori repeated how sorry she was, even as I was tapping my foot, arms folded across my chest, anxious for this little delay to be resolved.

Then the manager said something she shouldn’t have. Murmuring loud enough for me to hear, she complained, “It only amounts to 25 cents a cup.”

Suddenly all the irritating comments of employees I had encountered in my last few weeks of travel were localized in this one, fast food manger. I heard the words from the airline stewardess who bluntly told me, “You can’t keep your laptop there,” instead of a more professional, “Please put your laptop under your seat.” (“Who trains these people, anyway?” I whispered to Lori)

Then there was the stewardess who sounded like Ned in the First Reader as she stammered through the pre-flight passenger instructions, even forgetting our destination, “Louisville, KY.”(I turned to Lori: “If she can barely read and doesn’t know where we’re going, should we trust her to take care of us 30,000 feet in the air?”)

And another stewardess gave us the time from the wrong time zone once we had landed. (“They don’t know where we are or the time. Thank the Lord we made it.”)

And finally, there was the not so amusing waitress who chuckled about how she had forgotten to turn in my lunch order.

I aimed my salvo of vituperation in the direction of the fast food manager: “Excuse me?” I was preparing to ask, “Did you just say, ‘It only amounts to 25 cents a cup?’ So, if I were SHORT 25 cents for my coffee, would you tell me, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, just get kinda close, that’ll be good enough?’”

I planned to clinch with an emphatic, “I don’t THINK so.”

Of course, I was going to threaten her by recording her name, which I would fire off in my blistering report to headquarters.

And then, I saw him, out of the corner of my eye.

Clarence II was standing right there, not 10 feet away from me, nonchalantly eating vanilla ice cream, oblivious to my presence.

“Okay, I really am in the Twilight Zone,” I thought.

Or something worse.

Or better.

Clarence’s bumper sticker, “Loving-kindness,” was blazoned before my eyes like a flashing neon sign.

Calmly turning back to the manager, I said, “We are so sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for your help.”

And to the younger worker, “You’re fine; it happens to all of us.”

As for my speech, it had evaporated into the air before I uttered a word of it, absorbed by the bumper sticker, “Loving-kindness,”on the back of the plain, white, mid-sized, economy car.

Driven by Clarence II.

Whom I never saw again.