We in the modern world have a tendency to approach life as a sequence rather than a series of moments. Life is a constant; it's moving and changing and evolving. I, like most, schedule my time, set goals, press ahead toward achievement and accomplishment. Anything that gets in the way, I sometimes view as an interruption of sorts.
Today I read various stories in the Bible and began to notice how different Jesus' approach to life is from mine. His encounters with people seem to be a series of random occurrences. Often he let others determine his schedule. He gave full consideration to interruptions, never allowing them to anger and dissuade him. He paid attention to those who approached and saw worth and value in each person he came across.
Often when I ask others "What are some of the most memorable moments of your life?" I receive similar answers from dissimilar people. Narratives come back in story form depicting someone who displayed kindness, who showed concern, who took the time to stop and listen, to hug and touch. In short, most describe an experience where someone exhibited a random act of kindness towards them.
Life is relational, not formulaic or propositional. More than anything, Jesus demonstrated this in his earthly life. At no point do you see him holding seminars to offer the world propositions on how to get along. He didn#226;#128;#153;t write books containing divine formulas for success and fulfillment. He wrote no manifesto on life. Unlike Muhammad and other so-called enlightened ones, Jesus penned nothing. Others wrote about him, and what they wrote is what he displayed, what he lived out. The majority of stories about Jesus centers on some dynamic of relationship. His two great commandments are built on principles of relationship. Absent of relationship there are no commandments to follow. You can't love the Lord your God with all your heart or love your neighbor as yourself without relationship.
Jesus is a full embodiment of the Kingdom of God. His life displays how this Kingdom functions. Repeatedly what we see through his actions are random acts of kindness. Jesus went around looking people in the eye to tell them they were beautiful, that he stood for them, that he believed in them. He was not afraid of controversy, of revealing the worth of those considered worthless. Often Jesus shunned the in-crowd by extending kindness to the outcasts. I think of all the so-called losers of society whom Jesus touched and changed: the cripples, the blind, the lepers, the prostitutes, the poor, the wicked, the diseased. Entire communities shunned these and told them they were no good. But God, the King of the universe, walks down the street, looks them in the eye, holds their hands, heals their infirmities, visits their homes, eats at their tables. That must have been the greatest moment of their lives. His kindness unlocked the door to their hearts. Kindness rearranged their entire world. Twenty centuries later, that same type of kindness was still at work in the Cosmos, transforming a young boy's life and altering his destiny on a flight from Chicago. As I read the story, I could only think #226;#128;#147; this is something Jesus would do.
At his best, when the darkness subsided and the sun shone brightly, Walter Payton could be spectacular. He was one of football's true icons, a player so esteemed that the NFL's Man of the Year Award bears his name. Those who knew him closely said he was a man addicted to laughter. When he was happy, all he wanted to do was laugh and laugh. Like most of us, he had many flaws. But beneath those flaws was an inherent goodness and deep love for people. He had a genuine desire to make people happy.
If fans approached him with footballs to sign, Payton first insisted on a quick game of catch. If they wanted him to shake a child's hand, Payton knelt down and engaged the youngster in a conversation about school. He understood the power of embracing another life, the impact it can have. While traveling to Orlando for a vacation in 1996, Payton, sitting in first class, was told that a ten-year-old boy named Billy Kohler, who needed liver and kidney transplants, was on the plane, heading to Disney World courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Touched by the story, Walter asked the flight attendant to bring Billy and his father to the first class section.
The flight attendant walked to the back of the coach section and approached Billy and his father, "There's someone who would like to meet you in first class." As Billy and his father are escorted to the front, they see Walter Payton standing in the aisle. Walter greeted them and knelt down to Billy's level and said, "You have been facing a lot of adversity. But know you will come through this. No matter what follows, you need to keep your head up, you need to keep fighting forward, and you need to believe. You have gone through more in your short life than most of us have in a lifetime." Overcome by the moment, Billy started sobbing. Payton reached out, embraced Billy, then tickled him beneath his chin. "You are a hero," he said. "Just know that you are a hero."
That particular encounter had an enormous impact on the life of young Billy Kohler. Through the dismal, excruciating and frightening months of undergoing two vital organ transplants, Payton's random act of kindness helped push him through. On the darkest of days when Billy felt he would lose the battle for his life, Walter's words, "Keep fighting forward," propelled him to hold on and not allow his spirit to succumb. One man's kindness dislodged the grim reaper's grip on a young boy's life, supplying him with the strength and courage needed to hold on. Billy Kohler was not dragged through death's dark door because kindness stood in the doorway and blocked his path. Death returned to the grave empty-handed.
It's a powerful occurrence to have someone look you in the eye and say, "You are worth something." We owe it to ourselves and to others around us to engage in such unforgettable acts. Deeds of kindness are a flourishing feedback loop of blessing to our lives. Not only do they awaken life in others, paradoxically, they replenish life in our own hearts, in our immediate world. I have seen this notion proven in the life of a young man whom I met three decades back when he was a student in my youth ministry.
Jon Pritikin is a dynamic individual and one of the greatest communicators I know. His gifts have taken him all over the world, placing him in settings often incomprehensible for a Christian speaker. In the last year alone, Jon has spoken to Arab and Jewish Schools in Israel, Palestine and Jordan; been a featured guest on MTV and the highest rated talk shows in Asia; conducted hundreds of assemblies in public schools in North & South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East; and ministered to vast audiences #226;#128;#147; some a million plus #226;#128;#147; throughout the Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu regions of our planet. Not only has he been well received, he's been invited back and given the keys to schools, cities, and nations. Doors have opened wide for this young man for one reason #226;#128;#147; his kindness.
