Compassionate leadership

I read this on leadership expert John C. Maxwell's Leadership Wired newsletter (http://www.injoy.com/) and thought I'd share it here. It is challenging and thought-provoking.

COMPASSIONATE LEADERSHIP
Consider these sobering statistics:
• Two of three Americans are overweight.

• One child dies of hunger in the world every four seconds.

To feed a starving child for a year costs roughly $200, about the same amount the average American spends each year on soft drinks. By simply passing up soda, Americans could cut child hunger by 75% worldwide.

Leaders are responsible for leveraging their influence to serve others. When leaders use power for selfish benefit, we commonly refer to their “abuse” of power. Would it be a stretch to claim that Americans abuse their power by guzzling sodas when malnourished children are dying in slums?

Now, it’s impractical to think that Americans would never spend another dollar for Pepsi or Coke, and it’s unreasonable to ask of them. However, when 65% of Americans are overweight, surely some changes can be made to cut consumption in the USA and give generously to those in poverty around the world.

The list of the world’s ailments can be daunting—AIDS, starvation, water shortages, environmental contamination, etc. However, the affluence of Americans may be equal to the task, if only leaders would mobilize the resources within their grasp.

Many are simply too lazy to contribute to social causes, or they refuse to let the world’s problems disrupt their comfort. Still others justify their inaction by citing the “drop in the bucket” mentality. However, with enough drops, a bucket gets full.

Leaders are honor-bound to assist those in need. In the words of U2’s Bono, “In the Global Village, distance no longer decides who is your neighbor, and ‘Love thy neighbor’ is not advice, it’s a command.” In the age of globalization, we buy shoes made in China, shirts from India, oil from the Middle East, and diamonds from Africa. Is it just for children in those regions to suffer and starve while ours eat potato chips and play X-box?

THE CHALLENGE
How are you modeling compassionate leadership?

To what causes are you lending your resources?

How are you inspiring others to give generously to social causes?

Mike and I have had the pleasure of sponsoring two children through two different Christian relief organizations, Compassion International and World Vision. (The photo above is from Compassion's Web site, http://www.compassion.com/. A little girl named Hanna has a tea party outside her home in Guatemala.) Through Compassion, we sponsor a 13-year-old girl named Princy who lives in India, and through World Vision (http://www.worldvision.org/), we sponsor 6-year-old Lawrence who lives in Zimbabwe. Our monthly sponsorships provide Princy and Lawrence with basic needs -- health care, education, school supplies, spiritual teaching and formation, etc.

I started sponsoring Princy in 2001, before Mike met and I got married. I was inspired to start sponsoring her in part because I had just returned from a three-month experience in India, where the contrasts between rich and poor are staggering. The rich live just like most Americans -- nice homes, nice cars, nice clothing, opportunities to get a good education. In the area of India where I was, the poor live interspersed in the neighborhoods of the rich -- mostly in shacks rigged up in alleyways. Children dressed in rags beg on the street corners. Poor men may drive rickshaws or do the laundry of their rich neighbors. Younger women care for their children. Day after day poor older men and women hammer rocks into tiny pieces for construction projects.

I have also seen poverty in other parts of the world -- Vietnam, Mexico, the Dominican Republic. Seeing poverty like that had an impact on me. I have memories of these places -- the sights, sounds, smells, even tastes -- that snap me back into reality when I catch myself thinking that I'm lacking in any material way. It's easy in the United States to think you don't have enough -- after all, there are plenty of people who have more. But how much is enough? And when do we start giving away the excess we have?

Princy and her family live in a fishing village in south India, and it's been a joy to be part of her life for the past six years. We exchange letters a few times a year. A photo of her on my desk prompts me to pray for her and her family. It means a lot to me and Mike to be part of her life -- only one little life among the more than a billion souls in India, but that little life matters.

