Pepperspectives: Reflections on Values for Living, Global and National Affairs and other Contemporary Issues

By John Pepper

Over the course of the past 20 years, I have authored blogs and essays under the title, Pepperspectives. The topics have been wide-ranging, from politics, international affairs, to values of living, and reflections on books and movies which have meant the most to me.

I published an earlier selection of these blogs under the title of, Looking Back, Looking Forward, about four years ago.

I am now publishing a fresh selection of these reflections and recollections. They, too, cover a wide range of subjects, several of which are highlighted on the cover of this book.

I have written the majority of them during the past six years. As you would expect, a considerable number deal with the tumultuous political situation we have had in the United States and around the globe. Fortunately, they close on a note of confidence and hope as we transition to a new presidential administration under the leadership of President Joe Biden who is committed to bringing what has been a polarized nation together against a common purpose.

Never in my 80+ year lifetime have the challenges for our nation and the world been clearer. It will not be easy; we will take steps forward and then backward, but as we have before, I am confident we can make progress. I draw confidence from the young, not least my grandchildren, who every day inspire me with their imagination, their individuality and their shared goodness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662909627

Book preview

A. Personal Values and Leadership

November 7, 2017

The Wit & Wisdom of John Pepper

(Compiled by my former P&G colleague and good friend, Eugen Mihai)

Life isn’t always pretty, but you have to put up with ugliness sometimes to get a big job done, and it only happens when very competent people believe in something deeply and act with all their might to make it happen.

Tell me what you think, and act on what you believe to be true.

Life is funny. It’s made up of dots that somehow connect.

My wife and children have been my constant and underlying source of joy, energy, emotional stability, and comfort in my life.

You are making differences in people’s lives today you don’t even know you are making.

Everyone counts!

When I go to church, the one thing I pray for is the wisdom to know the right thing to do and the courage and perseverance to do it.

None of us are saints. All I can do, and what I must do, is do my best to fulfill my responsibilities and help other people whose lives I touch do the same.

Everybody combines self-centered instincts and noble instincts.

The greatest thing we will leave behind is the influence that we have on others; most importantly, on our family.

It is MY choice: do I approach this new day positively or not?

Don’t stop pushing for an idea if you really believe in it.

My two most important mandates: to be of service to others and stand up for what I believe is right.

My three north stars are service, leadership, and growth.

Make sure you take your vacation and long weekends. If you’re like me, your best ideas will come when you have some free space.

"The qualities of the best leaders I have met are:

• They have an empowering vision and a commitment to it. They simply won’t give up.

• They have a laser-like strategy

• They have a maniacal commitment to executional excellence

• They build great teams. They help people grow.

• They have character, integrity, courage, and perseverance—they don’t give up. They do what they think is right.

• They always look for a better way,

• They love what they do.

• They have respect for themselves and for others.

• They are genuine: what you see is what you get.

• They have an incredible zest to continue to learn."

I want to be anywhere my wife and children are. That’s where I want to be. Nowhere else!

"A good strategy is:

- Based on capability (deliverable)

- Truly choiceful (differentiating)

- The basis for sustained advantage versus competition."

Be on somebody’s ‘if it weren’t for them’ list. It means you did make a difference in that person’s life.

Accept yourself as you are even as you work to improve.

Remember—God will help you if you trust in Him.

Don’t worry about things you can’t affect.

Respect, not popularity, is what matters.

We all have a life to live—do it fully and authentically.

Be true to your purpose and values.

Never forget that we are in business to improve the lives of consumers by offering them better-performing and better-value brands and by giving them information that enables them to make the best use of these brands.

Our success depends on our personal leadership in all those things that produce accelerated growth in our business and strengthen organizational capability.

View navigating change as a growth opportunity, not a burdensome challenge (though at times it will seem and be that). Avoid negativism and grousing. Don’t get discouraged.

Never give up on something you believe in strongly.

With maniacal commitment, insist on quality.

Ask what you can do to serve those to whom you owe service.

Listen carefully, and pay attention to your spouse. Keep having ‘first dates’ as years go on.

Remember: family comes first!

Personal leadership makes things happen.

Effective leadership grows out of LOVE. Love for what you are doing, so you become passionate. Love takes you out of yourself and makes you focus on the purpose and the people of your organization.

Our trust and respect are the greatest gifts we give one another. They can’t be forced.

Life is all about relationships.

Give people the benefit of the doubt.

