BLOG, What BLOG?

One year... Plus a bit…ago I started this BLOG. The title reflected my jolt into the world of unemployment and entrepreneurial enterprising, once again. I was not bitter at the time, but shaken by the approach and the lack of respect. Certainly a firm of 65 years would maintain a sense of dignity for someone they heavily recruited, paid less than what he was making at his prior employment and built an educational division out of shambles into a strong and once again notable competitor. No I was not bitter... I relied on great friends, buddies in and out of the industry, and those supporters left behind. If it were not for my family support it would have been very dismal. It is great to have grown children that are smart, developed in their own strengths and willing to combat disappointments, and strong shoulders to lean on. I owe more to my wife than anyone, a supporter, a cheerleader and what sacrifices she has made, just having me around the house more often.  I was not bitter and I’m still not…in fact, I want to thank them!

Exciting things have happened! Sometimes I pinch myself just to make sure I have not fallen asleep and it is all part of dream. I have traveled, but not nearly the same as in the previous three years. In fact I have had weeks that I have stayed home. I have strengthened my association with so many great firms and people. I have been very successful in writing winning proposals and participated in great interviews. Not all of them have turned into projects, but because of it, this year I will be part of projects in Reno, San Jose, Novato, Pasadena, Chico, and the Fresno area. Most importantly, I have worked with some great friends, met some new friends, and have been part of creating some great planning and programing documents. I certainly would not put the changes I have helped to push through at school districts and colleges at the end of my accomplishment list. In fact, they should be near the top. I have helped author long term facility plans that will help kids learn, teachers teach and to make facilities a greater community asset.

I have been so busy that this BLOG has not had an entry since March!  

Last year I posted about being personally ready for 2013. I had a few goals; continue to build the business through strong relationships; strengthen my knowledge base; work with people that have the same motivation as I do; and most importantly I want to be totally connected to my family. I wanted to finish the year with a strong ambition to start 2014! I think I have accomplished all of these goals!

I have learned…
A project win is an accumulation of a number of factors, with the most important one being a strong team attitude. This attitude is not necessarily project specific, but more industry specific. This kind of attitude needs to have a strong knowledge base, a confidence without being arrogant and a continuous listening and learning demeanor. A firm that has a team, office or a solid base that is supported by a confident attitude is going to be known in the industry before they approach a project and definitely before they enter an interview. You need to know and respect the attitudes of your competition. When I attend a pre-proposal meeting and a number of firms attend, I listen to the presenter, but I also pay close attention to my competitors. I'm interested in their mannerisms, there overall appearance, and most of all, their entire attitude. I'm not typically one to ask questions as I find it more interesting to listen to others, how they come across, how the "client" may perceive them and their questions. At the end of the session I wait to see who talks to the client, how long they talk and if I'm interested in what they are asking, I may make my way to the same client representative to stand alongside and listen to what they have to ask or say, even if it is small talk. This all contributes to how an approach is written for a proposal, the sub-consultant selection, the uniqueness of the team and the attributes that can win a spot to interview and most importantly be selected. To win at an interview, you need to know your client, know the project, and know the stakeholders, the decision makers. The more comfortable you make the stakeholders the more likely you will win the project.

I have, over the course of my 40 years, learned a number of great things. I continue to be amazed at the opportunity of learning that I have, and I welcome the thought that tomorrow brings on another great chance to learn more about a project, a client, or an issue that can be solved to make a campus or a facility more effective and more efficient, and a great place for students to learn and teachers to teach.

I believe I exist because of my attitude!

One year ago I did not quite, I did not give in, and I continued my quest to listen, to learn and to react to the student, to the teacher and to the community. Yes I have an attitude, a great attitude that obviously shows in what I do. I'm fortunate for friends, family and the ability to listen and learn.

So, now that I have successfully moved on, do I need to change the BLOG, to “moved” on? Or does it remain moving on? Early on one of my readers stated that I should not change the name, as it continues to fit a number of important issues. I love the idea that moving on can mean continued learning. A friend of ours farther recently passed on. He was 96. A long and great life. But, when he turned 90, he began to communicate with his family via text messages. He sent them to his daughter and sons and then to his grandkids.

He had to learn this skill, even though he was well beyond what we may consider the learning age. We only stop learning if we don’t want to learn, but every day, there are opportunities and how can anyone pass them by? Even though technology is a pain, on any given day, so many new things that come to market through the use of technology and I find that using technology keeps my mind alert and functional.

