Grace and Truth

Let’s move from the corporate world (immediately preceding post) to the sports world and the prison world.  The corporate world can be tough–but tougher than the sports world and the prison world?  Depending on how you look at it, the latter two worlds are every bit as tough, probably more so, than the former.

There are two stories out of the sports and prison worlds that the corporate world should note.  Indeed, all employers should take note.  These two stories provide lessons that, if adopted by employers, would make the jobs of human resources professionals and employment lawyers much easier.

The first story is about the recent women’s college softball game between Western Oregon and Central Washington.  You’ve no doubt heard about it by now.  Western Oregon player hits a three run homer–her first ever.  While running the bases, she injures her knee and can’t get up.  Her teammates can’t help her round the bases according to the rules.  Two Central Washington players pick the injured Western Oregon player up and carry her around the bases, allowing her to touch each base, including home plate.   As it turns out, this makes the difference in the game, and Central Washington is eliminated from the playoffs.

This kind of grace–in anything–is rare these days.  It’s nice to see that it can still occur.  It gives another meaning to being a winner.  The truth is that you can lose and still win–big.

The second story you may not have heard about.  It has received some attention (60 Minutes this past Sunday) and may receive more.  It’s from the prison world and involves the release of a Texas inmate after being incarcerated for 27 years for a rape and murder he didn’t commit.  Old DNA evidence and a crusade in Texas to rectify a lot of past prosecutorial misconduct led to this result.  The former inmate, James Stoddard, shows no anger or bitterness over losing 27 years of his life.  In fact, he says he didn’t lose those years.  He made the most of them.  He learned a lot.  This kind of grace is hard to imagine.

That’s not what makes this story worthy of our consideration, however.  Stoddard always maintained that he was innocent.  After his conviction, he wrote letters to a lot of people reiterating his innocence and asking for help.  Several times, he came up for parole.  It was made clear to him that if he would acknowledge what he did, he would be paroled.  He refused to acknowledge a lie, even though he would have been a free man quite some time ago if he had done so.  He stood for what he knew to be the truth at the expense of his freedom. 

Grace and truth are the subjects of sermons.  They are the stuff of theological debates.  They should also be the subjects–the stuff–of human resources.  If they were the bedrocks of more workplaces, employment problems wouldn’t vanish, but most workplaces would be wonderfully different.