Intimacy with the consumer is critical if we are to perceive the true consumer needs that we can fill.

Creating holistic and highly integrated innovation and marketing strategies that make a brand more appealing and harder to imitate is increasingly important today.

We need to be alert and responsive to changing situations, anchored to only one commitment—doing the right thing to provide superior consumer value.

We must never give consumers a reason to switch from our brand.

We are in business to serve all the world’s consumers, not just the rich ones.

We need to be first, and we need to be better in delivering what appeals to consumers and produces greater total satisfaction for them.

August 6, 2018

Turning 80—Filled with Gratitude

The mother of my daughter-in-law and my dear friend, Joani Mendelson, gave me a wonderful little book called Gratitude. It’s a slim volume of four essays written by a neuroscientist, Oliver Sacks, who had reached the age of eighty, knowing that he had terminal cancer. I was seventy-eight when I received the book. This past week, I turned eighty.

Oliver Sacks said many things which I feel, though I could never express them in the eloquent language he used:

At 80, the specter of dementia or stroke looms. A third of one’s contemporaries are dead and many more, with profound mental or physical damage, are trapped in a tragic and minimal existence. The marks of decay are all too visible. One’s reactions are a little slower. (Particularly noticeable for me, walking on the beach and seeing people walk briskly past me!) Each of the italicized sentences are my own words.

Names more frequently elude one, and one’s energies must be husbanded, but even so, one may often feel full of energy and life and not at all ‘old.’ (How well that last sentence describes my feelings, especially when I am with my children and grandchildren in a place like Pointe au Baril, where we are now.)

Sacks describes what his father, who lived to ninety-four, often said to him. He expressed a feeling that he’s

begun to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others, too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty.

(Yes indeed, for me, above all the beauty of nature and life itself.)

At 80, one can take the long view and have a vivid, live sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.

Sacks writes,

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape and, with it, a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

This will involve audacity, clarity and, in plain speaking, trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness as well). I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. (For me, particularly, focus on Francie and my family and my relationships with those closest to me.)

I shall no longer look at the ‘news hour’ every night. This is no indifference but detachment—I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality—but they are no longer my business; they belong to the future. (I don’t quite go that far; but I do remind myself to concentrate on the essential FEW.)

Sacks continues,

I have been increasingly conscious of deaths among my contemporaries. Each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then, there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

Yes, gratitude, that is my predominant feeling. It is no mistake that the prayer I never forget when I am in church is a prayer of thanksgiving to God for all the blessings that He has given me, above all my family.

July 10, 2018

Doing the Best We Can—What Would God Have me Do

Today, at a time when we are faced with what can seem like an interminable number of challenges, I find it helpful to reflect on something that Robert Penn Warren wrote in his book Segregation, decades ago:

We have to deal with the problem our historical moment proposes, the burden of our time. We all live with a thousand unsolved problems of justice all the time. All we can do for posterity is to try to plug along in a way to make them think we—the old folks—did the best we could for justice, as we could understand it.

For me, honoring two mandates helps me on this journey.

1. Trying to follow the honest answer to the question: What would God have me do?

2. Recognizing that in all I do, everyone counts…that there is no higher calling than making a positive difference in someone else’s life.

November 8, 2018

Why has the Study of History Mattered to Me?

(Drawn from my conversation with history honors majors at Yale University—November 2004)

• Why has the learning and acquiring of some sense of history mattered to me—its events, its life stories, and its illumination of the role of the contingent and unforeseeable versus the predictable?

• Why has reading—or more to the point, experiencing—the work of great historians mattered to me?

• Finally, why has the act of personally researching and elucidating certain lessons of history been something I have found useful in my life and, beyond that, extraordinarily enjoyable in its own right?

More immediately, how do I talk about this with you in a way that offers some possibility of providing an insight of interest and value to you—and not have it be just a trip down memory lane for me? All I can say is: I will try.

Let me begin with a sufficient amount of personal background to make what I have to say intelligible.

I came to Yale already greatly enjoying history, but thinking I would probably be a math or science major. My freshman year convinced me otherwise. I must say, year one physics played a major role in this. It became pretty clear that engineering would not be my chosen field. But even more importantly than this negative inference, I got lucky. I signed up for a course that sounded beguiling and interesting. Nicknamed Cowboys and Indians, it covered the development of the West. The subject matter was fascinating—westward expansion, manifest destiny, diplomatic battles with nations over territories, tension between ranchers and farmers, economic issues intertwining with the political—and yes, lots of detail on cowboys and Indians. But even more important than the exciting subject matter was that it introduced me to Howard Roberts Lamar, a wonderful professor who eventually became acting president of Yale. I got to know him. He inspired me. I have maintained contact with him ever since.