I love what I do, I have enjoyed this last year, and I look forward to whatever I have left. For those of you that remain behind, where ever you are, break away at the first opportunity! There are so many more things to do than being part of a non-learning, non-progressive, non-communicative environment. In 1984 faced with a bad economy, my job coming to an end at the firm I had been with for 10 years and no prospects, my wife said to me, you are good and talented, trust in how really great you are, how creative and imaginative with great ideas and most of all your listening ability, and stop being humble and get out there into the larger world and make a difference. Unfortunately it took me nearly 12 more years before I learned she was right.  If nothing else in the year 2014 it is time to get out, begin learning and enjoying! Do great things in 2014 for yourself and for great clients!

Time is Moving On...

Innovation/motivation

Technology invasion 

Missed Opportunities

Innovation, is it a product of motivation or does motivation create innovation...

Hold on, before we go there. It is already the end of the second month of 2013 and we just sent out our holiday cards. Maybe they should have been Valentine cards or St. Patrick's Day or maybe, because time is flying by so quickly that a holiday card is OK, and we are ahead of time...:)

It seems like the only real time it slows is when I have to pay the household bills, and sometimes it seems that I pay them twice a month. Have you ever had this conversation with the utility or cable company, "What do you mean I didn't pay you this month, it was just yesterday that I sent it....oh it was last month....really!"   The on-line payment options and the direct bank payments are so simple and it does not take long to spend the monthly income. The memory lasts a very short period of time. It seems that when I had to write out checks, put them in an envelope and get them stamped and mailed it made an impact and I remembered that I did it..Is technology an invasion, making time fly by faster, creating a false impression that it "saves time" but really it takes away time? Technology , in my opinion, makes time go by so much faster!

Most of you who know me would say, that this is very odd subject for me, as I love technology and can’t wait to get my hands on the next techy thing that has been invented. In fact I do, but this thought occurred to me this week as I paid some bills that I thought I had just paid; spent time transferring to my laptop the data that I created on my desk top getting ready for travel; dumped the same data onto my Google cloud, just in case; backed up everything to my remote drive for safe keeping; created quick access notes in Evernote; located a pen or two that would not explode at high altitudes; found a spiral notebook for hand written notes, just in case; made sure that all the apps were on all the tools; charged up the Livescribe pen, the Laptop, the Tablet and the smart phone;  inventoried and bagged all necessary cords and plugs for charging on the road; packed the bag for a 2 day trip to Reno; checked into the flight and downloaded the boarding pass; printed off the itinerary with confirmation codes, flight times, hotel names and addresses, and rental car information and finally printed my to-do list for the next two days, week and month. This just to get out of the house...call me paranoid, but in the last 13 years I have flown someplace nearly every week and believe me, no matter what kind of "cloud insurance" they create, these are learned habits that will never go away until I stop. But, they do eat up time, create anxiety and increase in complexity every time I fall for another new Technology. (And when my wife and I take a trip, I do the same, and my wife makes a point to remind me each time)

On the way to the airport I have the phone connected to a blue tooth speaker and to Pandora.  Arrival at the airport means creating a reminder of where I parked through my parking APP. I check email, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter and see who has commented on the BLOG. I open the boarding pass at the TSA line, show my ID and because I fly so much go through the pre-check line without taking off my shoes, belt, coat and no longer do I take my computer out of the bag. Saves time, and increases productivity before boarding. One of my favorite times has always been the flight without the internet and email. But now for only a small fee of 5 bucks I can access the internet and send and receive email, work on the calendar and basically there is no time for rest, just continue to work.

Sure technology has allowed me to do more things quicker, but for some reason it has not created these big gaping time voids that allow for napping, exercise, vacation or other potential time stoppers.

The most annoying and time consuming issue lately has been those "updates" that come from Microsoft and cannot wait until the day is done. When they start installing update 1-5 and it takes 10 minutes for the first one, you might as well go for a long break....wait a minute maybe Microsoft is trying to slow down time; maybe this the point, it is time to take a break...go for a bike ride, 18 holes or write a Blog update...you decide!

I came across a couple of good articles around the same topic of free time. First this one, http://m.inc.com/?incid=46788, "Get Back More Free Time: 3 Tips, and the second one is more in line with my last post, http://m.inc.com/?incid=46786, "How to Create Your Long-Term Vision" .

