The Prodigal Organizer

I was reading in the Bible the other day the story of the prodigal son and I caught something I've never understood before.

The story tells of two sons who are given an inheritance. One wastes his inheritance and sinks to despair while the other takes good care of his inheritance. The wayward son returns to his father and the father rejoices in the returned son and celebrates in his return while the other son feels jealous because he took good care of the inheritance the whole time and didn't get this type of treatment.

So the part that I missed was when the prodigal son returned, he returned expecting no royal treatment at all - in fact he returned with this statement to his father: "I am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants" (Luke 15:19). He knew he had made mistakes and he returned in an attitude of complete humility. Only then was the celebration fitting. Perhaps a lack of this same humility was the reason the brother didn't receive such royal treatment.

This was inspiring to me. The getting done of keeping commandments, serving, performing in a Church calling, donating to the save Japan fund, and whatever else may be needed is not as important as the doing of these things. In other words, if the heart isn't in it, doing all this other stuff is good but just a completed checklist in the end. I believe that what's really important is the state of our hearts, not how much stuff we got done.

So I went about my day trying to keep an attitude like the prodigal son - being a servant. As a result, I worked hard in the day trying to improve things at work, help people, and reflect on how I can really serve better. By days end, my checklist of very good things (like obtaining a list of volunteers to clean the Church this weekend, setting appointments to visit neighbors, helping organize project approvals, resolve conflict on the team, hiring new people, and completing a report to upper management) wasn't all checked off. But I knew I had served from dawn until dusk - trying hard to not think about my own interests as I went. I also believed that God would make up the difference in what I lacked. That felt really good - much better than the geeky thrill I sometimes get from having a checked off list.

Battle of the Potty Humor

Alicia accused me this evening of being juvenile and enjoying potty humor. Offended that I could be seen in such an unsavory light I disagreed.

"You like Spongebob," she rebutted.

"Yeah, but not the potty-humor parts."

"What about the parts where it cuts away to some close-up of a belly button or something with hair and lint coming out of it and there's some horn noise [she makes the horn noise]."

The hilarity of the recounting with the horn noise was too much for me and I started to laugh. "See?" she said. There was no point explaining and I was too busy laughing so I let her have her point. But now, the next morning as I'm writing about this, I remember her doing a little potty humoring herself. As I was getting on the bus yesterday I got this text from her:

"Is this day over yet!!!!"

I came to find out that Claire had taken her pull-up off, pooped in bed and had wiped it all over her sheets, blankets, bedframe, wall and (brace yourself) hair and face. Alicia had to throw away the bedding, pillow and had to wash Claire from head to toe twice to get it off. Not pleasant. Alicia characterized this as "the biggest poop disaster of all human history."  So that's potty humor too, right.

There, so we're both guilty.

Misaligned Feedback

I expect that every marriage has seasons of misunderstanding. This is especially true when a couple is trying to learn how to provide meaningful feedback to each other as Alicia and I did tonight. I had done some things that were not helpful to Alicia and she gave me feedback which I responded poorly to. For a good portion of our hour-long discussion, it felt like we were on opposite sides of understanding and even willingness to change. And then we started talking openly about how we both felt we should offer and receive feedback and correction from the other. The tone of the conversation turned at that point as we identified ways we could improve and committed to each other that we would try again. The whole conversation ended very positively with greater understanding of each other and commitment to try again.

The No Train Date

I've been thinking more about what Alicia liked best about her Mother's Day and I've been realizing that these spontaneous moments where family members are focused on each other are really important. I don't want to miss these. So in this attitude I went on a date with Jace tonight and we had a wonderful time.

Because of his love for trains, we drove down to a nearby train track and hoped for one to come by. Pretty lame activity I suppose but what we really did was talk. I sat in the backseat with him and we talked about the train and would gasp every time we thought we heard one coming. In between gasps, we opened the sunroof on the van and stood up, straining to catch a better view into the horizon of the tracks. We also played a little train game on my phone and talked. Jace was really excited and happy tonight. It was an awesome evening of just focusing on him.

When we were done, we ran to the store to pick up a few groceries. He sat on my shoulders part of the time, and the rest of the time helped push the cart at a pace slightly unnerving for anyone in front of the cart (like me). Jace is usually reserved with strangers but when we were all done, he interrupted the usual check-out small talk to tell the cashier that he was on a date with his Dad. She smiled and told him to make sure he has a good time.

I think he did.

Mother's Day

I asked Alicia at the end of the day what of the various things we did for her today she enjoyed the most. We made a special breakfast, tried to keep her off her feet, watched the kids so she could have a Sunday afternoon nap, gave her an iTunes card and a new frame with pictures and drawings from the kids, gave her notes and told her the things we love about her. She made it clear that she appreciated all of these things but the things she loved the most were not these. She loved it when we spontaneously sang Happy Mother's Day (to the tune of Happy Birthday) and when the kids put on a show for her downstairs where each child took the "stage" for a moment to tell her of their love.

It's interesting that something so simple and unplanned can have that much value.

A Humbled Leader

In the context of the concern from my boss and an ensuing directive that came to take our celebrate success mobile down for the upper leadership visit, I stopped to think about how I was leading my team. I've felt very positive about this team and how things are going. There's a good atmosphere here and I love some of the quirkiness of it. With the help of a few similarly minded people, I've created an environment that I would like to work in. So when others came along to question it, it was really tempting to take it personally. But I listened and thought about their feedback. I also asked around the team and found out some on the team really didn't care about some of the things I was doing. Additionally, I realized that I was doing some things not because it was the right thing to do, but because I thought it would be cool to do it.

As I realized these errors and weighed that against the magnitude of my responsibility to lead these 39 people, I became very embarrassed that I had lead them in the wrong direction. After a few more days of reflection, I sent out a survey to the team to see what tactics/systems/meetings we have as a team that are helpful to them in working better and producing more inspired products. 90% of the team responded and the response data is very helpful. Some of it supports things that I enjoy, some of it does not.

The lesson I've learned here is that it's easy for a leader to plug along thinking that everything is one way. But it takes listening and a good measure of putting your own agenda aside to be able to lead in the right way. I'm sure there's more to learn here but this was a good starter.

Old Man Christensen

Our (mostly) happy family at Dad's Birthday party

My Dad turned 75 today. Yep, 75. I looked on as a picture was taken of he, Jen and Dave (partners in the birthday celebration we were having) and Dad is still full of life but he's 75 and you can see that - especially when you contrast it to the faces of Dave (no spring chicken himself at 46) and Jen (39 I think). I sort of think of my father at an eternal 40. The pictures of him at this stage of his life are the ones I remember the most. At this time, he had dark hair, overly bushy eyebrows, a bit of a belly and a tendency to be captured in pictures where he was playing with the kids. His hair is now much whiter, he's lost most of that belly and he still is often pictured with kids - just his grandkids now.

Dad mentioned today that he plans to live to 100. In fact, he said that if he doesn't life to be 100, it'll kill him. What a cool Dad. I love that he loves life but he's also not afraid of death. I can see Dad dying happy - which is a great statement on the quality of life he's led. Awesome man.