Jon is one of the kindest individuals I know. I have seen his life in every setting imaginable and ceaselessly and endlessly, he encourages people, he builds them up, he lifts their spirits. His acts of kindness are constantly inspiring others and bettering their lives. Never have I heard him speak an unkind word of another. His life is a living testament of kindness. And that kindness has returned to him a hundredfold in the opportunities he has been given. Kindness opens your life to a world of bounty and blessing, it opens doors leading to wonder and astonishment.
A person's worth is determined not by appearance or income, ethnic background or citizenship status, but rather is bestowed as a sacred inviolable gift of God. How we respond matters. Our choice of kindness makes a difference not only to us and our own destiny, but amazingly, to God himself. God gives us all the opportunity to participate in the restoration of people's lives. He allows us to help reverse the pain and unfairness of this world. Like Walter Payton, like Jon Pritikin, like Jesus himself, may we be kindhearted people. Random kindness makes a loving God visible in an unloving world.
P.S. For more information on Jon Pritikin, go to Feelthepower.org. I highly recommend you support his ministry.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Reflections
It has taken me a long time and involvements all over the world to learn what I now know about love and fate and destiny, about God and life and the choices we make as individuals and how those choices influence and impact, yet do not concretely define nor do they necessarily shape us or our future.
Somehow, through the screaming in my mind over these last four years, in times of a shackled and bloody helplessness; times of being chained and treated like an animal, tossed and locked in some chaotic world of disbelief, I realized I was still free; free to dream and believe, free to hope and pursue.
It does not sound like much, I know. But in the grasp and wound of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom becomes a universe of possibility. The choice you make between your past and your future, by selecting freedom despite circumstance, you can rewrite the story of your life and ultimately lead to fresh beginnings filled with the same wonder once lived and experienced. Except maybe, this time around you will experience a heightened awareness and intensified sensitivity to the important affairs of life, to issues that genuinely matter, leading you to a strengthened contentment and gratifying fulfillment neither temporary nor fleeting.
In my past, inexplicably and for reasons unknown, I often failed to express the feelings in my heart to those I love and care about. Words that I should have spoken were left unsaid. Perhaps this is the most important verity of life I have come to realize and comprehend. By choosing freedom in captivity I have illuminated my past, flashing great light in shadowy domiciles of that past. The past reflects eternally, between two mirrors, and our lives are lived within those reflections – the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of regret from things we didn't do or say.
The past, for many, is repressive. It can bind and muddle, loot and plunder, completely disrupt and impede the future, causing one’s life to be lived in the dark mirror. Or the repression can breed resistance through the choice of freedom. The truth is, no matter where you've been or what you've done, no matter how good or bad the experiences, you can change your life with the single act of choosing freedom.
Choosing freedom empowers the repression of the past to become resistance; resistance from making similar mistakes; resistance from living in a realm defined by any given environment; resistance from responding in kind to unkind acts and words of insult and injury. Choosing freedom has taught me to resist living a life in which people are taken for granted, where expression, gratitude, and kindness remain in some untapped reservoir of the heart, foolishly believing those articulations will avail themselves somewhere down the road. Words and deeds left unexpressed are not saved but squandered. May we not waste those moments we are given to enrich the lives of others whom we love and cherish. May we live every day in the reflections of the bright mirror.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Christmas
Snow was falling heavily on the mountains of Lebanon three weeks before Christmas. A dense flurry of wet flakes dotted the air and sheathed the torpid ground. Beautiful peaks rising graciously above the Mediterranean were blanketed in a fresh white powder. The chill of winter set in. And somewhere in the cold, dark white night, a broken and bruised man tarried anxiously in his cell. Playing solitaire by candlelight, Terry Anderson endured his last hours of captivity. Soon he hoped to reenter a world from which he was brutally abducted seven years earlier. A ray of light was about to shine in a very dark corner of the world.
Terry Anderson's last hours of isolation passed with eternal slowness. Time stood deathly still as the darkness thickened. Two days earlier, Allan Steen and Joseph Cicippio were freed, leaving Anderson alone as the remaining U.S. hostage in Lebanon. The release of his colleagues lifted his spirits and raised his hopes of tasting freedom. But now gloom and misery enveloped him yet again as his captors argued over letting him go. They felt they needed a bargaining chip to ensure their safety. And Terry was the only chip left. So alone he sat in his dungeon of despair, hoping to be as fortunate as his friends, wondering if his nightmare would ever end. As the angst and tension swelled, he dropped to the floor and disconsolately petitioned God to intervene: "Please allow me to embrace my daughter for the first time and to be in my wife's arms for Christmas." Somewhere in the heavens, a broken father's cry was heard. Soon he would hold his little girl who came into the world a few weeks after his violent kidnapping. And for the first time in her seven years of life, a young daughter would be held, kissed and cuddled by her daddy. A fractured family was about to receive a miracle. And it would arrive at the most miraculous time of the year – Christmas.
Slowly, unconfirmed reports began to trickle out of Beirut: Terry Anderson was released. The best known and longest held hostage was free. After 2,455 days of torture, isolation, and separation, he was reportedly traveling east to the Syrian capital of Damascus to be turned over to U.S. Officials. And on December 3, 1991, I caught a glimpse of him for the first time. His picture was stunning. I expected to see a battered, depressed and bitter individual suffering from mental anguish and physical pain. Instead I saw the opposite. I viewed a man who had the generosity of spirit to smile. There was a radiant joy in his countenance when he walked out of captivity into a roomful of colleagues and told them "You can't imagine how glad I am to see you. I've thought about this moment for a long time, and now it's here, and I'm scared to death. I don't know what to say."