In my junior year, I encountered the other professor who had the greatest impact on me while I attended Yale: David Potter. He was my senior advisor. He introduced me to the excitement and the discipline of historical analysis. Forty-five years after I completed my senior essay in February 1960, I still hold it as one of my proudest accomplishments.

To complete the biography quickly, the decision on what to do following Yale was a no-brainer: three years in the Navy, an obligation undertaken in return for the scholarship I received at Yale. Those three years made a transformational difference in my life. After the Navy, I had planned to go to law school. I was accepted at Harvard. I ended up feeling I’d take one more year off, with something other than studying. And I turned to Procter & Gamble, a company I had learned about when I was soliciting ads for the Yale Daily News. I thought I’d go there for a year. I stayed for a career.

My forty-year career led eventually to my becoming CEO and chairman of Procter & Gamble. I had the privilege of helping lead the company into China and Southeast Asia, and Eastern and Central Europe. I had the opportunity to work hard to take diversity to a new level, recognizing what Yale’s provost Dick Brodhead once said:

I have always regarded the intellectual cost of separationism to be as great in its way as its social cost. In this country, those who have stopped thinking are typically those who have stopped interacting with people who might make them think—people, namely, who do not already think more or less the same as they do.

I tried to create a place of honest and tough-minded dialogue, the kind that should exist in any university like Yale, the kind well-described by my classmate Bart Giamatti when he said:

We must beware of voices that are scornful of complexity, and contemptuous of competitive views and values. These voices can be encouraged because they are said to be ‘idealistic’ or ‘decisive.’ What they are is precisely not idealistic, but in their simplifying, reductionistic. It is that civil conversation—tough, open, principled—between and among all members of the institution that must be preserved. If it is, community is patiently built. If it is not, the place degenerates.

People have often asked me—indeed, I was asked this question by the captain of one of Yale’s varsity sports teams last month—Can a history major be of any value in business? My answer—I can’t imagine any course of study being more valuable.

Which brings me back to the three questions I posed at the outset.

Why has the learning and the acquisition of some sense of the lessons of history—its events, its life stories, its contingencies—mattered to me?

Some of the reasons are probably obvious. It would take too long to catalog them all. But the most important are these:

1. The striking reality that personal leadership makes things happen. That while there are trends that in some ways are inexorable, the difference that the individual makes in shaping these trends can be, and often is, decisive.

2. The inspiration I have gained from the lives and character of great leaders. The recognition that it takes wisdom, good judgment, courage, and persistence to make a change in anything that’s important. That has everything to do with how I’ve tried to lead and encourage others to do the same.

3. The recognition that there is great goodness in the world, but also evil; the recognition that if good people don’t stand up courageously and persistently for the good, we are going to be in trouble.

4. The study of history has also helped me develop a deep respect for different societies and cultures as I learned about their particular contributions and the challenges they have encountered and overcome. This recognition has fired my determination at Procter & Gamble to respect national and regional identities as we operate globally.

5. The recognition that great achievements and change are never achieved without setbacks and the wisdom to make course corrections in one’s original strategy. This has been of enormous help to me as I thought about how to pursue some of the biggest challenges in my career, including the development of our businesses in Russia and China.

6. The recognition that certain values must prevail and carry any institution forward, and it is up to us to make those values pertinent and relevant to today.

7. Finally, the realization that, if great institutions are to survive and grow (a matter that is not foreordained), they must achieve that fine balance of preserving certain core values that are fundamental to success, while being prepared to evolve and change everything else.

Let me now address the second question. Why has the reading, or more precisely the experiencing of the writings of great historians, mattered to me?

Partly, it is the content. For example, the bringing to life of the characteristics of great leaders. Or the understanding of the religious, ethnic, and political realities that have made the achievement of peace in the Middle East so difficult or the knowledge of the historical origins of countries like Iraq, which becomes a foundation for assessing what our future policy should be.

However, as I reflect on it, just as important as the content has been the influence of experiencing the intellectual integrity and imagination of great historians in their writing. This became an example to emulate in my own thought process and expression of thought.

