The Scale of the Solution

What if the problems we care about most are bigger than the solutions we have built to address them?

In this episode, Don reflects on the challenge of staying faithful to the problem rather than simply preserving the structure, and is joined by Peter Jenks, longtime Episcopal priest, community leader, and one of the original sparks behind Trekkers. 

Together, they explore service, collaboration, enduring leadership, and what becomes possible when a leader commits to a community long enough to know it, be known by it, and help build something larger than themselves.

To learn more about Don's work, upcoming offerings, and leadership resources, visit carpentercompanyconsulting.com

 If something in today’s episode spoke to you, I hope you’ll subscribe and continue the journey with me — because leadership begins within. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to Meditations on Leadership. I'm Don Carpenter. Let me ask you: what happens when the problem you are trying to solve is bigger than the solution you have built? What happens when good work is still not enough to meet the depth of what is needed? And what does leadership require of us when we realize we cannot solve it alone? Those questions bring into one of the more humbling realities of leadership. That our responsibility is not simply to protect what we have created, but to stay faithful to the problem that has called us into the work in the first place. Sometimes leadership means meeting the need in front of us. Sometimes it means stepping back to see what's still missing. And sometimes it means admitting the solution is too big to build alone. Exploring leadership attentions like these is at the heart of this podcast. Each week begins with a meditation, followed by a personal reflection, and then a conversation with a guest whose lived experience helps bring this theme to life, all in the service of the inner formation that leadership asks of us. And today I get to explore all of this with my guest, Peter Jenks. Peter is one of those people whose life has been shaped by service, imagination, and a deep commitment to community. He grew up outside of Chicago, spent part of his childhood on the Jersey Shore, and later moved to Minnesota before attending the University of South in Tennessee. In the late 1970s, he worked outside of Dublin and Belfast, Northern Ireland, helping bring children together from neighborhoods divided by conflict. An experience that says a lot about the kind of bridge builder Peter has always been. After seminary in New York City, where he was active in protest against apartheid and the nuclear buildup, Peter served a church in Newport News, Virginia, doing extensive youth ministry before settling in Maine in 1992. And for me, Peter's story is deeply personal. I have always experienced him as a catalytic thinker, someone who can see possibility before others can fully name it. The concept, for instance, of trekkers first came into Peter's imagination. He shared that idea with my uncle Jack, who birthed it, nurtured it, and forged it into being. Years later, I had the privilege of helping ground it, shape it, scale it, and codify the model into what it has become today. But without Peter's initial spark, my own life and leadership journey would have unfolded very, very differently. After more than 30 years as a priest in the Episcopal Church in Thomaston, Peter retired in 2024. Along the way, he served as a volunteer firefighter, police chaplain, town moderator, community organizer, advocate, father, and friend to many. And now he continues to look for ways to serve, including his current run to represent District 43 in the main state house. Some listeners may remember his Peter's son Elias, who joined me earlier in the series for when we discussed when the conditions are right. So it feels especially meaningful to now welcome Peter into this conversation as well. Peter officiated my wedding to Cheryl. So his presence in my life is not only professional or communal, it's deeply personal. It is a real gift to welcome someone whose ideas, service, and friendship have shaped my life in more ways than he probably knows.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Peter, welcome to the show. It is such an honor to be part of this show and to be with you. You have been an inspiration to me in so many different ways. And the fact that you have been such a spark and guide to two of my children in such profound ways as well, just deepens that my my admiration for you.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Well, that's very humbling to hear, actually. And uh thank you. And what a privilege it's been to be an extra adult, caring adult in the lives of your kids. So anyway, thanks a lot for being here, Peter.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Thank you. It's uh I say this is the age of technology of bringing us together from different very different places now.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

