Last Monday evening, our Bishop gave the ministers a book entitled "The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make", by Hans Finzel. I don't know who that is, but I found the idea of the book very intriguing for a number of reasons, the first of which is that we at Grandview Tabernacle are stepping out into some very new areas and I am the 'leader' in it all. So, I thought, hmmm...maybe I need to read this book.

I am glad that Bishop Drake gave me the book, and even more glad that I decided to read it. It is full of great ideas, suggestions, cautions, and pithy quotes from many different sources. Here is one I want to share by James A. Autry, "Love and Profit". It is called Threads.

Sometimes you just connect,
like that,
no big thing maybe
but something beyond the usual business stuff.
It comes and goes quickly
so you have to pay attention,
a change in the eyes
when you ask about the family,
a pain flickering behind the statistics
about a boy and a girl in school,
or about seeing them every other Sunday.
An older guy talks about his bride,
a little affectation after twenty-five years.
A hot-eyed achiever laughs before you want him to.
Someone tells about his wife's job
or why she quit working to stay home.
An old joker needs another laugh on the way
to retirement.
A woman says she spends a lot of her salary
on an au pair
and a good one is hard to find
but worth it because there's nothing more important
than the baby.
Listen.
In every office
you hear threads
of love and joy and fear and guilt,
the cries for celebration and reassurance,
and somehow you know that connecting those threads
is what you are supposed to do,
and business takes care of itself.

I don't suppose I can commit this to memory, or even want to; but I do want to remember the gist of the poem -- care about others, listen for the little clues that lead to great deliverance and help. If you are reading this, I hope it blessed you as much as it did me.