A few months ago, Mike and I started sponsoring Lawrence, who lives in a community in Zimbabwe severely affected by AIDS. Of the 40 million people worldwide suffering from AIDS, 24 million live in Africa. In Zimbabwe, the life expectancy for women is 34 years; for men, it's 37 years. (This is sobering -- Mike and I would likely be dead right now if we lived in Zimbabwe.) A missionary friend of ours in France recently visited Zimbabwe as part of a World Vision visit, and here's what he said about the experience in a recent newsletter:

. . . We saw firsthand how World Vision is seeking to bring the whole gospel to an impoverished area, empowering local people to work together towards development and transformation of their communities. I was so touched and impressed by the work being done; by the wonderful, all-African staff; and by the response of the people. Everywhere we went there was singing, dancing, praying, thanking . . . What a stark difference from my world. In utter poverty these people find a way to rejoice! There is too much to say! The trip was nostalgic, alarming, exhilarating, humbling and awakening. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

What a stark difference from our world here in the United States, too, in more ways than one. I share these stories about the children we sponsor not because we deserve praise or a pat on the back. We could certainly do more than we do. We don't sponsor these children to earn kudos with anyone, not even God. We do it because we can -- and because we have been blessed to be a blessing. We do it because it's a personal way we can respond to the stark needs across the world. And it's such a reality check for us when we get letters from the children or hear about experiences like our friend who traveled to Zimbabwe.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like noonday." -- Isaiah 58:9-10

"He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God." -- Proverbs 14:31

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese . . .

I saw this story today on Yahoo! News and had to share it. The gist is that New York City is going to require fast-food restaurants to post calorie counts on menus beginning Sunday. (The requirement goes along with a ban on New York City restaurants using cooking oils with trans fats, which also takes effect Sunday.) The fast-food restaurants don't like the new law requiring calorie disclosure on menus, of course, and say it's because the calorie counts will make their menus impossible to read. I think people will be shocked to see just how many calories are in that bacon double cheeseburger. Maybe they'll take their appetites elsewhere. I know I would.

I stopped eating at most fast food restaurants a few years ago, but not because of the high calories, although that's reason enough to avoid them. The older I get, the more I just don't feel very well after eating at places like McDonald's or Taco Bell. I can't even eat a salad at McDonald's. I can still eat Wendy's single hamburgers, and I get cravings for Chick-Fil-A grilled chicken sandwiches. Turkey sandwiches at Subway treat my stomach kindly, but the rest of the fast-food chains make my tummy churn just thinking about eating their food.

Chains refuse to put calories on menus
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Don't expect to see the calorie count for Burger King's Double Whopper with cheese on the menu anytime soon.
Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's are among the chains planning to defy New York City's new rule that they begin posting calories on menus Sunday.
Other big fast food eateries like Taco Bell and KFC aren't saying whether they will comply, but with just days to go until the deadline, the menu boards in their Big Apple restaurants remain unchanged.
All are hoping a New York Restaurant Association lawsuit in federal court will get the new regulation thrown out. Meanwhile, the city won't fine anyone for violating it until October.
"We are not trying to avoid providing this information to customers," said Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch. He noted that the company has made nutritional information available for 30 years on fliers and posters.
However, New York is the first city in the country to require certain fast food restaurants to list calorie counts next to menu items in type that is at least as large as the price.
Lynch says adding all those numbers will make menus impossible to read.
"You'll either have to have a Times Square-sized menu board, or it could look like a bad day at the eye doctor's office," said Jack Whipple, president of the National Council of Chain Restaurants."
Fast food chains also say they have been unfairly singled because the new rule only applies to restaurants that serve standardized portions and offer nutritional information voluntarily.
Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group, had a different take:
"They are afraid that when people see these eye-popping calorie numbers, they might switch to a smaller size," he said. "They feel it is gong to hurt sales."
For the record, that Double Whopper with Cheese will run you 990 calories, or more than half the recommended daily calories for an adult woman.

I've become a recycling nut

A few months ago Mike and I started recycling our plastics, paper board, glass, aluminum, etc. We'd already been recycling our newspapers, but a story I wrote last fall about recycling efforts in Northern Colorado(http://ncbr.datajoe.com/app/ecom/pub_article_details.php?id=84157) opened my eyes a bit. Actually, it rekindled my desire to do my part and recycle what I could.

I used to live in Greeley, Colo., where I'd drop off my recycling at a grimy little place out in the country. I hated going there -- the guys who ran it kind of gave me the creeps -- but I was committed to recycling. I'm not an environmentalist by any means -- I have my doubts that global warming is our fault and that we can really do that much to stop it -- but recycling just makes sense to me. I mean, why throw that plastic water bottle away when it could be recycled into another plastic bottle? Why let it sit in a landfill FOREVER when it doesn't have to? I lived in an apartment in Greeley and therefore didn't have a recycling pick-up service. I had to seek a place out on my own and then collect all my recyclable items in bags and store them until I took them in.

I've moved a couple of times since I lived in Greeley and pretty much forgot about recycling. Every once in a while I'd heft the trash out to the trash bin and think about all the stuff in there that could be recycled.