By the Way... my father use to tell me that innovation was driven by need, so I guess you can say that need becomes the motivation. Innovation takes vision, creativity, and patience. Innovation has been a very large part of creating the American dream and it continues to be the one thing that holds it together. How do we teach innovation in our schools?

Happy Reading!

Wow! Are you personally ready for 2013?

Happy New Year!

How many of you have finished your business strategic planning for 2013? Have you started…I have been associated with many successful yearly strategic planning sessions and a few that I would classify as a mistake. Most often the yearly planning started in the fall; getting ready to hit the ground running as soon as the year begins…but some, drag their heals as if it is a burden. They will not be ready for the start of a new year, and may have a chance of failing to meet even the sketchy goals that they identify before the year end. If it is a burden, then you shouldn't do it. It is a waste of time to drag any of your employees through an ill-conceived, never monitored strategic plan that takes until nearly the end of the first quarter to finish. Obviously it has no meaning and at the end of the day it will just sit on the shelf until next year when, OMG, you need to do another one. You know who you are…just Move On to the next year without a plan…it is better for all!

Tragically, as an individual, many of us Move On with the New Year without our own strategic plan. Have you stopped to think about what a New Year means for you as an individual? What about your personnel skills, your strengths, and your overall goals for the year or the next five years?  Technically, as an independent consultant my strategic plan is also my personnel plan. Up to this point in my career I had not given much thought to the idea of an individual strategic plan.  I began to do some research.

Most inquiries into this subject lead to people or firms that would help write a strategic plan. Most had a 4 or 5 step process; one even had a ten step process. They all talked about SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) an analysis technique, credited to the Stanford Research Institute, Albert Humphrey, in the 1960’s. Over the years I have participated in many SWOT analysis sessions, and for this reason I continued with my research into a less structured process.

I came across a blog by +Pamela Slims. http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/pamela-slims-blog/ and the title on the piece is “The first step in your 2013 plan-anchor the why, the whom and the what”.  She asks some very powerful questions. “Why do I want to create the things I want to create this year?”; “Whom do I want to serve?”; “What do I want to create?” and “What if this were my last year on earth?”  

The first question really begins the thinking process of what are we good at and should it continue forward into this next year? Is it something that we like, or should the direction be changed? Do we do it for the sake of survival, or is it something that the community receives benefit from? Or does that matter? Is this a good time to Move On with the plan, or should it stop and a new direction be formed?

For me, the first question of why brought back memories of May, 2012 and the main reason why this blog was started. Moving On…does it mean creating a new direction or finding something similar to what you just left? I choose to create a new direction that concentrated on investing my energy into what I believe will create a better built environment for my community and for those communities where I can assist in creating human centered, safe, secure and sustainable solutions that help kids learn and enable good teachers to teach. The final months of 2012 were exciting; great projects, great people and great family adventures. In 2013 I plan to continue to build on what has been started, strengthening my knowledge base, building on current associations and developing new associations. By the end of 2013 I want to be able to say the same thing about the year that I just said about 2012!

The Second question for me is simple…whom do I want to work with…I want to work with clients and associates that have the same motivational objectives that I have….that can plan, and create the best possible environments for teaching and learning. Understanding that educational institutions have limitations economically, these environments need to be efficient, sustainable and fiscally responsible. As an Architect that is involved in programming, master planning and leading design teams, I have the responsibility to do whatever I can to make our educational system successful and getting the built environment to respond to the need of the student and the teacher is a great place to start!

The third and fourth question are both what questions, the fourth being the toughest. I have contributed to the written world with papers on “safety and security” and “educational facility visioning” and I want to continue to be active in this area. I especially want to be more active in driving improvements for our beginning readers, the identification of career paths and working with intercity schools that struggle with dropout rates. I write some tweets, and I follow lots of tweeters, but I need to jump more actively into movements and organizations to advance awareness. But if this is my last year on earth, then I want it to be especially connected to my family. Since May I have had the great opportunity to be more flexible, available, and I have listened and given advice when asked. 2013 brings the 40^th anniversary for my wife and me! (Although we have been dating for 44 years) What a great year it will be!

If you have not thought about your own strategic plan for 2013 it is not too late! Explore the possibilities and plan a great year of your own! Get going!