I refer to the fresh, penetrating, multifaceted analysis of factors—economic, political, social, and individual—that have helped lead to create major events or trends. I refer to the ability to identify previously undiscerned, or at least weakly described, discriminating details, which enable one to see the subject in a new light. I refer to expression in writing that has impacted me with such force that I react with thoughts like:

• I wish I could have expressed it that clearly.

• I can see the applicability of the dynamics described here to my own organization.

My appreciation of why experiencing the work of a great historian matters was brought home to me again as I read David Potter’s final book, The Impending Crisis. It describes the sharpening sectional tensions between 1845 and 1860 that led to the Civil War. I don’t think I have encountered a page without a sense of admiration and sometimes awe at the substance and the way it’s expressed. I’m in the hands of a master. It lifts me intellectually. It prompts me to try harder to emulate the sensitivity, the precision, and the intellectual integrity of analysis that I see here and the clarity with which it’s expressed.

Which brings me to the final question. Why has the act of personally researching, trying to elucidate lessons of history, been something that I have found useful?

In one way, the usefulness has been situational, highly coincidental, confirming that you don’t know where your studies might lead in the future.

The subject of my senior thesis was The Influence of the Institution of Slavery on the Diplomacy of the Republic of Texas. I worked for two years on it; I’m sure memory pushes aside some of the tougher moments, the countless rewrites. But it really was a thrill. It even won a prize. What did it lead to?

Totally unpredictably, my interest in the issue of slavery was one of the reasons that my interest was immediately piqued when I was asked ten years ago to lead the development of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. This institution tells the stories of people who have fought for their own freedom and helped others achieve it—as a catalyst for learning and dialogue on how we can live and work together on behalf of freedom today.

There were several reasons I became committed to the Freedom Center. Importantly, I had come to appreciate the power that comes from people of different backgrounds and experiences working together, and the ease with which stereotypes can separate us. But my interest, and I believe, my effectiveness in leading this project was clearly enhanced by my deep-rooted knowledge and attachment to this subject. And it has benefited enormously from reconnecting with professors expert in this subject, especially Yale’s David Brion Davis and David Blight.

As I say, this was a situational connection. You may find one; you may not.

But whether such a specific connection develops or not, of this I am sure. Researching, analyzing, and writing about a particular subject brings with it an appreciation of the challenge and the satisfaction of doing deep analysis that leads to fresh perspectives. It also brings an appreciation of the value of clear expression. Indeed, I am certain that these were among the most important qualities that led to the success of my career at Procter & Gamble.

Most fundamentally, my love of history has fired a love of learning, of curiosity to understand causes and effects, to distinguish between the general and the specific, and to understand the difference an individual can make. And this has driven me—happily—to keep learning as the years have gone by.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been struck by the difference I see in people’s continued rate of learning: their openness to new ideas, their willingness to reach out to try new things, to bring fresh perspectives. What accounts for these differences? I have no simple answer. Many factors come into play. But the three factors I have observed most are:

1. The extent to which people engage in new experiences—often challenging, even at first glance, frightening experiences.

2. The extent to which people build relationships with people who are different than they are, and

3. Finally, by how much they read about life experiences, about trends. History is a key part of this.

So what do you take away from these comments? Perhaps three things.

1. Never give up the life of the mind that you are experiencing today.

2. Develop a relationship with and maintain contact with one or two professors over time. Professors who have galvanized your love of learning, of analysis and the art and power of fine expression.

3. Save your history term paper!

January 24, 2018

What leadership lessons did I share with my children? As they saw it!

My Children’s Reflections of the Leadership Lessons I Shared With Them

Several years ago, I wrote the following request to my four children:

I am going to be talking to a group of P&G new hires and interns next week. One of the questions they have asked me to address is What are the top three leadership lessons that you’ve shared with your own children?

Would you be willing to share what you have experienced, assuming you have experienced this at all in these terms? To the extent you can, it would make it a much better answer.

Thanks,

Love, Dad

Here is what they wrote me. I am happy to reread this today. They give me more credit than I’m due…but still!!

1. From my oldest son, John: Approach every job (position) as though it is the job you will have for the rest of your career. Have an unwavering belief in people and their potential (even when risking disappointment/failure). Never drink more than two beers in one night. No whining, crying, or fussing.

2. From my middle son, David: Work hard. Do what you think is right. The third lesson seemed to be a rotation of many different things.