That's right. I think you're waiting for your uh a new uh grandbaby.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, a new granddaughter is going to be born uh looks like this after this evening. So we're well I'm I'm catching you on the cusp.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yes. On the cusp. Well, before we jump into our conversation, let me read Meditation 52 from the forthcoming book titled The Scale of the Solution, which is a theme that Peter picked for our conversation. And the quote I wrote down goes like this the intervention needs to be proportionate to the problem. The intervention needs to be proportionate to the problem. It's an unknown author of that quote. And here's my meditation. Most nonprofit leaders understand this in theory, but rarely stop long enough to examine it in practice. Nearly every mission-driven organization begins with something simple and sincere. There is a problem in our community, and we create a response. But over time, what begins as service can harden into an institution more focused on preserving itself than staying faithful to the problem it was created to address. We get better at running the program, better at managing the calendar, better at sustaining the structure. But sometimes, without meaning to, we stop asking whether the structure is still equal to the problem. We become better at approving our programs than challenging the conditions they were meant to change. We grow skilled at sustaining our silo rather than strengthening the ecosystem. That is when the intervention begins to lose proportion to the problem. That is when we can still be doing good work, but not work that matches the depth, scale, and or complexity of what is needed. I have felt this tension in my own leadership. There were many chapters when I knew the problem we were trying to address was bigger than any one program, organization, or leader could solve. I never believed we could do it alone. But I also felt the weight of what we were carrying. The young people in front of us, the families who trusted us, the staff looking for clarity, the daily demands of keeping the work moving. When you're carrying that much, it can be hard to lift your eyes beyond your own organization's needs, even when you know the silo is too small for the problem. I was not perfect at this. There were many times when I could see the need for deeper collaboration, but still felt pulled back by the urgency of what was right in front of me. This is part of the challenge of leadership. We have to deeply care about the work we are responsible for without confusing our responsibility with the ownership of the whole solution. Because no single nonprofit, school, church, agency, or initiative can move the needle on systematic challenges alone. If the problem is layered, entrenched, and generational, then the response has to be layered too, not just in intention, but in design, not just in effort, but in relationship. Years ago, my therapist, Dr. Karen Plavin, told me something that has stayed with me. She said everything you do or don't do in a community counts. That line changed the way I think about leadership and community change. Our impact is not only shaped by what we build, it is also shaped by what we fail to notice, what we fail to connect, what we fail to strengthen beyond ourselves. Sometimes the right next step is not to grow our own program. Sometimes it is to strengthen someone else's. Sometimes the courageous move is collaboration. So if the intervention is going to be proportionate to the problem, we have to ask harder questions. What is missing? Who is being missed? Who else needs to be part of this solution? Are we willing to build something together that none of us could build alone? Because leadership is not about owning the solution, it is about staying faithful to the problem long enough to let the right solution emerge. So I want to offer a quick real-time reflection, and I want to use this as a way to name the other side of the equation that I was speaking to. For the past 30 years, I I've been invited into more community partnerships, coalitions, and collaboratives than I can count. Almost always they begin with real energy and great intentions. Problem or a gap in the community has been named, a group of people has gathered, a grant has been written, a new structure has been created, and for a while it feels like something important might be forming. But I have also watched many of these efforts slowly fade. Sometimes the funding that created the urgency runs out. Sometimes the person who was holding the vision leaves. Sometimes the original purpose gets stretched by the next grant opportunity. Sometimes the collaborative becomes another meeting on everyone's calendar, but no longer a force strong enough to change the conditions that brought the people together in the first place. And I do say this with a lot of grace because this type of work is so, so hard. It is one thing to say we need collaboration. It is another thing to build the structure, trust, discipline, and shared accountability needed to sustain collaboration over time. Scaling a solution also means scaling the structure that can carry it. And that is where many of us struggle. Because upstream work is slow, systems change is time consuming. It is much easier to keep putting our thumb in the dike, responding to the immediate need right in front of us, than it is to stay focused on the deeper conditions that keep producing the same need over and over again. And yet, if the problem is bigger than any one organization, then the solution has to become bigger than that one organization as well. I think what this kind of work requires most is enduring leadership, not flashy leadership, not grant style leadership, not leadership that changes direction every time new funding becomes available, but leadership that stays rooted in the original inspiration, leadership that keeps calling people back to the problem, leadership that can hold the tension between immediate service and long-term change. That is the kind of leadership needed when the scale of the solution is trying to meet the scale of the problem. Peter, as you listen to the meditation, what stirred with you, what stayed with you? What are you thinking about?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Actually, I've got four or five things that came up, but just at the end, what you were talking about, the enduring, after in retiring and kind of looking back on staying with a church for 30 over 30 years, which is very, very unusual to make a long-term pass for it and everything, came up with a few things that all I needed to do. And the first one is show up. Just by showing up every Sunday, every you know, being it when people needed me in the community and just being there, whether I did anything or not, whether I screwed up or not, just showing up and being there was a huge positive thing. Just the the that showing up. And the next one was that falling in love with the people, that I love these people, I love this town, I love that, you know, I run into these people, and some people are really challenging, and some people are just amazing, and some people surprise me and just discovering it. And in Maine, what I learned early on that Maine builds character, and and we are some of them. And in that, I I started to the people that challenge me. I started realizing these people are making a great story in my life. I mean these characters, and just and the next which leads to the next part of casting my lot with the people. If they do well, I do well. I'm one of these people. And I think as far as leadership or making things work, the organization was that that that I'm I'm with you and and our stories are in a connected. I'm not the expert from a way that this is separate from you all. I am part of you. We're in this relationship together. I mean, the number of mistakes that I can just wake up in the middle of the night and go, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that or said that or didn't say something or wasn't there when I needed to. It it's it's it's endless. But that being present, being with these people and one of these people, and this is our story, not you know, another story. And finally, the the thing that I learned more than anything else, and this is kind of the always on Christmas Eve sermon sermons about you. The only thing that really matters is it can't have a great profound thing. It's not, doesn't need to be long. All it is is have fun. If I'm having fun with you, and we're all it's one of the things that if you watch somebody who's having fun, you're gonna have fun. If you're watching someone who's, oh, this is a job, you know, just you're not there. And if if I'm with the people having fun, that alone. It doesn't, I don't need to be a great talented person. I don't need to have all the answers, I don't need to have any answers. It's just those four things really carried me along and made for a very successful ministry. Um, it wasn't because I wasn't a great person at all, and and that really is the enduring thing, is it's just those basic four steps.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