If you are a business and you just now doing it, it is too late, drop the idea and start early for 2014!

Game On!!!!

 

Game On!

FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS! The most important part of being on top of the change in the economy is to know your market, focus on who you are and what you do and stay in the Game! When the economy makes a “turn” focus is even more critical. There are many successful people who have made their fortunes in a turn in the economy, up and down. Time is wasting, move on, move out and get your Game On! 

Since my change in the way I see my profession on May 15, 2012, I have had the chance to be part of some exciting opportunities. My focus has narrowed. My main effort has been doing a great job for a large County master plan in California.  It is an enjoyable opportunity of assessing the overall demographics of the County, calculating the staffing needs for the next 10 – 15 years and calculating space needs. The work has led to some great research and discussions.  At the same time I have strategically aligned with several key organizations that are involved in facility planning and designing in California, Oregon and Washington. I can offer a rock-solid knowledge base that is unprecedented in front-end planning, master planning and programming on a variety of facility types, both public and private. Teaming with these firms makes a very strong, competitive alliance.  This alignment is critical to my continued success, and the grouping makes it very hard for our competitors…I believe that with focus, I have my Game On! 

Have you ever been to Forks, Washington? (http://forkswa.com/) It seems it has grown in popularity since the Twilight movies have hit the scene. Although the main street of town has changed since my early days of dating my wife, who is a native of Forks, everything else has remained about the same; including the 8 to 9 feet (yes feet) of rain a year. Just in the last month one of the oldest buildings on main street burnt to the ground, a very large tragedy for those who know Forks as home! Forks, named for all the nearby rives that fork near the town, such as the Quillayute, Bogacheil, Calawah and Sol Duc has stayed in the game primarily because of the timber industry.  However, out of need, the focus has changed and it survives today on tourism and sports fishing.  Recently a new High School was built, located two blocks from Main Street. The school is energized by a Biomass Boiler; a very unique use of the waste product from the woods and all the mills in the area. The project is amazing, especially and for a small district. (http://www.jhkelly.com/projects/forks-biomass.html) Forks has had to move-on, adapting and evolving. However, with the end of the Twilight series in sight, Forks will need a new Focus. A focus that will keep them in the Game!

The wood products industry has always been a boom and bust, I know I had an architectural firm that depended on wood products as well as commercial fishing and tourists. When all three deteriorated in the mid 90’s, another “turn” in the economy, it meant the demise of my company.  I started the business in 1983, another “turn”. At that time, the firm that I was with decided to close the two branch offices they had and consolidate to a single address. I was left with the choice of moving to the main office or starting my own firm. After considerable discussions with my only associate, my wife, we took the plunge and started an office. We had several school projects and I quickly started a niche business of working with every school district in the area as their “facility” architect. I had a focus that included Energy Audits, identifying energy saving measures that had a short pay back benefit for the district.  I developed hundreds of projects, completed applications for funding to the Bonneville Power Administration and completed design, bidding and construction observation for the approved projects. It was a niche that no one else had identified and through it our firm became recognized as a leader in the school planning market of Washington State. However, the 90’s “turn” in the market was too powerful, forcing a change in the Game!

Today, staying in the game is difficult, and moving forward in the current economy is even more difficult. But history tells us that this is the time that great things take place; when we find ourselves needing to adapt, evolve and survive. City’s like Forks, Washington will need to create opportunities, develop strategies and reroute their focus.  

Our personnel business environment changes rapidly. Overnight a new way to communicate and collaborate gets invented. The idea of video communicating on your phone was  a Dick Tracy function, not reality 10 years ago!  Focus! Focus! Focus!

I found this Blog, UR-Upgrade Reality, that simply outlined helpful steps in focusing and achieving any GOAL! (http://www.upgradereality.com/how-to-focus-and-achieve-any-goal/) 

·  Picture Yourself Having Achieved Your Big Goal. Feel It And Smile

·  Decide On And Take One Small Step

·  Be Ruthless With Distractions

·  Keep Your Energy Up

·  Practice Micro Celebration

You cannot be arrogant and inward focused if you hope to survive; you need to know what your competition is doing and learn from them; know what is happening in your environment and stay in the Game!

The Bright Thread of Hope

For those faithful followers, I have been a bit busy and quite frankly the last few weeks before the election I was so distracted watching the pundits sling the bull that I lost track of time and the blog page suffered...

