You duped me O Lord and I let myself be duped!

 In-person or remote?

That seems to be the question I get most lately.  We live in a VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and COVID has done what it does...magnifies our reality.  Please take a moment and read our blog about reopening plans.

What is the answer to our present world's dilemmas?  

1. Flexibility – willingness to try new things.
2. Speed – rapidly grasping new ideas.
3. Experimenting – testing out new ideas.
4. Performance risk taking– taking on challenges.
5. Interpersonal risk taking – asking others for help.
6. Collaborating – leveraging the skills of others from different functions.

Or put more simply, the answer to VUCA is:  Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility.  The problems we are facing do not necessarily have binary answers, they are much more nuanced and need a great tolerance for risk and uncertainty.  Colin Powell's famous leadership primer can be downloaded here.

What a privilege to be duped!

Fr. John Foley, SJ

Fr. John Foley came into my life when I was 24 years old.  By coincidence (maybe) we both enrolled in a graduate counseling class as Loyola University.  He was back in the US for a few months.  He had been a missionary in Peru for 20+ years.  He was going back after this respite.  We hatched a plot to bring 12 students from Loyola Academy to work and live in the Third World for 8 weeks in the summer of 1976.  That's why I spent the bi-centential in Juliaca, Peru!  In any event we became good friends and after I moved to Cleveland, John was called back in the early '90's to lead an effort of the Chicago Province to minister to the Latinos in Chicago.  That, of course, became the great movement of Cristo Rey Schools.  In 2000, John called me to ask if I would accompany him to Peru for a fact finding trip regarding how to build a network of schools.  He had just recently hatched a plot (he's always hatching a plot) with B. J. Cassin to create a Cristo Rey school in every major American city!  In any event, I thought the idea to be fanciful, but I would not pass up a free trip to Peru with my great friend, John Foley! 

Montenegro Chapel

While there I had what I can only characterize as a mystical experience in a small chapel in the Montenegro neighborhood of Lima at a school, Fe y Alegria #37.  There were no words or even any message in that experience...just feelings or fear, awe, love, being loved and somehow being overwhelmed by an experience of God.  My life was forever changed in that moment (it lasted less than a minute).  I came back from Peru hell bent to start a Cristo Rey school in Cleveland.  That was in October of 2000.  I was principal of Saint Ignatius High School and then, just like that, we opened the doors to Saint Martin de Porres High School and had our first Mass of the Holy Spirit on September 3, 2004.  

In 2018, I stepped down at the founding President and was named Founder.  Through a series of conincidences (maybe) I went to New York to meet with the founders of Partnership Schools New York.  In talking with Jill Kafka, the executive director, she asked, "Why are you here, again?"  I told her that we were thinking of starting a grade school in our soon to be empty 1912 school building.  She quite simple said this, "Why, don't you have grade schools in Cleveland?"  Well, of course we did, but my view is that most were not doing a very successful job in the academic realm.  She said, "Well, make them better!"  So just as I was contemplating a slower life, perhaps consulting and helping other schools, the words of Jeremiah came to life again, "I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more.  But then it becomes like fire buring in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it." (Jer 20.7-9)  I came back from New York City hell bent to bring the Partnership Schools model to Cleveland!  

This isn't about Rich Clark, it is about God using Rich Clark with all his weaknesses.  So as I come up on my twentieth anniversary of that fearful moment in a little chapel in Montenegro, I thank God for giving me a chance to be his instrument!