Roses for the Living

You and I are aware of the superficial motives we have for the things we do, but only rarely do we consider the deeper motives that hide behind the superficial ones.

Pennie and I have been discussing the future and how it revolves around you.

Yes, you.

Today, July 8, 2013, is the vortex of a 15-year convergence of events that began in 1998. We sit for an instant in the eye of the storm, a wonderful moment of stillness surrounded by a whirlwind of activity before and after.

Everyone who works on the Wizard Academy campus – about a dozen of us – spent the last 2 weeks frantically unstacking and moving, sifting and sorting thousands of items from warehouses scattered across the campus. We’ve hungered for this grand purge for several years. Books and artwork, furniture and accessories, music and films were pulled out of boxes and given new homes. It was a Herculean task carved into our calendar several months ago. Fifteen years of acquisitions were organized and distributed in just 14 days.

Twelve people working for 80 hours is 960 man-hours. We woke up yesterday morning and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

By strange coincidence, during those same 2 weeks Daniel Denny rented the equipment to cut the 14-inch hump out of the solid limestone approach to the tower. The concrete was then poured – thanks to the generosity of Cognoscenti Rich Carr – so the golden flagstone can be laid on top of it and the Jane DeDecker monuments can be installed for our October 4th Open House.

And the business office in the tower was finally completed as well! Whoosh. All at once, 4 momentous things came together that have been driving me crazy for years. Whirlwind.

An even weirder coincidence is that Wizard Academy’s new Vice Chancellor – Daniel Whittington – starts work today. Believe it or not, we didn’t time the completion of the business office – the place where he will work – to coordinate with the day of his arrival. It was completely accidental. I started to write to you about Daniel Whittington. But then I said, “No, I’ll give him a week or two to get settled.”

And then I started to write to you about digital outdoor advertising, online radio and the secrets of successful videoblogs. But then I said, “No, I’ll save those things for the monthly webcast at 11AM.”

And then I started to write to you about portals, those literary, musical and visual devices useful in moving a reader, a listener or a viewer to a new perspective. But then I said, “No, portals need to be taught with the 12 languages of the mind and that’s way too much to put into a Monday Morning Memo.”

And then I thought about printing the details of How to Negotiate and Schedule Successful Radio Advertising. But then I said, “That would be – for a significant percentage of Monday Morning Memo readers – the most boring thing I ever wrote.”

And then a bright light overcame the darkness in my mind. “Tell them why you do it. Tell them why you write these memos, why Pennie and you built this campus, why you and she gathered all these thousands of things together.”

Here’s the reason, the deeper motive that hides behind our superficial ones, the truly important motive that is often obscured by the merely urgent: Pennie and I want you to have a happy and satisfying life.

We began writing the Monday Morning Memo in 1994 in the hope that you might begin to think differently, make better decisions and enjoy greater success. We didn’t see you with our eyes but we saw you in our mind.

We purchased and donated the land for the Wizard Academy campus and applied for government recognition of the school as a 501c3 nonprofit educational organization so that you would always have a physical place to which you could escape, regroup, and open your mind to new possibilities. We don’t own it. You do.

We built Chapel Dulcinea, the world famous Free Wedding Chapel as an expression of the joy and purpose that can be found in a lifetime of commitment. Your chapel now hosts nearly 1,000 free weddings a year. Couples come here to get married from countries all over the world. Cool, huh? This moment of transition – this eye of the storm – represents the turning of a page, the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next, that moment when the song strikes sforzando and moves into a different rhythm.

Wizard Academy is now 13 years old. It is time for our Bar Mitzvah.

Indiana Beagle will give you the details of this Bar Mitzvah and explain the title of today’s memo in the rabbit hole.

Everyone should have a dog that can talk.

Roy H. Williams