A Plan For Us

My wife and I are on vacation in Kauai and our rental home is located on the Makai Golf Course. It’s a stunningly beautiful golf course next to Hanalei Bay that is home to a myriad of birds and sea creatures. In fact, outside our sliding glass doors are four brown baby Albatross, a rare and highly protected species of bird. The way they are raised is very unique and a bit terrifying. Let me explain why.

To begin with, these four baby Albatross are located on the edge of a golf course fairway. They will squat down in some of the deep rough, but basically they are nesting in plain sight. In late June, when the chicks are about 6 months old, they “fledge”, which is their first true flight. Up until this time,  the young albatross make practice runs in the grass, jumping into the air and crashing down in a few feet.  Occasionally, they catch the wind for a longer leap, but never more than 20 feet.  It is obvious they are not in control of flight yet so they remain close to their original nest site, although they will sometimes travel to adjacent areas.

Fuzzy Brown Baby Albatross

Albatross Chick at 6 months old

Mysteriously, each chick knows when the day has come to fledge.  Behavior changes radically.  The chick appears nervous and agitated, walking into areas previously unknown.  Eventually, he or she finds a path to the bluffs at the end of the golf course, overlooking the ocean.  Until this day, the albatross has not seen the ocean up close.  The bluffs are 150-200 feet above the crashing water below.  This has to be a daunting sight for a young bird who has never flown yet.

Albatross practices his running and flapping skills

What happens next is incredible.  After testing the wind at their take-off point, each chick eventually commits by running towards the edge of the cliff and taking off for the very first time.  Once they have lifted off, they fly over the horizon and start searching for where to fish and to live.  Their first flight takes them out of the sight of land, where they have lived their entire lives.  Having been fed by their parents, a chick has never seen what food looks like in the wild.  The parents are not around on fledge day, so each chick has to learn to find and capture food on their own.

Talk about an eventful day.  The chick sees the ocean up close for the very first time, jumps off a high cliff, experiences powered flight, flies out of sight of land, searches the vast Pacific for the food he or she has never seen, sets down on water for the first time, spends the first night on the open ocean, and that first night is one of many.  The chick remains on the open water, without touching land, for 3-5 years,  They only return to land after their maturing period to start the courting process.  Many chicks hatched in Kauai return years later to the same exact spot where they started life, and begin to raise chicks of their own.

It was fun to watch the young Albatross chicks practicing running and flapping their wings. But it also made me think about the times in my life when I had to tackle difficult and scary situations for the very first time. Leaving home when I was 16, my first real job, getting married, my first child, the unexpected death of my father, and so much more. All of us experience scary times when we have to make a leap, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that if the leap we take is a leap of faith, it isn’t so scary after all. And what is a “leap of faith”… trusting God’s movement in our lives and being confident that He has a plan for us.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not yet see.

~ Hebrews 11:1

Three Things

There is a saying that things happen in threes. I’m not sure what that’s all about, but I think it means that bad things happen in threes. Based on what I just went through, I think it might be true!

My wife and I finally got to take our first vacation in four years. We landed on the island of Kauai last week and the trip started out great. Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and a beautiful golf course nearby.  Unfortunately, four days in things took a turn for the worse.

First off, I got sick and came down with a really bad cough, and ended up at Urgent Care with a viral infection. Second, I also somehow managed to lose my wallet when we went shopping, including all our money, credit cards, debit cards, driver license, etc. That put me in near panic mode because my wife has the same credit and debit cards as me, so cancelling our cards meant no access to money whatsoever. In addition, without a driver’s license I wouldn’t even be able to board a plane to fly home. And if that’s not enough, while feeling sick and stressing out about the lost wallet, I also managed to back into a volcanic rock wall and scratch the heck out of our rental car. Three things gone wrong for sure!

Obviously, if you have read any of my Monday Messages, you know that I’m a Christian and a fairly positive person most of the time. But I have to admit, I was really depressed about this string of bad luck and not quite sure how we were going to be able to enjoy the rest of our vacation. So I found a quiet place, sat down, and lifted up a short prayer. But I decided not to pray for help. Instead, I decided that I should let God know that I was going to be okay, no matter what happened to me, because of my connection to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as soon as I said that I realized that God is three things too, and all of a sudden things happening in “threes” sounded pretty good to me.

A day later, my super smart wife decided to call the Kauai Police Department to check on my wallet. Lo and behold, a local woman had just turned in my wallet with the money, credit cards, and everything fully intact. When I arrived and the police gave me her name and address, I immediately drove to her home and gave her a reward for her honesty. She was temporarily disabled, out of work, and low on money, so she was really happy to receive the reward. And that got me thinking about a quote I read by Dr. Seuss. “When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” I’m convinced now that things happening in “threes” is not such a bad thing!