They're well, I I've got a great follow-up question to that, but I just want to repeat these back to you that I just heard. One was this idea of enduring leadership requires this idea of just showing up day after day, uh, showing up for the people you're serving, that you love the people, that the character and the people that are around you, although it can be challenging at times, but that you have a deep love for the people that you're serving, that you actually are casting your lot with the people, meaning their success is your success, their failure is your failure. And uh that's beautifully said, and to have fun. And I think I think we could wrap the entire podcast up now, but I think we'll keep going because there's a lot of wisdom in that. But when I look at your story, talking about referring to this idea of enduring leadership, what I'm struck by is how much you moved early in life before landing in Maine in 1992, and then staying rooted here ever since. And I'm wondering what did all that movement teach you about the importance of staying? And what have you learned about leadership that can only be learned by committing to a place over time?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

I think moving around a lot was very defining for me, staying in place because my I have three siblings and we all went to different high schools. Uh, my sister and I kind of moved to Minnesota in high school, and so we had that continuity together, but I never saw my younger brother's high school, don't know what the colors are, anything about it. And there's a sense that I wanted my children to have all have that same piece of memory together that they could talk about, that they that would unite them as siblings, not having that with my my siblings. Um, we've had to work on building relationships in other ways, but that you know, where did I belong? I mean, I was born in Chicago, and that's always where my entered spaceship Earth and you know downtown Chicago. Um, but there's never I have can slip into a Minnesota accent or a southern accent, or I mean these different things. Uh but but who am I? And in in in light of where I belong on on this planet, that that was very key in me staying in one place even through some really challenging, difficult times. That this is this is where both for my children and for me, that this is and a sense that this is where God has called me to be. I had a very profound kind of moment that led me to Maine. That while I was in Ireland, there was a I was kind of wondering, you know, where do I belong? Where is my home? And I was in Dublin being driven around um Dublin with this uh this I was at a reconciliation center, and the the one of the Jesuit priests who was running it um was running errands. So this other woman and I, we kind of were sitting in the backseat drinking a bottle of wine in the backseat of the car. He was it was a tiny little car, and it he was a really big man. I thought it was the funniest scene. And he was a Jesuit priest named Jim Joyce, and we were driving around Dublin, and and literarily I just found this to be the most entertaining thing. But at one moment I looked out and I saw these fields kind of going up a hill with these stone walls, and deep inside the sense of this is what your home looks like. Whether that you know, I I interpreted, I use the words, this is where God be kind of speaking to me, saying, This is what it looks like, but this isn't your home. I went back to Ireland and was, you know, worked in Belfast because that's the closest I ever felt to someplace of where I'm grounded. And when I um I didn't ever apply for the position, I mean, it was kind of thrown into it. And when I came to the interview for the parish, someone was driving me down Route 131 to St. George, and I looked out the window and I thought, this is what I saw. This is what it was. So the when we came to the interview, I was like, I had nothing to lose. I mean, this was already set in place, and they would ask questions, I'd ask them questions. I wasn't nervous at all. This has already been, you know, was set up for me. But that led me to believe this is where I needed to be. This is where I was sent to be, this is where I was being woven into, you know, the quilt or whatever it is, the fabric where I was being being placed. And and I think that added a great deal to uh to it, which has always been oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Well, I was just gonna say, was there, I mean, you showed up, you had this history of staying in different places along the way from Virginia to Minnesota to New York City to Dublin. Was it the fact that you had kids and you wanted to see them go through uh school? Like, was there any was there any urgency or tension or restlessness to want to keep moving? Or did you just say, this is it? I feel grounded here and and and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

