Leadership Journal

• Pack (carry-on only) and assemble notes and PowerPoint material for lectures in Colorado.
• Fly (6 am) from Boston to Indianapolis (connecting through Chicago) and spend several hours with two close friends.
• Fly (6 pm) from Indianapolis to Denver (connecting through Chicago) in order to give my lectures the following day.
• Arrive Denver: Pick up Hertz car and check into hotel at airport.

• Notes and PowerPoint material were left in my vehicle at the Boston airport parking lot. Discovered this over Buffalo. (Oh, God! Anoint my memory!)
• In Chicago I learned that Indianapolis flights had been cancelled. Visit with close friends won't happen…terribly disappointed. My friends and I will not be able to achieve world peace; nominate George Bush's successor; solve the problems of the worship wars; and identify five growth stocks that will secure our retirements on a Bill Gates level. (Lord, let mid-summer storms be cursed!)
• On to Denver (new routing on overbooked planes: Chicago, Houston, Denver). Three extra hours of flight: no books; no iPod battery power. (Prepared sermon on hell.)
• Arrive in Denver and discover: Hertz computer down; hotel workout room being remodeled; tomorrow's schedule changed. (Today's Bible verse: "To keep me from being conceited, the Lord gave me a thorn in the flesh.")

"In all these things," Paul says, "we are more than conquerors." Really now! My wife, Gail, says on the phone that these are events designed to help me grow. I am weary of growing today. Then I remember the traumatized children of Iraq and Lebanon and Israel.

I've been binging on C.S. Lewis this summer: One Lewis comment sent me scurrying to the writings of St. Francis de Sales. Scanning through his Devout Life (courtesy of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College, www.ccel.org), I came across this line: "In a word, we are like the Paphlagonian partridge, which has two hearts; for we have a very tender, pitiful, easy heart towards ourselves, and one which is hard, harsh and strict towards our neighbor." I'd never heard of a Paphlagonian partridge before and am stymied as to the pronunciation. But Francis is spot on. Two hearts! I've occasionally noted this Paphlagonian phenomena in myself.

Back to C.S. Lewis: This month I've re-read Letters to an American Lady. The "lady" seems demanding, a bit self-absorbed, impatient, but smart. Lewis—somewhere in his life—decided that he had an obligation to answer every letter sent his way, and the lady took advantage of this. Bless this brilliant man who, sans complaint, treated her like a queen as he responded to her oft-quirky concerns. From his many years of correspondence with her, these comments:

"We (presumably Lewis and his brother) were talking about cats and dogs the other day and decided that both have consciences but the dog, being an honest, humble person, always has a bad one, but the cat is a Pharisee and always has a good ...