Okay boys, 

Get yourselves paired up in threes!

~ Yogi Berra

Humble Heart

It is not unusual for a Father to hire a son to work for him. However, it is a bit unusual for a son to hire a Father, but that is exactly what I did back in 1994. My father had just retired from his job as an electrical engineer at Proctor & Gamble, but was still fairly young at 60. And being a humble guy he was happy to help me with my growing business. 

My Dad was more than just a Dad to me. He was my hero, the smartest guy I knew, and a total MacGyver that could fix anything. He was kind, compassionate and treated my mother like a queen. Plus, he always made time for me and made it a point to tell me he was proud of me and loved me. Maybe that’s why he had so many friends. And yet if I had to name one trait that stands out more than any other…it would be his humble heart. I’ll give you two examples.

- In 1967 my Dad was a USMC Lieutenant at Camp Pendleton. He drove a beat up 55 Chevy to work every day and since it was the era of Hippies and Flower Children, my sister and I thought it would be cool to decorate his car, so we put flower decals and “Peace and Love” stickers all over it. Needless to say, when my Dad saw his car he wasn’t happy. No tough Marine wanted sissy stickers all over his car, but my Dad was different. He told us he appreciated the thought, but that maybe just one sticker would be enough. We took off all the stickers except one big flower decal with the word “Peace” in the middle and off to work he went. We kind of figured he would remove that flower sticker before he got to the base, but he didn’t. That sticker stayed in place for years, an obvious example of his humility.

- In 1969 my Dad was stationed at the Tustin Air Base and was in charge of a Helicopter Squadron that was preparing to go to Vietnam. One of the men under his command flipped out on LSD and tried to commit suicide by climbing to the top of one of the huge Helicopter Hangers. My Dad climbed up after him, 300’ in the air, and wrestled with him for over an hour before paramedics were able to subdue him. They gave my Dad the Marine Corp Medal of Valor, but he never talked about it. Not only that, after he passed away I found the Medal and a letter signed by President Johnson buried in the bottom of his desk drawer. He never talked to anyone about the Medal or the letter, just another example of his amazing humility.

Unfortunately, after working together for only a few years, my Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. During the last few weeks of his life, I visited my Dad every day at the hospital. Here again he was brave and humble, never once complaining about his situation or talking about himself. Instead he would always ask me how I was doing and what was going on in my life. As I sit here writing this Monday Message I can see now that he was teaching me the absolute best example of humility…that we should always care more about other people… than ourselves!

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, 

nor does it mean having a low opinion of your gifts.  

It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.

~ William Temple

Good Enough For Me

I travel a lot of miles every week to do ultrasonic pole inspection projects. Sometimes I go as far south as the border of Mexico, and sometimes as far north as San Jose. The work is hard and challenging, but I enjoy overcoming obstacles and being productive, so I am thankful for the work. However, I noticed something changed last week. Schools are letting out for the summer and there are young kids everywhere I go. And not only are they everywhere, they are ripping around on electric E-Bikes like maniacs on crowded concrete sidewalks and busy asphalt streets.

Young kids riding E-Bikes are pretty scary because it’s so dangerous. But watching out for them also got me thinking about how hard kids have to work at school to get good grades and how hard it is for them to have to do homework every night. So I don’t blame kids for going a little crazy when they first get their summer break. I just don’t want them to get hurt, so I find myself driving more carefully and wishing I could join them by taking a summer break myself.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do! My wife has also been working super hard to get her new charity off the ground, so we decided it was time for us to finally take a real vacation. It will be our first vacation in 4 years, and we are excited because we’re going to the island of Kauai. We plan to sleep in, visit a different beach every day, play lots of golf, and eat lots of fresh seafood. We’ve been there before and have so many great memories, but for some reason, I find myself feeling a little guilty about taking time off from work.

And that got me thinking... Hard workers are a blessing because for the world to survive, we need people to be productive. But working too much or too hard for too long can be counterproductive. In fact, I’m pretty sure when God gave us the sabbath day, a day of rest, He knew that the world was going to be a tough place to live and that we would truly need a break at times. So if God thinks it’s a good idea to take a break, that’s good enough for me!

Princeville, Kauai

May the light of God’s love shine upon you

And guide you where ere you may be,

Making lighter earth’s burdens and sorrows

Keeping your soul joyous and free.

                   ~ Gertrude Toole Buckingham, 1948