Even more impressive though is what he did not say. Here was a man who had been wrapped like a corpse from head to foot in adhesive tape and moved from one hiding place to another in a coffin. This was a man who lived in airless, windowless cells, blindfolded and chained to walls. Rarely could he stand upright because these cells were scarcely larger than a grave. For seven years he survived extreme temperatures, wore the same clothes - mostly underwear and socks - and was trussed by steel chains that were seldom unlocked. He lived months on end without bathing and when the rare opportunity was granted to wash himself, he was forced to share the same dirty water of other hostages. Through the years in captivity, he suffered countless beatings and endured days and nights of endless emotional and verbal abuse, often in complete darkness. Rarely was a light bulb or candle found in his cell. And yet, there was no hatred, indignation, or bitterness conveyed toward his tormentors. There was only a great wide smile and a promise of forgiveness for his captors, a countenance glowing with hope and healing. Terry's demeanor and presence displayed a remarkable message, a message we desperately need to see, one that reveals the true meaning of Christmas.
Christmas, it's the most wonderful time of the year. A little bit of light is shining all over the world. Even if you don't believe, there is something about Christmas, something that makes you wish, makes you hope, makes you dream, makes you believe. Think with me for a moment and ponder what takes place throughout the Christmas season. The glow of giving lights up the world. Salvation Army bells ring at shopping centers. Presents are collected for needy children. Neighborhoods twinkle in a gleaming array of colors. Homes are dressed in holiday splendor. Families reunite as loved ones travel across the miles. Sweethearts are kissed under the mistletoe. Laughter seems to ring louder. Fires appear to burn brighter. Children are filled with wonder. Lights are strung. Trees are trimmed. Gifts are wrapped. Cards are sent. Warm wishes flow. Snowflakes fall. Lovers skate. Youngsters sled. Stockings hang. Carolers sing. Grandmothers bake. Mothers cook. Eyes sparkle. Smiles radiate. All this activity is taking place for one reason – Christ the Lord is beheld. His name is on our lips. His spirit is in our hearts. His story is in our presence. And suddenly, before our very eyes, the whole world looks different, it smells different, it sounds different, and it is different. Light is shining in dark places. Hope is prevailing in a shattered world. Love is penetrating the hardest hearts. For a few weeks in December, the entire word is transformed because its eyes are focused on the Light of Bethlehem, its consciousness is aware a Savior was born.
In one sense, all this activity highlights the season, in another it takes away from the miraculous message of Christmas. It plays the same role the bright star did when it hovered over Bethlehem in the time of Christ's birth. It adds warmth, color, atmosphere. It points to something greater, something brighter. It's a guide to faith and hope, to healing and wholeness, to love and forgiveness. Yet, often we miss what the bright star of our times is highlighting. Just like those who were alive during the first Christmas: they were captivated by the bright star and overlooked what it illuminated. It cast light on the most spectacular event ever: God wrapping Himself in skin appearing as a baby. While most were preoccupied with the star, the Creator of life was born. As the crowd of humanity focused on the radiant light, it missed God arriving on the planet. Unfortunately, the majority in and around Bethlehem missed heaven opening, missed Divinity arriving, missed Holiness breathing. They missed seeing God in the most spectacular way He could be seen – in awe, in wonder, in innocence. The God who created matter took shape within the matter He created, and the majority missed the Incarnation by being blinded by the star. Little has changed in 2000 years, even among His own people.
At this Christmas season, take some time to look beyond the Bethlehem star of our times: the manger scenes, the Christmas plays, the gifts, the holiday activities, the decor. Think back to the first Christmas and remember there were no decorations and only a few gifts. Yet in its simplicity and poverty, the astonishing took place and the world would never be the same from that moment forward. Whatever you may believe about it, the birth of Jesus was so important that it split history in two parts. Everything that has ever happened on this planet falls into a category of before Christ or after Christ. When Jesus was born, the planet shuddered. In Christmas, light infiltrated darkness, invisible and visible worlds came together. In the cold, in the dark, among the wrinkled hills of Bethlehem, God who knows no before or after entered time and space. And that act gave God a face, a face seen in Jesus; a face still seen two millenniums later through one man's harrowing imprisonment in Lebanon.
Although I cannot always know or understand why something bad occurs, the first Christmas teaches me how God feels about it. Christmas gave God a face, and that face shows me God cares. In Jesus, God demonstrates to us how He feels about the humanity He created. By watching Jesus respond to a lonely hemorrhaging woman, a helpless leper, a heartbroken father, a despondent widow's dead son, a paralyzed man, an unfaithful wife, a suffering child, I see how God feels about our suffering, our failures, our hurts, and our pain. I see how much God cares and how God intervenes in our stories and lives. Christmas demonstrates any miracle is possible and God is able and willing to move on our behalf because He cares. From God's viewpoint, the first Christmas was far more than the birth of a baby; it was an invasion, the decisive advance in the great struggle for humanity. It was an invasion of Light revealing love, hope, healing, and forgiveness; an offensive to show mankind that Light overcomes any and all darkness. Its message insists: No matter how dark life appears from our limited perspective, God maintains control over all things and can birth a miracle anywhere anytime. And this is the message seen through Terry Anderson's nightmare in Lebanon.
