How Can You Tell? – Page 42 – Disney Customer Service Keynote Speaker

Buddhist Monk Meets Humble Servant?

Do you challenge yourself each and every day? To learn, to grow, to stretch?

So Wednesday I fly from Orlando to Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University, and site of the Leadership workshop I conducted on Thursday. But because the departing flight was so early, I waited until I unpacked at the hotel to go for a 30-minute run around campus.

Enter the Dalai Lama.

He was at Indiana University to speak. Outside the building, many visitors were mixing and mingling. Two TV cameras on tripods were taping “interviews”.

One Monk was sitting quietly on a bench, reading. Politely asking if I could speak with him, we engaged in a 15-minute conversation. He had just come from Nepal a week earlier. Our conversation was casual, easy, respectful.

Perhaps it was my accent, coupled with my ignorance – my depth of Buddhist understanding is quite shallow, so I asked, “What’s at the very center of Buddhism?”

It took several minutes to explain the question’s intent, including sharing, “At the center of my Christian beliefs is Jesus, Love.”

He thought for a brief moment and said, “Compassion.”

I exclaimed, “Like Love!”

Why Go To Church?

A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. “I’ve gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting their time.”

This started a real controversy in the “Letters to the Editor” column, until someone wrote this:

“I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this, they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!”

When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, “Jesus, could you get that for me?”

Kittens For Lunch

Love is amazing. There’s hardly a person on Earth that doesn’t have a sincere and fond attraction to animals.

This short video will amaze you and make you smile, because quite simply, these animals demonstrate the power of Motherly Love.

But it is the Leopard that kills a Baboon for food and discovers an orphaned Baboon baby, that will really help us understand love and compassion as a universal truth:

God’s Holy Word

One Microphone, One Thousand Parishioners

We have teachable moments all the time. Most of them pass by too quickly to be noticed.

A decade ago, I volunteered to become a Church Lector, figuring my new role as a Professional Speaker would add value to the Church.

A year or so into it, we had a formal training class and one of the volunteers got up and made a statement that I’ll never forget.

“You may think you are simply doing a reading, but you are actually proclaiming God’s Holy Word. This may be the only scripture much of our congregation gets all week.”

Rather than judge others, I’ve promised God to do the best with the 60 – 90 seconds He gives me once or twice a month.

At 8:45AM Mass this morning, I hope it’s God’s voice they hear and not mine.

Please Send Me A Sign

Sunday mornings. A day of rest. Looks good on paper.

Two days ago (Sunday), I caught up to him while he was walking and I was finishing a long run. We both purposefully went out of our way to walk an extra 20 minutes, just so we could talk.

He told me he had just asked God for a sign, moments before I caught up to him. He thinks our walk was it.

Sure hope it helped him as much as he helped me.