Story Telling

Today I went to a funeral for a former work friend. It was a sad, teary funeral but it celebrated the life of this remarkable man. There were two parts of the Mass that stayed with me and both involved stories. In the Homily, the priest told a story from his homeland. He related his story to the journey that a soul makes as it goes “home” to God. As I looked around the church, heads were nodding. People were listening.

The second story involved a series of stories told by my colleague’s brother. He had us laughing and crying as he related stories of mischief and fun, food and happy memories. At the end of his remarks, the church erupted into teary applause.

Why do I bring this all up? Other than to mourn the loss of a lovely man, I wanted to remind you of the importance of stories. Your past actions make up a series of stories and whether they are from work or everyday life, they open a door into your life.

As you prepare for an interview, think of real life stories and how they relate to the open job responsibilities. No one wants to hear what you “would do”.  No, they want to know what you “did do”.  Do that and you will have your  audience listening to your every  word.

Rest in Peace Pat Gleason.

Stop the Hate

I went to bed last night hearing that a horrific shooting occurred at a black church in Charleston, SC.  Twitter reports were flooding in and at one point someone was in police custody but it turned out to be a photographer. This morning the suspect’s photo is all over the news and social media.  The story is horrific. A young man walked into a house of God, sat with the members of the bible study group for about an hour, said that something had to be done against the people who were, “Raping our women and taking over our country” and then murdered six women and three men in cold blood. The killer left one witness alive to tell the story. I can’t even imagine the terror and helplessness that those people felt.

Something evil is happening in our country and it's becoming more and more divided as each day passes. We all know it too. The white people are complaining about the black people and the black people are complaining about the white people. And I’m using simple language here. There are hate groups flooding the internet and the news outlets are not reporting the news any longer; they are inserting their own or their network’s opinions into the stories. We are surrounded by hatred and people are snapping. We are moving back to the 1950s and 60s and taking God and humanity totally out of the picture.

I can’t help but think that families (along with the internet) are perpetuating the hatred. When a child grows up with hatred that is the only thing that they know.  When parents, teachers, clergy, celebrities or leaders say something, it becomes the truth. That’s how children think and now, adults too seem to be  losing the ability to think for themselves.

I've over simplified here but as a nation we need to come together to stop the prejudice and hatred. It isn’t us vs. them or me vs. you. We are one people and we need one another to survive as a society and as a people.

"America is nothing if it consists merely of each of us; it is something only if it consists of all of us." 
Woodrow Wilson, 1916