In the years of captivity, Terry said the most dismal day each year was Christmas. The day that should have been the brightest, the warmest, the loveliest was in retrospect the darkest, the coldest, the ugliest. Christmas is a time of joy and enchantment, a time for family and celebration. Terry's Christmases had none of these. Christmas for him was enemy captors, chains, and loneliness. And then he encountered the God of the universe, the baby of Bethlehem. In that moment, something changed in him and that is why he emerged from seven years of terror with a dazzling radiance. His trial in Lebanon portrayed a rich, resonant embroidery of the Christmas story, a time when the providence of God and foolishness of human wickedness collide. The barbarians who snatched him from his pregnant wife in the streets of Beirut believed they could influence the western world by using a man from the land of "infidels" as a pawn. Instead, they made it possible for Light to enter a very dark situation and laid the groundwork for the miraculous. God specializes in turning the tables, causing what was meant for evil to be used for good.
Terry Anderson came out from seven years of captivity with a smile on his face, a joy in his spirit, and a spring in his walk because one night in very bleak surroundings somewhere in Lebanon, the first Christmas was relived. Light entered a very dark situation and transformed a beaten and broken man. That Light became the hope carrying him through the blackest of nights; it became the love he clung to, granting him the belief he would someday meet his daughter and hold his wife again; it became the faith he trusted, knowing God could intervene and perform the miraculous, causing all things to work together for good, ensuring good would triumph over evil.
It's fitting that Terry was released during the Christmas season. He brought a gift for the whole world to see. This gift had no wrappings. Nor were there ribbons and bows. The gift was a message displaying the true meaning of Christmas. The message seen in Terry Anderson's seven-year ordeal in Beirut is the same message that appeared on the face of the earth some 2,000 years before in a filthy manger in Bethlehem. No the message is not giving. Nor is it love alone. And it's much more than peace. It's something a little deeper. Christmas shows us there is Light in the midst of a dark world, Light in the midst of troubled hearts, Light in the midst of distressed times. No wonder a choir of angels broke out in spontaneous song, disturbing not only a few shepherds, but the entire universe. Christmas made it possible to resolve all disharmonies in our lives, sometimes in the most miraculous ways.
Monday, October 10, 2011
A Dying Man's Words to Live By
As Steve Jobs is laid to rest, I would like to share with you some profound thoughts he gave in the Commencement address at Stanford University in 2005. I encourage you to watch or read the speech in its entirety when you have an opportunity. You can find it on the web. In the meantime, contemplate the words below. They truly are words to live by.
On Love and Loss and Failure
We had just released our final creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? I really didn't know what to do for months. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance.
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
On Death and Life
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
On the Loss of an Icon and Personal Hero
Maybe once every century, God seems to bless humanity with a person who changes the world in a way that alters the form and function of our lives, ultimately changing the way we live our lives. In centuries past, the planet was blessed with names like Da Vinci, Edison, and Ford. In our lifetime we were blessed with Steve Jobs.
A week ago today, I was on the phone with a dear friend who is a regular visitor at the Jobs' home in Palo Alto. At some point in our conversation I asked him if he had recently seen Steve Jobs. Martin grew eerily quiet for a long moment. Then in a broken voice he said, "He is not going to make it, he will pass any day." He went on to describe the atmosphere at the Jobs' home and shared tidbits from a recent conversation he’d had with Steve's wife Laurene. When I hung up the phone, I found myself deeply saddened. I walked back to my room in a cloud of depression. For the second time this year, I was about to lose a hero.
A few months back, David Wilkerson was tragically killed in a head-on collision. His vehicle was hit by an eighteen-wheeler near his home in East Texas. The news of his tragic death devastated me. He was a spiritual mentor to me, and a life hero. Now six months later, the second of my three heroes in life was about to die. And it was very difficult for me to fathom, understand, and accept.
Once I was back in my room, I grabbed my Bible and read various stories of miraculous acts of healing. It seems I wanted to remind God of what he could do. If he could raise numerous individuals from the dead, he could certainly heal a very sick man in Palo Alto. Eventually I dropped to my knees and began to pray. I fervently pleaded with God to heal Steve Jobs. He was way to young to die. I pleaded for mercy and grace, for a miracle to take place. I asked God to please extend the life of one of my heroes. My prayer was not answered. Steve passed away four days later at the age of fifty-six.
There is so much to be said about the life of Steve Jobs. Instead of recanting all he has accomplished, I would like to tell you why he is one of my heroes. He made the world smaller. His ideas and inventions turned a very large planet into a global village. He was a man of vision, of brilliance, of passion and he was blessed with the ability to figure out what we wanted before we knew we wanted it. He rebuilt the world to fit his own digital vision.
Steve Jobs was a pioneer, a trailblazer, a man who believed he could make a dent in the universe. With a messianic intensity, he preached a message that technology was a tool to improve human life and unleash creativity. He had complete faith in his intuition and embraced personality traits that some considered flaws – narcissism, perfectionism – to lead Apple in a stunning comeback from near bankruptcy, turning it into the world's most valuable company.
Steve’s life and the battles he underwent inspired my life in numerous ways. From my earliest days of leading others, I embraced his style and example. Employees and friends would often hear me mention his name in relation to some vision, some hope, some dream I had for my own life, my ministry, or the organizations I led and directed. He had a profound impact on my life in two distinct ways.