I mean, my personality type always has looking at everything and every option. And I'm always having, I mean, and there's always been, I don't know if I should leave this in or not, but I love the people, I've been transformed by the people, Maine. This is who my people are. I do, I'm down here in Maryland near DC, and I find myself in a multicultural area with multicultural food. And I do miss sometimes in Maine, it's all white, it's all, I mean, kind of monocultural thing that there's a breath of fresh air when I get into a place where there's all sorts of different ethnic backgrounds. That has always kind of been there for me. But where my grounding is and the calling is in place, I mean, children they really led to it. But the key factor for me in all of this came about when I was um in high school serving for Walk for Mankind at a program, and we went different places around the country, down to Tennessee. And in South Dakota, we're working building playgrounds on the Indian reservation. And one night we were playing basketball. The the people from Minneapolis, you know, we were down there doing this, and um we were playing basketball with the local Indians, and the congregational minister at the after the game had a little communion service with lemonade and honeycomb cereal. It was great. And we're all together kind of sitting there, kind of talking. He was playing his guitar. He was a really cool guy with the guitar and all. And but sitting there off to the side, I had this thing, okay, God, if you're there, let's do this. You know, let's, and it was became inside of me a conversation with the divine, it would be my language, whether it be an inner understanding of life or a cosmic larger reality. Light has always been a piece of that. But there was it became a conversation, a relationship with that larger reality. And that one moment, the the pastor at that moment had no clue what had gone on inside of me. But that defined my life because it became a relationship. It wasn't an idea. I started having this relationship with something that was much bigger with than I. It connected me to somehow this larger life force on earth that has always been the relationship. And the relationship is everything. You talk about solutions to problems, and the solutions to me, that every solution is to find the relationship. And that relationship piece is was always defined and led me to. I mean, you talked about truckers earlier. Trekkers, it was I came in and I found that there were a lot of people in my neighborhood who had moved to Maine, and their kids had grown up elsewhere. And then Joey, who Jack had run into, um, who's being walking around late at night because he was kicked out of his house, and I'd run into a couple of these other kids like this. It's like there are kids here who don't have a lot of relationships that are healthy. And there are a lot of adults in this area that don't have relationships with any of the local people. They have their kind of silos of their friends that they've moved into, you know, here they play bridge with or whatever it might be. It's like relationship, if we don't have relationships with each other, this isn't going to work. Um, the problems of these young people, we need to somehow find a way to build a relationship. That's why you have going away out of town put everybody on an even level. That it wasn't I'm coming with expertise. Everybody was coming out into the um Jackman, Bow River Run, whatever it was, that to learn how we're gonna camp together. Um, and that's how that's the whole point of trekkers was relationship. It wasn't to solve the problem of young people, it was to build relationship with young people. And I had an experience this morning with my granddaughter, who was pitter-pattering around. And I I realized that usually I'll look at the news in the morning and get caught up in all the insanity that's going on in our world. But it it hit me, and another baby's coming into the family. And I thought, you know, sometimes people say, Well, I'm too busy to fall in love, or I'm too busy to, you know, have a family, I'm too busy, I gotta do this and make enough money or do this. But when somebody meets somebody and they fall in love, everything changes. They'll stop everything. And even more so that when a baby comes into a family, everything stops. Whatever it was, the family will re you know, get together, I'll take a trip, I'll and the and the the parents, the the family, you stop everything because this child needs us. And everything that was important, I don't want to watch the news or listen to the news today. I'm paying attention to this granddaughter. And I'm I'm running for office and I'm stopping my campaign for three weeks in the key, most important time of the campaign, because you know, this is a granddaughter, this is a person, I need to be there for a child. And and this is our society. This is if we can't stop and realize the relationship piece, we're we're losing something. That's why youth ministry is so essential because we have to stop and take care of these kids. This is it's also the case when somebody, a loved one, you know, as a priest, I'd get a call at you know, three in the morning, someone's in the hospital. I may really want to continue to be in bed. I may not want to get out of bed, but it's like, I gotta go. I mean, this is this is the relationship will motivate us back to what's most important. And that's where we get to solve the solution, is by that relationship.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Well, yeah, there's so much there to unpack. Um, I mean, as a priest in a a given commun any given community, which you have committed to for over 30 years, to the community of Thomaston, and you have found your life so close to the problems and the challenges that that show up in the community, and really based on where the church is, right in the middle of them. What what have you learned about the difference between responding to immediate needs and then also trying to address the deeper conditions underneath that?