My daughters are amazing, and mostly take after their mom when it comes to overall smarts, but after their father when it comes to relationship building and having fun. All three of them have careers where they serve the community and at the same time advance their lives and their family lives, they are truly making a difference. The youngest is a Fellow (Doctor) at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology; the middle daughter has been teaching pre-school special education for nearly 10 years and the oldest is a Minister at the Unitarian Church in Fort Collins Colorado. This weekend I had a chance to meet the people of Foothills Unitarian Church and hear the sermon that my daughter delivered, twice. What a great experience and the members have a great appreciation  of my daughters talents, it was truly overwhelming. I was so impressed with what she had to say that I have repeated it below. Although she delivered this the Sunday before the elections, the message is extremely pertinent.

The Rev Gretchen Haley

We gather this morning, just two days from the end of the election cycle. 

Two days, my friends, two days.  And over these months of the campaign- or has it been years, or an eternity - how many of us have muttered at the radio, the television, the computer screen - miserable, unrepeatable things....?

How often have we too wondered what meaning hope could have in these days?

How often have we sought to hide our hearts, protect them from the weight of this difficult and broken world with its wars, and its floods, and the way it seems insistent on reducing the story of human life to the results of the latest poll....?

Over these months, these years, this eternity, perhaps you too have gone out to get the newspaper, only to immediately recycle all but the comics and the coupons.

Perhaps you too have sat across from your friends, your partners and children, all of you with your own electronic device - playing games, or flipping through Facebook, finding ways to numb and distract yourselves from the pain you each carry, the stories of your days, the words that were said to you, the words you have said, the absence of the intimacy you deeply long for. 

Perhaps you too have watched more reality TV, played more Words with Friends, eaten more of your children's Halloween candy, made more of a ritual out of beer and potato chips - done all these, or others, more than you would like to admit.

Perhaps you too have done all you could to keep this world, and its heartbreak at bay. 

Let's just say it.  Living in the world with an open heart can be exhausting and sometimes it can be terrible.  Living in this world with the faith that not only can love overcome all hate and pain and suffering, but that it will - feels so often incompatible with remaining informed, feels so often incompatible with paying attention, feels so often so risky and dangerous, and even foolish. 

Living with an open heart in a battleground state, especially foolish.  Such an accurate description, more so than a swing state.  No, we’re a battleground.  A battleground where our common humanity is the casualty.  Our sense of vision is what we lose, our sense of common purpose, our sense of trust in our neighbors, our faith in our common goodness, our willingness to hope. 

Hope - like fear - begins in the imagination.

Hope - like fear - is a possible response to what we experience in the present as it relates to what we can imagine about the future. 

When we experience life's goodness and joy today - we may hope, or fear, about whether this goodness will continue and perhaps even grow in the future....

When we experience life's brokenness and the darkness surrounds us today, we may also meet this brokenness with either hope, or fear...

It’s a choice we have.  Hope or fear; trust or anxiety; faith or cynicism. 

We all have a choice, and it is a choice we make every day with our lives. 

Rational, reasonable people might support either choice.  There is much evidence to support either position.

250 years ago, a man named Thomas Potter faced such a choice.  (For those of you who were at Buckhorn, you might remember I told a version of the story I am about to tell.  It's another on my list of top 10 stories I feel like all Unitarian Universalists should know, and so even if you heard it at Buckhorn, it’s ok.  It’s an important one.)  ^[1]

About 250 years ago, in one of the places hardest hit by the storm last week, the shores of what would become New Jersey - on those same shores, Thomas Potter, a farmer and what today we'd call a religious seeker - was spending a lot of time thinking about some big questions.  The nature of life.  The question of hope.  And most of all, whether or not love would have the final word for us all. Which in his day, was a matter of - whether or not hell existed, and what determined whether you'd end up there. 

In his search for answers, Thomas Potter stumbled upon the ideas of Universalism, and its hopeful claim that a loving God would never send God's people to hell, and that instead all would be reconciled in Love. All. 

Unfortunately for him, however, in 1770 America, there wasn't yet a Universalist church, and there weren't any Universalist ministers.  And so Thomas Potter's deep longing to hear a message of hope, and to be a part of a community that embodied that message, remained unfulfilled. 