Steve Jobs was a creative genius. He believed anything could be accomplished. He lived in a realm seemingly above obstacles, limits, borders and possessed a convention-bucking vision of what something could become. He was committed to excellence and made sure that the tiniest details were perfect. His example was my inspiration to launch an organization that conducted nationwide youth conventions designed to be powerful in content, creative in presentation, and life-altering in experience. In these gatherings, thousands of teens were inspired to sacrifice a few weeks of their lives to serve others in foreign lands on trips we provided.
Everything that went into the development and planning of this organization was driven by a desire to do something no one was doing and to give teenagers an experience unlike any they had previously encountered. We tried our best to do everything with a spirit of excellence and this extended to all facets of advertising, production, communication, publication, and presentation.
When I initially started the company, I was met with opposition. We were affiliated with a worldwide Christian denomination that was somewhat rigid and conservative. For the most part, the large organization was entrenched in a traditional style of communication. Many thought my style and vision was too "secular" and way over the top. However, I would not let the naysayers hinder me. I did not allow their opinions to compromise my vision, belief, and creativity. Back then it was difficult to wade into old industry with a new idea. But I would not give up and the results of chasing a dream were astonishing. Because I was blessed with an amazing staff of individuals who were extremely gifted, talented, and supportive of my ideas, the lives of tens of thousands of young people were greatly impacted and inspired. Thousands traveled to nations on every continent to aid and assist others. This was a direct result of Steve Jobs and the enormous impact he had on my life. His example taught me to never give up, to do everything with excellence, and to pursue my passion and dreams. His life also taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned: Do not waste the years spent in exile.
In 1985, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. In a boardroom coup, the company he founded ousted him, deposing the tech king from the palace he had built. "What had been the focus of my entire life was gone and it was devastating. I was a very public failure," Jobs said in a speech given at Stanford University. This was one of three serious reversals in his life that illustrated rejection, exclusion, and extinction. It sent him into exile, into the wilderness. And he did not let those years go to waste. Instead of resting on his laurels and fading into oblivion, he allowed the time of being away to strengthen him and shape him into the lateral thinker and innovator he became.
In the twelve years he spent in exile, Steve Jobs reinvented himself. Scrupulous examination of faults, failures, and personal shortcomings enabled him to make adjustments. The heaviness of going from America's wunderkind to a perceived failure was replaced by a lightness of beginning again, of starting over, of transforming himself. The years of living in the wilderness – where people abandon you, where they write you off, where they believe every negative story – were not wasted. They prepared him for a comeback, and what a comeback it was. In 1997, he returned from exile to retake the helm of his beloved Apple – teetering on the edge of extinction – and saved it from collapse. For the next fourteen years he forged his singular vision through a combination of inspiration and gut instinct. He upended entire industries. Personal computing. The music business. Publishing. Hollywood. Cell phones. All have been radically transformed by Steve Jobs.
Living in exile, in the wilderness, is very difficult. It's a barren and empty and lonely existence, a stark contrast to the days you stood on top of the world, basking in success, surrounded by friends and admirers. When failure casts you into the outer limits, a majority of those who once stood with you no longer stand. Individuals you helped are nowhere to be found. People you opened doors for now slam those same doors and shut you out. Often you are abandoned to your own wanderings with little support.
Steve Jobs' years in exile have inspired me to not waste my years in such surroundings. I have learned to use this time in the wilderness to reinvent myself, to rediscover my passion, my calling, my purpose. In the incurious world of today, one focused mainly on comfort and ease, his example pushes me down the harsh path of self-examination to ask painful questions of myself: How did I allow my life to get into this situation? What was my role in the failure of my marriage? How can I be a better man, a better father, a better husband, a better friend? The years in exile are shaping me.
Self-examination is the most difficult path to travel. But introspection is the one path we must travail during our time in the wilderness. It was this path that transformed Steve Jobs into the remarkable individual he became, a man who changed the world for all of us.
Rest in peace Steve Jobs. I and the rest of humanity will sorely miss you. Thank you for sharing your brilliance with all of our lives. You changed how the world works and how the world imagines itself. You have shown us how to use our gifts to make the world a better and brighter place. May we follow the shining path you left and illuminate the world around us.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Case of Charlie Engle and Liar Loans
Charlie Engle is an astonishing individual. He is a man of passion, a man of conviction, a man of belief. He is driven by an innate optimism that believes anything in this life can be accomplished. And he lives out this belief. He is the only man ever to have run across the United States and the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa.
I was introduced to Charlie Engle in the federal system, a place we now both reside. Like me, he writes about his life and experiences. He is a gifted writer. I encourage you to visit his website (www.charlieengle.com) and read his inspirational blog "Running In Place." I am certain his words will inspire you to become a stronger and better person.
Charlie Engle does not belong here. What happened to him is nothing more than an outrage. His story magnifies how misguided our criminal justice system has become. I encourage you to read the New York Times article below that documents his case and tells his story. You will get a glimpse of just how quickly your life could be turned upside down and how close you could be – yes you – to spending some time in a federal prison. I also encourage you to read my last blog "Amanda Knox is Free - Perspective." The article below and my last blog will open your eyes to some unimaginable acts that are taking place under the disguise of justice.
In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan
A few weeks ago, when the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, I wrote a column lamenting the fact that none of the big fish were likely to go to prison for their roles in the financial crisis. Soon after that column ran, I received an e-mail from a man named Richard Engle, who informed me that I was wrong. There was, in fact, someone behind bars for what he’d supposedly done during the subprime bubble. It was his 48-year-old son, Charlie.