3. From my youngest son, Doug: No one senior or junior to you ever worked harder or cared more about what they were doing. Truly listening and caring about what others are working on. No matter what the situation, always relying on core values to drive decisions. No shortcuts.

4. From my daughter, Susan: I am going against my natural instinct and am replying instantly to this email, rather than asking for more time. Here are some thoughts that come to mind:

Keep your integrity—do what’s right (you used to try out scenarios—what if you find a competitor’s briefcase in the taxi, what should you do? And you’d go through the options). Be good to people, and entrust them with responsibility—help them develop their leadership skills. Be passionate about what you do (or do something for which you are passionate). By having your heart in it, it makes it easier to truly inspire others.

An extra one—be ready to work as long as it takes to get the job done, but also make time to take care of yourself (exercise, eat well, nurture your mind/intellect), your family, and your community (because we depend on these things for our own strength).

February 1, 2019

Living by our Conscience–Reflections on my Personal Life and Procter & Gamble

There will be several turning points in all our lives—and in fact we may have to reach this most important point many times. It is the point at which we make the decision: I will live by my conscience from this time forward to the best of my ability. I will not allow my voice, social mirror, scripting, even my own rationalizing, to speak more clearly to me than the voice of conscience and, whatever the consequence, I will follow it!

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Of all the principles that guide us, the two most essential to peace of mind are contribution—making a valuable difference—and conscience—being trustworthy to ourselves and to others.

We know that Procter & Gamble will only be as strong as the intelligence, judgment, and character of our employees.

Our people…our values…our principles…they are the one competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated. Technology can be copied; capital can be bought; and strategies can be gleaned from what we do and from what others write. But values and principles—these cannot be copied and picked up. They flow from the heritage and character of the people who have been with and are with the company today. They flow from the way we work together and the expectations we have of one another.

It is most difficult, and often most important, for you to hold your ground when you are most alone. Only conviction, strength of character, and courage will let you do this. But there will be times in your life when it will be all-important. Times when we must hold onto our convictions—not being swayed by others. Not even those of great repute.

November 2019

The Unpredictability of History…of Life

Reading James Reston’s beautifully written and insightful memoir, Deadline, I come upon this observation.

Most of the events that determined the history of the 20th century were not foreseen. In its first decade…the leaders of the world did not even imagine the First World War nor the Communist revolution in Russia nor the rise of the Nazis in Germany nor the Great Depression. At the start of the Second World War, nobody counted on the invention of the atomic bomb or the collapse of the Soviet Union or the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the economic challenge of Japan and China, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the turmoil in the developing nations of Africa and Asia. The world changed faster than historians could change their mind.

All of which brought me to reflect on P&G’s history over the past hundred years and my own life history with Francie.

If it hadn’t been for an unfriendly tender offer for Richardson-Vicks by Unilever, which led Richardson-Vicks to seek P&G as a white knight, we wouldn’t have acquired Olay or Vicks, and we wouldn’t have entered Southeast Asia, including India, at the time we did.

If it hadn’t been for the decision to buy a small toilet paper company (Charmin) in the late 1950s, and if it hadn’t been for the decades-long work to create game-changing papermaking technologies (CPF), P&G wouldn’t have Bounty or Charmin today.

If it hadn’t been for the persistence and technical genius of Vic Mills, P&G wouldn’t have created Pampers.

If P&G hadn’t had the determination and technical genius of a handful of R&D leaders, P&G wouldn’t have created the two-in-one technology and the world-leading hair-care brands Pantene and Head & Shoulders along with it.

If I hadn’t needed to earn scholarship money to go through college, I wouldn’t have decided to join the Navy.

If I hadn’t squinted hard and perhaps been blessed by God to pass my eye exam to be able to get into the Navy ROTC program in 1956, I wouldn’t have gone to Yale or, after college, gone into the Navy, which proved all-important to my development.

If I hadn’t been in the Navy, I can’t imagine having secured a job at Procter & Gamble.

If I hadn’t joined P&G, there is no way I would have ended up on the infield of the Kentucky Derby in May 1964 and met Francie, who, after three years of feverous pursuit, I married on September 9, 1967. We wouldn’t have the family we have today.

None of these things in the P&G history or my personal history were predictable, let alone certain. In P&G’s case, what was certain was the company leaders had grown up with the heritage of the commitment to continued growth. To achieve growth by finding new, better ways to win the loyalty of consumers through groundbreaking technology and strategic acquisitions. To be open to the opportunities of the present as to how to achieve that growth, with the never-ending realization that enhancing the benefits of our brands for consumers was the key to success.