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Well, that is a I wish I could say I'm an expert in that one. I have there are so many moments of getting caught up in that immediate crisis, the immediate whirlwind of adrenaline. Being in a fire department helped because you have to work against adrenaline all the time. You know, you can't get lost if you got to make sure you button everything, every button in the jacket, make sure everything's because it'll kill me if I don't, you know. So but I'm I could tell you a thousand cases of missing that one. It's the key for me uh really is being still and having time to stop, having time to just reflect again, to just let everything settle. And you know, in the in the river, you know, once everything settles down and all of mud gets down the bottom, you can really see things clearly. I always need a lot of time to process. You know, when I I would get to church, I would be up at four or four o'clock in the morning and get there two or three hours before the service just to be still so I could get to that place. I'm not a master at this. I'm not really good at relationships, but I know that this is why I have to work so hard.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Well, would you say that? I mean, so I'm thinking about I I appreciate your candor about how hard and difficult it is to really think about upstream solutions as opposed to uh just trying to uh work and solve uh immediate needs, basic needs, um, as opposed to the conditions that created them in the first place. And it's at the heart of this particular meditation. I kind of want to ask so probably the thing I'm most curious about, Peter, and that is that you are now running for main state uh the state house, and you retired in 2024, and uh of course we're two years later. And when you think about this changing systems that can better solve for solve for issues that maybe uh if you fix them, you there won't be other people having to put their um thumbs in the dike uh later on. And so what drew drew you to come out of retirement? And was it that you wanted to focus on these larger issues since you were so minute in these at the church level of dealing with basic needs and whatever else might come up? Or was it when I've talked to other people, they've talked about like I just felt like I needed to feel relevant again? Like, what's going on here that you're running for?

SPEAKER_00 30:17

I I did not need to feel relevant, and I don't, and and there are people who run for office to be a representative or a senator or whatever. I'm I'm running to represent people. I don't need there's no there are a lot of times in life where the ego piece is really important to me, and and that's this. I know as my I'm somebody who thinks on bigger levels on bigger issues, how to solve or like like looking at trekkers or looking at been working on a number of different other areas when we were starting up the youth ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine of not just a chaplain kind of program, but you know, how to think in a whole different way. We are at a time politically where we can really think in, we have to think in really different ways. We have an opportunity to think about the tax code in a whole different way, or how we do education in it, and it needs to be because all education, healthcare, tax, all these are unsustainable. And everybody keeps trying to do little band-aids here and there, and to be, you know, to be the political thing and to move up any advancement of the political um ladder. I have a gift of thinking in big ways and different ways. Um, I don't have an ego, so I will work with anybody. I'm very aware that my experience in life is that nobody's always wrong and nobody's always right. So whether I agree or disagree with somebody politically or religiously, I might learn something from them. And I they might have something that I can really gain from. And so I my motivation was that this is an opportunity that my particular gifts for the next chapter could really help, as I feel. And I um that's the the sole reason of getting into it. I don't see this as a long-term commitment. Um I think this is to do what I feel I can do and uh get out of the way. I think this is something that that's um, the whole thing of running. One of the things I was gonna change just another subject, but I should just stop there.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Well, okay. Well, let me let me just uh press on this a tiny bit, okay? One of the challenges that I see in taking uh moving from a church environment where you've committed for 30 years and you build this congregation and build a community there to the idea of running for statehouse is that uh one is has the potential of not being as enduring. And if we're talking about the fact that one of the things that sustains uh solutions or helps take on particular challenges in the community is enduring leadership. Can you just speak a little bit to the idea that, like, what does it mean if you get in there knowing that in two years or four years you might be out of there? And therefore, all the work that it takes to sustain systematic change is then handed off to somebody else that may be of a different political thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