On Valentine’s Day, the elder Mr. Engle said, his son had entered a minimum-security prison in Beaver, W.Va., to begin serving a 21-month sentence for mortgage fraud. He then proceeded to tell me the tale of how federal agents nabbed his son — a tale he backed up with reams of documents and records that suggest, if nothing else, that when the federal government is truly motivated, there is no mountain it won’t move to prosecute someone it wants to nail. And it was definitely motivated to nail Charlie Engle.
Mr. Engle’s is a tale worth telling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its punch line. Was Mr. Engle convicted of running a crooked subprime company? Was he a mortgage broker who trafficked in predatory loans? A Wall Street huckster who sold toxic assets?
No. Charlie Engle wasn’t a seller of bad mortgages. He was a borrower. And the “mortgage fraud” for which he was prosecuted was something that literally millions of Americans did during the subprime bubble. Supposedly, he lied on two liar loans.
“The Department of Justice has made prosecuting financial crimes, including mortgage fraud, a high priority,” said Neil H. MacBride, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, in a statement. (Mr. MacBride, whose office prosecuted Mr. Engle, declined to be interviewed.)
Apparently, though, it’s only a high priority if the target is a borrower. Mr. Mozilo’s company made billions in profit, some of it on liar loans that he acknowledged at the time were likely to be fraudulent and which did untold damage to the economy. And he personally was paid hundreds of millions of dollars. Though he agreed last year to a $67.5 million fine to settle fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was a small fraction of what he earned. Otherwise, he walked. Thus does the Justice Department display its priorities in the aftermath of the crisis.
It’s not just that Mr. Engle is the smallest of small fry that is bothersome about his prosecution. It is also the way the government went about building its case. Although Mr. Engle took out the two stated-income loans, as liar loans are more formally called, in late 2005 and early 2006, it wasn’t until three years later that his troubles began.
As a young man, Mr. Engle had been a serious drug addict, but after he got clean, he became an ultra-marathoner, one of the best in the world. In the fall of 2006, he and two other ultra-marathoners took on an almost unimaginable challenge: they ran across the Sahara Desert, something that had never been done before. The run took 111 days, and was documented in a film financed by Matt Damon, who served as executive producer and narrator. Mr. Engle received $30,000 for his participation.
The film, “Running the Sahara,” was released in the fall of 2008. Eventually, it caught the attention of Robert W. Nordlander, a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service. As Mr. Nordlander later told the grand jury, “Being the special agent that I am, I was wondering, how does a guy train for this because most people have to work from nine to five and it’s very difficult to train for this part-time.” (He also told the grand jurors that sometimes, when he sees somebody driving a Ferrari, he’ll check to see if they make enough money to afford it. When I called Mr. Nordlander and others at the I.R.S. to ask whether this was an appropriate way to choose subjects for criminal tax investigations, my questions were met with a stone wall of silence.)
Mr. Engle’s tax records showed that while his actual income was substantial, his taxable income was quite small, in part because he had a large tax-loss carry forward, due to a business deal he’d been involved in several years earlier. (Mr. Nordlander would later inform the grand jury only of his much lower taxable income, which made it seem more suspicious.) Still convinced that Mr. Engle must be hiding income, Mr. Nordlander did undercover surveillance and took “Dumpster dives” into Mr. Engle’s garbage. He mainly discovered that Mr. Engle lived modestly.
In March 2009, still unsatisfied, Mr. Nordlander persuaded his superiors to send an attractive female undercover agent, Ellen Burrows, to meet Mr. Engle and see if she could get him to say something incriminating. In the course of several flirtatious encounters, she asked him about his investments.
After acknowledging that he had been speculating in real estate during the bubble to help support his running, he said, according to Mr. Nordlander’s grand jury testimony, “I had a couple of good liar loans out there, you know, which my mortgage broker didn’t mind writing down, you know, that I was making four hundred thousand grand a year when he knew I wasn’t.”
Mr. Engle added, “Everybody was doing it because it was simply the way it was done. That doesn’t make me proud of the fact that I am at least a small part of the problem.”
Unbeknownst to Mr. Engle, Ms. Burrows was wearing a wire.
Lying on a stated-income loan is, without question, a crime, and one ought not to excuse it even though, as Mr. Engle says, “everybody was doing it” — usually with the eager encouragement of their brokers. But the Engle case raises questions not just about the government’s priorities, but about something even more basic: did he even commit the crimes he is accused of?
Partly, I concede, Mr. Engle is easy to root for. He is a personable, upbeat man who has conquered some serious demons. Part of his Sahara expedition was aimed at raising money for a charity to help bring clean water to Africa. "Every experience in life has the ability to teach lessons if I am open to them," he he wrote on a blog as he prepared to enter prison. How can you not like someone like that?
But the more I looked into it, the more I came to believe that the case against him was seriously weak. No tax charges were ever brought, even though that was Mr. Nordlander’s original rationale. Money laundering, the suspicion of which was needed to justify the undercover sting, was a nonissue as well. As for that “confession” to Ms. Burrows, take a closer look. It really isn’t a confession at all. Mr. Engle is confessing to his mortgage broker’s sins, not his own.
Perhaps anticipating that problem, when Mr. Nordlander finally arrested Mr. Engle in May 2010, he claims to have elicited a stronger, better confession while Mr. Engle was handcuffed in the back seat of his car. Mr. Engle fervently denies this. This second supposed confession, however, was never captured on tape.