The story I did for the Northern Colorado Business Report last November motivated me to start recycling again. For one, I did some research about landfills. (For a brief introduction to landfills, go to http://www.howstuffworks.com/landfill.htm.) Landfills are basically big holes in the ground where our trash gets buried. Much of what we throw away never decomposes or biodegrades, and it stays in that hole forever. On the East Coast, recycling is actually cheaper than land filling. Why? Because the landfills are full. Yes, some East Coast trash companies are hauling their trash out West because there's simply more room out here to bury the trash. I also learned that some counties in Colorado are really on the ball about recycling and have county-sponsored programs, such as Larimer County and Boulder County. Others are comparatively light years behind, such as Weld County, where I used to live. Land filling in Weld County -- the third largest county in the state that has a lot of wide open space -- is big business. Therefore recycling isn't very valued.

That brings me to Douglas County, where Mike and I currently live. Since we live in a condominium complex, there is no recycling pick-up. (That's a whole other can of worms I opened when doing research for the story. Apartment and condo complexes are hard to crack in terms of organizing recycling efforts. What happens is recycling bins get set up; residents ignore the signs that say "Recycling Only" and dump trash in there, and then the trash haulers, which are also the recycling companies, get fed up having to separate the trash from the recyclables. Therefore the recycling bins go away, and residents who want to recycle have to find other means to do the right thing.)

But I digress . . . anyway, doing the story turned me into a bit of a recycling nut. Mike is into it, too. Before we throw anything away we ask ourselves if it can be recycled. A few weeks after we started collecting our recyclables, I happened upon a few recycling bins behind a Catholic church. For six months, our little system worked perfectly. We collected the recyclables and would take them over to the bins behind the church every few weeks. Then one day a few weeks ago, we went to the church, and the recycling bins were gone!

There was a sign that said, "Recycling bins must be removed by order of the Douglas County Development Department." I was really mad. REALLY mad. I mean, here we are, two average citizens trying to do our part to help the environment, and the government says NO. I'm not sure what happened with the bins -- whether a neighbor complained, whether the recycling company didn't pick up the stuff often enough or what.

I was mad enough to want to abandon our recycling efforts entirely. But something held me back. I did some research on the Internet and found that there aren't many places you can drop off recyclable items in our area. Sure, if we lived in a house we could pay the trash company to pick recycling up. We could drive 20 miles to Commerce City to a drop-off center. There are plenty of places to take phone books, car batteries, electronics or appliances. But I wanted a place to take everyday stuff.

Today, I found it. And it made my day. Seriously. The El Jebel Shriners have set up recycling bins at various locations across the Denver area, and I found one in an elementary-school parking lot close to home. While I dumped our stuff in there, I half expected someone from the school to come out and tell me I couldn't use the bins. But no one stopped me.

I sure hope this new recycling location turns out to be a good one. I hope the bins don't disappear on us. In the meantime, I think I'm going to call Douglas County -- heck, I may even try to find out who my county commissioner is and call him or her-- and encourage them to start a county-wide recycling drop-off center. For heaven's sake, recycling isn't a new concept. It's the norm on the East and West coasts, and many universities across the country, including ones in Colorado, have campus-wide recycling programs.

To me, it's the biggest no-brainer thing you can do to reduce waste and help the environment, minor though it may seem to the individuals doing it.

SWEEP!

Yesterday was a fine day for baseball fans in Colorado. The Colorado Rockies, after really struggling through the first six weeks of the season, swept the New York Yankees in a three-game series. (The photo here (credit: Denver Post) shows Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba celebrating the final win yesterday afternoon with closing pitcher Brian Fuentes.)

By the way the local media have told the story, you'd think the Rockies had made it to the World Series.

Whoa, now, hold your horses -- there's still a lot of baseball yet to play this year.

I've become a Rockies fan this year in large part to my husband Mike. He follows baseball -- especially the Rockies -- more than any other sport. We watch the Rockies almost every night. Mike also has a kind of inside track on the team because of a weekly baseball talk show he does for KOA Radio in Denver. It's part of his job, yes, but through four baseball seasons of doing the Saturday show and talking to a lot of people within the Rockies organization, he's come to respect what the team is trying to do -- build players from the ground up. Local newspaper columnists and radio and TV sports guys have had nothing but negativity to spew about the Rockies. Early in the season when the Rockies were struggling, criticism abounded about the owners, the management, the players. It was doom and gloom day after day.

