It was in the middle of winter and I was living in New York. The assignment was to take me to The Bahamas. I accepted. The Lutheran School there was experiencing some challenges and the national Lutheran Church asked me to go see if some satisfying solutions could be worked out.
The Lutheran school there had a lot going for it. Nice campus. Committed parents. Some excellent teachers. Fairly stable financial situation. Good reputation in the community. And there were some serious problems. There was a member of the school board who was a strong-willed antagonist seeking his own personal goal to the detriment of the school. Relations with the congregation sponsoring the school were becoming strained.. Teachers wanted to instill good values into their children but they also knew that the tuition funds for many of their students was secured through the transshipment of illegal drugs.
So I worked hard with appointments beginning at 6:30 am and one even beginning at 11:30 pm. I think we made some progress.
I rewarded myself by taking a later afternoon flight out so as to allow time for 18 holes of golf prior to departure. It was beautiful day and a gorgeous golf course. After a few holes I joined another single. He was a very good golfer and had more than that going for him. When he casually mentioned his Manhattan, New York address I realized that he lived in one of the top suites of Trump Tower. As we entered into conversation he invited me to join him for lunch on his yacht which was moored in the harbor. When I asked him how I would identify his particular yacht he not immodestly replied “It’s the biggest one there.”
So I had an elegant lunch aboard. It was beautifully served by a cadre of servants. It was then I learned what he really wanted to talk about. He was about to become a parent for the first time. He knew that I had done parent training and he wanted to pick my brain. He really wanted to be a good parent. Finances and the best schools should not be an issue. But, he wondered, how could he be such a parent that his child would have decent values, be an honorable member of society, achieve their own significant goals, have a healthy personality, etc.? We talked a long time and I shared my ears but also ideas, experiences and resources.
.
We parted and I never met him again. But he continues to occasionally rest gently on my mind. I believe that virtually all parents want to be good parents. They almost always really want what is best for their children. However, their actions do not always match their intentions. I know that too often parents are blamed and not trained.
That is one reason I have just accepted an invitation to spend the month of June in China. I will be there as a consultant to an organization which has just secured the Chinese Government’s imprimatur on offering Parent Effectiveness Training in China. They want to reach a million parents and want to do it with quality programs and instructors. I get to be a part of that. And if it doesn’t include golf or yacht lunches it will still be a great adventure.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
THE SECULAR AND THE SACRED
I was in Bonn, Germany and my soul had been sucked dry. On the one hand I had just experienced a marvelous uplifting and satisfying week. I had trained some 45 psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors in an intensive human relationships workshop. We had focused on parenting philosophies and skills. We did role-plays, guided recalls and reflective listening.
There was confrontation and there was win-win problem solving.
It was all both intellectually stimulating and energy draining. And it was marked by a surprising secularity. While the training was not designed to be religious in nature I was struck by how persistently issues of ultimate value, of God, of religious training of children, or even personal statements of faith seemed to be the one area not to be discussed. The message I got was that modern educated and sophisticated Germans had moved beyond the superstitions of God and faith.
At the end of the training I had to finalize a business contract. The person in charge seemed suspicious of me and on the defensive regarding what he thought were unreasonable demands.
So I was washed out, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.
Nevertheless, the Sunday afternoon was the only time I had left to visit near-by Cologne and its marvelous cathedral. So I got on the train and went. The very architecture of the cathedral is inspiring. Its lofted towers carry one’s spirit heavenward.
Inside, the incredible organ sent forth marvelous Bach fugues. People actually came for worship, standing, filling up the nave. I soon understood why they came. The German preacher was articulate, obviously well educated and a speaker of great power. To this day, 30 years later, I recall his message, “The Possibility, Yet the Verity of Life After Death.” That’s what I needed. There is hope beyond the immediate. There are possibilities beyond the problem. There is life after life. There is a spiritual dimension that exceeds and excels the purely secular.
There was confrontation and there was win-win problem solving.
It was all both intellectually stimulating and energy draining. And it was marked by a surprising secularity. While the training was not designed to be religious in nature I was struck by how persistently issues of ultimate value, of God, of religious training of children, or even personal statements of faith seemed to be the one area not to be discussed. The message I got was that modern educated and sophisticated Germans had moved beyond the superstitions of God and faith.
At the end of the training I had to finalize a business contract. The person in charge seemed suspicious of me and on the defensive regarding what he thought were unreasonable demands.
So I was washed out, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.
Nevertheless, the Sunday afternoon was the only time I had left to visit near-by Cologne and its marvelous cathedral. So I got on the train and went. The very architecture of the cathedral is inspiring. Its lofted towers carry one’s spirit heavenward.
Inside, the incredible organ sent forth marvelous Bach fugues. People actually came for worship, standing, filling up the nave. I soon understood why they came. The German preacher was articulate, obviously well educated and a speaker of great power. To this day, 30 years later, I recall his message, “The Possibility, Yet the Verity of Life After Death.” That’s what I needed. There is hope beyond the immediate. There are possibilities beyond the problem. There is life after life. There is a spiritual dimension that exceeds and excels the purely secular.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Jews: From Prejudice to Partnership
I will be forever grateful for the habits and values I was taught by my parents and the small rather isolated German Lutheran community in which I was raised. From my parents, peers and elders I learned faith, honor, love of country, the importance of work and thrift and the need to care for others. Unfortunately that same community planted within me some seeds which were poisonous and hurtful.