As for the loans themselves, on one of them Mr. Engle claimed an income of $15,000 a month. As it turns out, his total income in 2005, according to his accountant, was $180,000, which amounts to ... hmmm ...$15,000 a month, though of course Mr. Engle didn’t have the kind of job that generated monthly income. (In addition to real estate speculation, Mr. Engle gave motivational speeches and earned around $50,000 a year as a producer on the hit show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”)
The monthly income listed on the second loan was $32,500, an obviously absurd amount, especially since the loan itself was for only $300,000. It was a refinance of a property Mr. Engle already owned, allowing him to pull out $80,000 of the $215,000 in equity he had in the property.
Mr. Engle claims that he never saw that $32,500 claim and never signed the papers. Indeed, a handwriting analysis conducted by the government raised the distinct possibility that Mr. Engle’s signature and his initials in several places in the mortgage documents had been forged. As it happens, Mr. Engle’s broker for that loan, John J. Hellman, recently pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud for playing fast and loose with a number of mortgage applications. Mr. Hellman testified in court that Mr. Engle had signed the mortgage application. Early this week, Mr. Hellman received a reduced sentence of 10 months, less than half of Mr. Engle’s sentence, in no small part because of his willingness to testify against Mr. Engle.
Even the jurors seemed confused about how to think about Mr. Engle’s supposed crime. When it came time to pronounce a verdict, the jury found him not guilty of providing false information to the bank, which would seem to be the only fraud he could possibly have committed. Yet it still found him guilty of mortgage fraud. “I think the prosecution convinced the jury that I was guilty of something but they weren’t sure what,” Mr. Engle wrote in an e-mail.
Like many people, Mr. Engle’s biggest mistake was believing that housing prices could only go up. When the market collapsed, Mr. Engle defaulted on the two properties, which of course is not a crime. Although his accountant tried to persuade the banks to do a complicated refinancing, they refused and foreclosed on the properties. Like many Americans, Mr. Engle wound up being punished by the market for his mistake, losing all his remaining equity along with the properties themselves. Thanks to the government, though, his punishment was far more severe than most.
At his sentencing, Mr. Engle told the judge: “I can say with confidence that I can turn negatives into positives. I have no doubt I will make the best of it.” With his inspiring prison blog, Running in Place: A Blog About Surviving Adversity, he has already begun to do that.
Even when he emerges from prison, though, his ordeal will not be over. As part of his sentence, Mr. Engle was ordered to pay $262,500 in restitution to the owner of his mortgages. And what institution might that be? You guessed it: Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America.
Angelo Mozilo ought to get a good chuckle out of that one.
By Joe Nocera, NY Times 3/25/2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Amanda Knox is Freed – Perspective
In 2009, the young American college student was convicted of murder and sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison. Lurid and grisly details of the killing of her college roommate were shared by media outlets around the world. The case garnered worldwide media attention because it centered around anomalous sex acts which apparently led to the gruesome murder of a beautiful young woman, and it involved American, French, British and Italian citizens. At the heart of the case was Amanda Knox.
Throughout the litigation, the press vilified the Seattle foreign exchange student. Upon conviction, the denigration and scorn reached new levels. Very little thought was given to the possibility that Amanda Knox just might be innocent. Most assumed she was the central figure of a bizarre love triangle engaged in sexual seance and erotic rituals that led to the death of her roommate. Most of the world believed the story in the media and the spin Italian prosecutors placed on it.
Following the sentence, some watchdog groups unveiled facets of the case, alluding there might have been coerced testimony and prosecutorial misconduct. The Defense hired investigators to dig into the allegations. They presented their case, and yesterday the Appellate Court divulged their findings. As the panel of judges entered the courtroom, no one moved. All eyes were fixed on the judge who read the verdict. Once he announced the murder conviction had been overturned there was an emotional outbreak. Outside, Italian citizens who massed in front of the Courthouse in Perugia also responded in celebration. Back inside, Amanda seemed to melt and collapse into her own arms. There was no elative bouncing and jumping. There was not a response of exuberant joy. There was not even a smile on her face. After some seconds the camera gave us a glimpse of the woman whose life and future was completely altered by the ruling. There was no expressive happiness. There were tears showering a forlorn look, a glazed expression, an anguished and scared face. Quickly, court officials surrounded Amanda and escorted her away so she could privately be reunited with her family. Amanda Knox came into the courtroom a convicted murderer, she left a free woman.
The ruling in Perugia, an idyllic town centrally located between Florence and Rome, leaves me with some observations. One can never understand the magnitude of what took place in the Italian justice system unless they have sat on the other side of freedom. Unless you have found yourself on the wrong side of the law fighting for your life, it's difficult to comprehend the enormity of the ruling in Perugia, a city 20 kilometers northwest of Assisi, the town that gave the world one of its most revered Saints. And you certainly can't grasp Amanda Knox's reaction to her miraculous freedom unless you have stood in her shoes and seen your name paraded in exaggerated, biased, and weighted media clippings that often convict before you have the chance to defend yourself in a court of law.
Yesterday, we were reminded again, there are always two sides to every story. Unfortunately, those who face prosecution can seldom, if ever, share their side of the story. Anything they say is often twisted and used against them. Perhaps the most alarming question that comes from the overturned murder conviction is this: Why would Italian prosecutors and investigators willfully and knowingly misrepresent facts, truths, and evidence to gain a conviction? Furthermore, is this type of activity taking place in the U.S. justice system? I'll let you assess the facts.