And then one day, the story goes, as Thomas Potter worked his fields, he heard a voice in his heart.

The voice said, "If you build a chapel, a Universalist minister will come and bring a story of hope to all who come here."  And so Thomas Potter decided right then to build a chapel near his farm house.  He built it, and then he waited for that minister to come.   

Well lo and behold, at about the same time that Thomas Potter was building his chapel, a young minister named John Murray was making his way across the Atlantic Ocean.  John Murray - a one time Methodist minister who had converted to Universalism

only to be cast out as a heretic.  John Murray, a man who had recently lost his young wife and his child in a great tragedy. A man whose experience of brokenness had led him to decide to give up on preaching, to give up on faith and religion all together, and head to the new world and start over. Specifically, he'd imagined starting over in what is today New York.  But, as John Murray's boat got close to shore, the winds picked up, and instead, he went aground on the coast of New Jersey, coincidentally, right near the fields where Thomas Potter had built his chapel.  

Seeking shelter and help, John Murray went towards the farm house, where he met up with Thomas Potter.  Before long, Potter discovered Murray's background in ministry, and their shared belief in the gospel of hope. 

You can just see the light bulbs going off in Potter's head at this point, right? (OK, maybe not light bulbs, it was 1770...) But just imagine how excited Potter was as he told Murray about his chapel, and about his vision of a minister arriving to preach the message of hope.

"So I heard this voice, and I built this chapel, and you are the minister!"

And Murray was like, "you're crazy!"

No really, John Murray had decided he was done with preaching, remember? Done with this idea of hope.  Life was not a blessing, it was terrible and broken and he wanted to go get lost in the wilderness. 

But Potter didn't give up easily.  And so the two men decided to make a deal.  If Murray’s ship was still stuck on the coming Sunday, that is, if the wind didn't change so that they could head to New York, Murray would preach in Potter's chapel. 

Well, lucky for all of us today, the wind did not change.  And so that Sunday - September 30, 1770, Murray preached a sermon on Universalism in Potter's chapel to Thomas Potter and to all his family and neighbors. It was the first known Universalist sermon on American soil, and today John Murray is considered the founder of Universalism in America. 

Today, we are the grateful inheritors of Thomas Potter's vision. Grateful inheritors of Thomas Potter's choice to keep hope alive, to create a place for it - a literal meeting house for it, to kindle the flame of hope in his time, so that it might be here for us in ours.  And we are the grateful inheritors of the ways that Thomas Potter greeted John Murray and all his pain with love and vision, and reminded him of the power of hope to transform even the deepest heartbreak.

We stand here today keepers of this story, guardians of this tradition, stewards of this message of love - so that 250 years from now, good people like us will receive the gifts of our broad vision, and continue to take up the mantle, making the choice, whatever life may bring, to meet it with love. To greet it with hope.

Give them not hell but hope, as John Murray said - give them not hell, but hope.  That's our choice.  That's our story. 

This is the choice we come here to be reminded of, the choice we come here to help each other make.

So that when we too find ourselves confusing cynicism with pragmatism, and turning all too often to the numbing power of beer and potato chips - or whatever it is that we might turn to in our lives to keep the heartbreak at bay - we know we can count on our friends in this community to say to us - "What kind of self-indulgent whining is this?" In the kindest possible way, of course. ^[2]

We bear witness to each other this alternative story.  An alternative to the story of division and separation and greed and self-interest that so often attempts to claim us. 

We - the people of Foothills Unitarian Church.  In Fort Collins, Colorado, at the end of 2012, in this place called a battleground, in this life that can so often feel like a battle ground.  We come here to this place of hope, and we kindle this flame.   A story of binding the broken, comforting the world. Healing the brokenness - with a promise of blessing. A story of light, that we carry into all the places of darkness.  A story of hope and heart, into all the highways and byways, into our homes and into our lives.

We stoke this story with our lives, making sure it doesn’t ever go out.  And we pass it on.  May it be so, and amen. 

---

^[1] This story can be found in many places. In writing this sermon, I consulted with these versions: http://www.murraygrove.org/pottermurray.html; http://www.uucdc.org/sermons/2012/10/21/how-are-you-saved; and http://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/children/creatinghome/session12/sessionplan/stories/60161.shtml

^[2] This is a reference to our reading, which was by the Rev Victoria Safford from her essay in A People So Bold.