Among those evil convictions is the scourge of prejudice. I grew up with seriously erroneous stereotypes and prejudices. I recall that when an adult from another branch of the Lutheran Church joined our particular branch of the Lutheran Church we described the process as “adult conversion”. I was not even allowed to compete in softball against the neighboring Catholic parochial school lest I become contaminated by their heresies. I could nor possibly imagine that a black person would ever be smart enough to be a lawyer. Persons whose sexual orientation was anything other than straight were evil misfits to be identified only by sexist slurs and to be avoided at all costs.
Jews were, of course, completely outside the pale and I was fed all the usual stereotypes. I had never met a Jew. I do remember being told that a Jewish merchant had opened a store in the near-by county seat and I mused, “I wonder what a Jew looks like? Would he just naturally charge me more for his goods because I was non-Jewish?”
It took me entirely too long to change. That change was facilitated by (among other things) some wonderful encounters with Jewish persons. I recall that when my wife Jane and I were living in Hong Kong she was diagnosed with a possible cerebral aneurysm. We were ordered back to the States immediately. Because of my involvement with The Hong Kong International School word of our distress reached the American community. I had been home from the hospital only a matter of hours before the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, “Mr. Kieschnick, my name is Jacob Rothstein. I don’t know if you remember me. We met a few weeks ago. But I have heard of your wife’s medical situation. She needs the best neurosurgeon in the world. He is at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. I will introduce you and he will see your wife the moment she arrives at the hospital. And”, he added, "should you need help with paying for those airline tickets or for your wife’s medical care, just let me know. I will be pleased to assist.”
Later I conducted a Clergy Effectiveness Seminar for the Chaplains of the US Air Force. It was not surprising that the Protestants and also the Catholic chaplains asked me to join them for noonday prayer. What I appreciated especially though was when the lone Rabbi there invited me to join him in his prayer rituals, at the end of which he presented me with a gift copy of his personal prayer book, a book which I treasure to this day.
Personal contacts kept coming. When I served The Lutheran Schools of Metropolitan New York there was almost always a law suit or a threat of one for one our 51 schools. I always knew exactly whom to contact, namely, probably the best school law attorney in the state, Howard Capell. He always had time. And for me and many of my colleagues, a great deal of it was pro bono. “I care about your mission and your service to those urban kids” was all the explanation he chose to give. He is still one of my closest personal friends.
In all my dealings with the state or federal education offices I found personal and professional support from the Orthodox and the Reformed and from Agudath Israel.
Then it got even closer. One of our sons married a Jewish woman whom we love dearly. Next month a granddaughter will marry her Jerusalem born fiancé in a ritual presided over by her Christian pastor and his Jewish rabbi.
It is not just the Chinese who have taught me “Within the four sea all are brothers and sisters.”
Among those evil convictions is the scourge of prejudice. I grew up with seriously erroneous stereotypes and prejudices. I recall that when an adult from another branch of the Lutheran Church joined our particular branch of the Lutheran Church we described the process as “adult conversion”. I was not even allowed to compete in softball against the neighboring Catholic parochial school lest I become contaminated by their heresies. I could nor possibly imagine that a black person would ever be smart enough to be a lawyer. Persons whose sexual orientation was anything other than straight were evil misfits to be identified only by sexist slurs and to be avoided at all costs.
Jews were, of course, completely outside the pale and I was fed all the usual stereotypes. I had never met a Jew. I do remember being told that a Jewish merchant had opened a store in the near-by county seat and I mused, “I wonder what a Jew looks like? Would he just naturally charge me more for his goods because I was non-Jewish?”
It took me entirely too long to change. That change was facilitated by (among other things) some wonderful encounters with Jewish persons. I recall that when my wife Jane and I were living in Hong Kong she was diagnosed with a possible cerebral aneurysm. We were ordered back to the States immediately. Because of my involvement with The Hong Kong International School word of our distress reached the American community. I had been home from the hospital only a matter of hours before the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, “Mr. Kieschnick, my name is Jacob Rothstein. I don’t know if you remember me. We met a few weeks ago. But I have heard of your wife’s medical situation. She needs the best neurosurgeon in the world. He is at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. I will introduce you and he will see your wife the moment she arrives at the hospital. And”, he added, "should you need help with paying for those airline tickets or for your wife’s medical care, just let me know. I will be pleased to assist.”
Later I conducted a Clergy Effectiveness Seminar for the Chaplains of the US Air Force. It was not surprising that the Protestants and also the Catholic chaplains asked me to join them for noonday prayer. What I appreciated especially though was when the lone Rabbi there invited me to join him in his prayer rituals, at the end of which he presented me with a gift copy of his personal prayer book, a book which I treasure to this day.
Personal contacts kept coming. When I served The Lutheran Schools of Metropolitan New York there was almost always a law suit or a threat of one for one our 51 schools. I always knew exactly whom to contact, namely, probably the best school law attorney in the state, Howard Capell. He always had time. And for me and many of my colleagues, a great deal of it was pro bono. “I care about your mission and your service to those urban kids” was all the explanation he chose to give. He is still one of my closest personal friends.
In all my dealings with the state or federal education offices I found personal and professional support from the Orthodox and the Reformed and from Agudath Israel.
Then it got even closer. One of our sons married a Jewish woman whom we love dearly. Next month a granddaughter will marry her Jerusalem born fiancé in a ritual presided over by her Christian pastor and his Jewish rabbi.
It is not just the Chinese who have taught me “Within the four sea all are brothers and sisters.”
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