The median incarceration rate among all countries is 125 individuals for every 100,000 people. In England it's 153; Germany, 89; Japan, a mere 63. In America it's 743, by far the highest in the world. When you include all U.S. residents currently on probation or parole, our country's correctional population soars to 1 in every 31 Americans. All told, the U.S. incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world's prisoners. And this does not include the plethora of individuals who backlog our courts awaiting trial or some outcome to their case. Nor does it include the countless thousands who are under investigation facing some potential indictment.
The cost of our prison system is staggering as it has ballooned to over $200 billion per year. Meanwhile, millions of men – fathers, sons, wage earners – have been consigned to a vicious cycle of absence, stigmatization, and recidivism. Something has desperately gone awry. Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. Americans are not 12 times as evil as the Japanese, or 8 times as evil as the Germans. It's alarming that the most Christianized nation in the world has the largest prison population in the world. Perhaps our response to crime is wrong and is being driven by something other than justice.
USA Today, Newsweek, and other well-respected periodicals have recently begun to address the chilling disparity of the U.S. prison population compared to the rest of the world. They have asked, "Why are unfathomable numbers of people being thrown into prison? What is driving this effort?" The answers lead to another looming question: What motivates prosecutors and investigators and why are so many individuals receiving draconian sentences? This brings me back to my earlier question regarding the Italian prosecutors in the Amanda Knox case. Allow this question to traverse the Atlantic and be asked another way: Could U.S. prosecutors and investigators willfully and knowingly misrepresent facts, truths, and evidence to gain convictions? The aforementioned publications, our exploding prison population, and numerous high profile cases recently overturned suggest that not only are some guilty of this grievous act, it also appears to be a common practice in our judicial system. The current mandate seems to be "At all costs, get a conviction."
This practice turns our judicial system upside down. Instead of a case becoming about the truth and discovering what really took place, it becomes about the end result. This is certainly what I experienced in my case. Numerous filings by the Government contained statements that were either untrue, exaggerated, or slanted with a bias that was not factual. A story was spun that stretched the truth of what really took place. When my ordeal started, I had great confidence in our judicial system and truly believed the Government would be fair. I learned otherwise.
As I write, a report is coming across the airwaves of another prisoner from Texas being freed from a life sentence after spending 25 years in prison for allegedly murdering his wife. New DNA evidence exonerated him, proving his innocence for all these years. An investigation continues into allegations that investigators and the prosecutor deliberately withheld evidence that would have saved Michael Morton from a guilty verdict. Again, why would prosecutors withhold the truth in order to gain the conviction of an innocent man? Such cases as this and the "West-Memphis Three" fill my mind with many thoughts.
Without question, some within the justice system are no longer interested in the truth. Often they lie and fabricate various elements of a case they are pursuing for the purpose of getting a conviction. Prosecutors, investigators, others on the right side of the law can easily be driven by something other than justice. All who work in this arena are human, and humans are fallible. Some can be motivated to build a certain reputation and make a name for themselves. They can easily use their current position as a stepping stone to someplace higher and better. Convictions of high profile cases make this goal more attainable and ease the transition to a very lucrative world. Could the same vices that corrupt the supposed criminals also corrupt the prosecutors and investigators? Desires for fame, greed, lust and power tempt us all. It appears some within the Justice Department have fallen for these temptations. Think of individuals who have been in the headlines under investigation, indictment, or conviction for some crime: Martha Stewart, John Edwards, Mark Cuban, Wesley Snipes, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Scooter Libby, Willie Nelson. These names should grant some insight and are only the tip of the iceberg. Of these, some went to prison, some reached exorbitant financial settlements to avoid prosecution, and some are still under investigation or indictment.
Two cases from years past reiterate the truth of what I am writing - Michael Milken and Jim Bakker. Both men were convicted of fraud and sent to prison. Milken received 10 years and Bakker 45. Both won their appeals and their sentences were greatly reduced to 2 and 8 years respectively. Milken was prosecuted for creating a financial instrument uncommon in his day – Junk Bonds. This monetary device and trading of such bonds made him a multi-billionaire. It was these bonds that built most of the hotels and casinos on the Las Vegas strip and allowed Steve Wynn to fund his empire. Milken's creative genius caused Vegas to become what it is today. In the case of Bakker, he allegedly fleeced his followers by misleading his television audience on his show The PTL Club. Hundreds of millions of dollars were donated to build Heritage USA and somehow his actions were fraudulent.
Years later, some of the world's foremost legal experts studied these two cases thoroughly. One class at Drake Law School dedicated an entire semester to the Bakker case to try and decipher where he broke the law. Alan Dershowitz, among others, researched the Milken case. Dershowitz also represented Milken and Bakker on their appeals. The overriding opinion of experts who delved into these cases was that neither man committed a crime. The Law Class at Drake University reached the same conclusion. Much of what the Government presented in both cases were lies and fabrications that convoluted the truth of what really took place. Overzealous prosecutors apparently sent innocent men to prison.
Amanda Knox is on a plane tonight traveling back to the United States. After four years of hell, loneliness, and living through a torturous experience, she is a free woman. Many who followed this ordeal rejoice with her. And some are angry and upset. In their mind another "perpetrator" walks free. No matter what side of the fence we fall on, we all should withhold judgment for we are not privy to the inner workings of her case. And none of us were there the night Meredith Kercher died.
One thing I am confident of is this: somehow at the end of the day, justice will be served. People do reap what they sow. The law of karma seems to repeatedly prove itself. And if it does not happen in this life, it will certainly take place in the next. In the meantime, let's be thankful for grace and mercy. They extend to all and have the power to completely transform any person. Should we err in this life, may we err on the side of mercy and grace.
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