In my own case, what drove my development and what accounts for my success, such as it is, is perhaps more diffuse. But at its roots, it combined the drive to survive and to succeed. Survive, growing from my not ever having felt as self-confident as I might like, of knowing my family had challenges that I had to overcome. I believed I would have to scrap as hard as I could to succeed and avoid failure. I was fortunate in having a good reserve of intelligence and abundant determination. My faith in God led me to believe I had a meaningful purpose in life.

In time, my confidence grew, lifted above all by my mother and Francie’s confidence, support, and love. My focus increasingly shifted to service: service to myself by fulfilling the best of my natural abilities; service to others, even if never perfectly delivered; service for my family, for the business, and for the community.

PERSONAL

January 2020

Where Has my Faith Gone?

My hour-long walk on the beach this beautiful morning gave me sobering pause for reflection on a question that has been lingering on my mind but not stated. It is a question I have faced many times before. It is a question I hesitate to even raise, but I need to confront it once again and decide what, if anything, I should be doing differently to rekindle my faith.

There is no doubting that my faith in an ever-present God has lost a lot of its personal intimacy for me over the past couple of years. I still do return to the words of Jesus as a compass to guide what I do or don’t do, but I do so less frequently than I did before.

More significantly, I simply don’t feel the presence of God each and every day, even in church, as I did for so many years. For example, as I prayed to God invariably in church for the wisdom to know the right thing to do and the courage and perseverance to do it.

As I walked today in the brilliant sun, I asked myself several questions. How real—really—did I feel the presence of God in my life? Was this somehow make-believe? Pretense?

No. It was very real. I prayed to God for strength and often felt His presence as I faced a tough challenge at P&G or had an important talk or decision in front of me.

I prayed to God to help my sister when she was undergoing surgery.

I prayed for God to protect Francie when she had an emergency appendectomy, and I prayed fervently on the birth of each of our children for their healthy delivery and for Francie’s safety.

I prayed to God to help me make the right decision on whether to create the Freedom Center and whether we should keep going despite the financial challenges.

I prayed to God when I had cancer, believing that He had a design and that His will would be done. I assumed, I really did, that He wanted me to get well. I decided I’d do everything to help make that happen.

I ask myself today: did I really believe God would personally intervene in these challenges? I wasn’t sure is my only answer. But I thought He might, and I know I felt it was right to ask for His help. Perhaps, admittedly, I was motivated simply by the desire to just be doing all I could. In any case, I do know it helped me navigate the challenges faced by my loved ones.

Much of what I read and saw would challenge my faith over the years. It’s easy, and altogether true, to point out all the bad things that have been done in the name of religion. And I understand and appreciate how many people draw the inspiration I have drawn from religion from experiencing nature. I have experienced that inspiration, too, from the beauty of the shoals and waters of Pointe au Baril to the glory of the forests I’ve walked in and the awesome sight of the oceans I’ve experienced.

Still, I always come back to something that is a certainty for me: I have been able to lead a better life in fulfilling what I believe to be my purpose on earth because of my belief in God and the guidance provided by the words and beliefs of Jesus.

So back to the question: where has my faith gone, and what, if anything, should I be doing differently?

I ask, what has caused this diminution of faith and my reliance on the personal experience of God? I believe there are several explanations:

1. I have faced fewer dramatic challenges in business and personally (for which I, frankly, thank God), which have undoubtedly in the past prompted my drawing on the power of identifying with a personal God. It’s no idle observation that there are very few atheists in foxholes. I’ve been in proverbial foxholes from time to time, and they undoubtedly have accounted for part of my reliance on my faith.

2. Sadly, I have to recognize a diminution of the renewed inspiration I’ve gained from attending church. This is despite the fact that I have been attending church regularly at Church of our Saviour, where I’ve continued to experience the preaching of the minister who has meant more to my life than any other, Paula Jackson. Still, I have to acknowledge the services over the past few years have meant less to me. Paula’s homilies still advance, often with passion, beliefs that are central to my being: respect for other people, the importance of community, and caring for the disadvantaged. However, the message, like it or not, has become a bit old for me. And there is, in truth, less joy in it, as Paula emphasizes, the real but negative aspects of life, almost without exception.

3. I suspect my faith has now somehow been negatively impacted by