Now suddenly things look a little brighter. The Rockies, at least today, are the best team in Major League Baseball considering their record since May 22. The columnists are too full of pride to admit they may be wrong, that building a team from the ground up may actually be working. On the other hand, some media people need to learn a thing or two about baseball -- a sport that is like a marathon (there are 162 games in a season after all), not the 100-yard dash. One local radio guy said this morning that the Rockies were in a "pennant race." If you know anything about baseball, you know that winning three games in a row in mid-June -- even against one of the winning-est teams like the Yankees -- does not make a pennant race. As Mike told me this morning, you don't start talking about pennant races until late August.

The players know this; the managers and owners know this. They're more likely to look at the sweep against the Yankees as just three great games, nothing more, nothing less. The games did make a statement, though. Here's an excerpt from today's Denver Post story:

At 9:30 a.m. Thursday, a battery of friends sat outside Coors Field with cheap beer, warm smiles and brooms. And they weren't the cleaning crew. They were waiting for Rockpile tickets. To cheer the home team. Imagine that.

The Rockies rewarded their faith with a comic book finish. The Legends of Fall were no match for the Legion of Broom.

The Rockies swept the New York Yankees with a 4-3 victory before a third consecutive sellout crowd, sweeping a series that nobody thought they were going to win, let alone dominate.

With a baby-faced shortstop, a gritty starting pitcher and less winning tradition than a leftover sock at Yankee Stadium, the Rockies spotted New York two runs, then knocked out Roger Clemens. Just a month ago, there was talk of Colorado sinking in quicksand. At 18-27, the Rockies were one of the National League's worst teams.

Thursday, they rode off in buses for a 10-day road trip just 3 1/2 games behind the division-leading San Diego Padres, all but cackling at ruining the Yankees' hyped visit to Denver.

"To sweep any team is a great," said Rodrigo Lopez, who remained undefeated, surrendering two runs in 5 2/3 innings. "But to sweep the Yankees with all that mystique, we made a statement."

Today the Rockies are in Toronto to play the Blue Jays, then they're off to two more series on the road. There's still half the season left to play. Last year before the All Star Break, the Rockies were in first place in their division, and they tanked the second half of the season. Could that happen again this year? Sure it could. After all, Rockies fans have been disappointed before.


I listened on the radio to the end of yesterday's game. The score was 4-3 Rockies, and a Yankees batter swung and missed, marking the end of the game. The crowd erupted. I threw my hand in the air and yelled "Woo-hoo!" sitting in my car. It sure was sweet to watch (and listen to) them win three games against the Yankees. The fans came out in droves, too. The attendance for the three games fell about 1,400 people short of an attendance record for one series at Coors Field.

The Rockies could disappoint us again this year -- although I really hope they don't -- but at least for three games this season, Rockies fans and baseball lovers everywhere saw an underdog team beat the world's best-known baseball team -- a team (most) everyone expected to dominate.

Tourists at home in Colorado

Here are some photos of our recent trip to Crested Butte (June 4-7). We spent about four days in this former coal-mining town, now a Colorado ski resort. I've lived in Colorado most of my life but had never been there. (Crested Butte is a bit of a haul -- about four hours -- from Denver, so most Denver skiers flock to the ski areas just west of the metro area.) We hung out in town and saw Gothic and Tincup, two more Colorado ghost towns we can check off our list of ghost towns we want to see. We're kind of ghost-town junkies because we like the history and we like to ponder what life was like for early settlers in Colorado's mountains. We also did some hiking and watched snow (yes, snow in June) fall on one cold, blustery day.

On the way home we drove the West Elk Loop, a scenic drive that took us past the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, a stunning deep, narrow canyon that seems to come out of nowhere -- the landscape around it is a pretty flat mesa. I had been to the Black Canyon years ago; it was good to see it again. We went over McClure Pass and drove through Marble. (We'd been there before -- another great Colorado ghost town known, of course, for its marble quarries.) Then we headed back on Interstate 70 through Glenwood Springs, Glenwood Canyon, Vail, Summit County, etc.

The trip reminded me what a blessing it is to live in such a beautiful state. We plan to go back to Crested Butte in August for a hike over Schofield Pass, a former wagon road between Gothic and Marble that is hardly passable by four-wheel drive now. The best way to go over it is by hiking. We're looking forward to some more breathtaking scenery and a memorable experience.