So I'm just curious, like, what's well first of all, I think we're in different vocabularies here. I mean, it's a I could be there two, four, eight years, and everybody who gets into politics, once you're out, you're gone. And what is enduring? There's nothing enduring in politics, but this all of the solution on every and this is where to me the only thing that matters. I mean, the church I served, it may not last forever. I mean, it's a the Episcopal church may fade away, all of these things. But each of the relationships that have been formed are so profoundly life-changing. The people you meet, you know, just going in to serve in the state house, the the people that you know you go through with the take your belt off and all your things out of your pocket, and the people behind the, you know, that you meet every day going in or at the cafeteria, these are life-changing. This is enduring. I mean, that the the kids that I on the first trekker trip, I still hold in my heart. I mean, they changed my life. That that is what's enduring. To me, what's enduring is something that's that connection with the divine or the larger. My connection is there. It's not a solution to a problem that, oh, how are we going to fix this A, B, and C the tax, or whatever it might be, or keep the church painted, or whatever it might be, you know, looking good. Those are just very small issues. The politics, the church, the um, all of these things are like ferry boats that take me to the the mainland, which is the relationships, that peace that connects my life with all those other lives. This is, and all of them are gonna be dropped off. Um, but it's meeting you and Cheryl, and all the kids and trackers and Jack, and this is the thing that lasts. This is uh, you know, we never remember, you know, what someone may have preached, but I know how it made me feel when I heard that sermon. Yeah, or that poem, or that uh you know, working with a youth minister, you know, in some you know, gathering is they they made me feel welcome. Um, I and and that's what somehow in in that wove my life to your life and to all these other lives of these people that we come in contact with. I mean, the people have changed my life, most of them have no clue how they've changed my life. And these weavings is is so important. I was gonna kind of shift it. So much of what taught me this is a couple of things. One, going through divorce. I when I first got married, I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to be you know good in a ministry and do be a good husband and a good dad. And I was always wanting to do the right thing, the good thing. And in doing that, I kind of missed the core of it, and that's just being in love. I was always trying to do the right thing, and the marriage fell apart, and it was a devastating thing. And I was went to an acupuncturist, and she made this comment to me that I was very profound. She said, her experiences with men is that they have to really be go through a wound and really be broken before they can fall in love, because before that, they're always trying to do the right thing, and that was my experience. I once the I really was it all fell apart. At that point, I could just be in a relationship to fall in love and to be in love, and the same way with the church. For years I fought the church because I was always being kind of marginalized in different ways, and I felt overlooked because I was just I was a straight white guy or whatever, I was too young at first, and then I was too old later, and I was always, you know, never really fit into the group, and it hurt. And then about five years ago or so, after all my complaining and whining, it dawned on me that all of those wounds I got were blessings. They were teaching me as a straight white guy when growing up in the upper middle class of America, I was so blessed and blind. And now I had a taste of what women, blacks, uh, gays, all sorts of people had experienced their whole life for centuries. And I, you know, I got a little bit of a taste, and I am whining and complaining. And it kind of turned the corner for me to realize that the failure was really the vehicle that opened me up to really a deeper relationship and to get to a place where I could forgive and find mercy and understand my own shortcomings. I mean, I'm, you know, being a pastor in a really tiny, small little church in a small little denomination, that was it was not great work I was doing, but it was relationships. And this is to me everything in youth ministry is how do I relate to these people? I did a you know, I painted for many years, and when my kids were getting out of high school, I did portraits of them. And the whole thing was I could sit and why I painted was I don't do landscapes, I do people because I want to know who are you? You know, these kids were strangers that came into my life. They were part of my life, you know, I was so close to them that I couldn't see them. I had my baggage as bad and you know what I wanted and expectation. But then it's like to just do a picture of them, it's like, who are you? I mean, you're the stranger that's been in my life all these years. And just to pull away enough to discover that which was most precious and not have just a baggage of expectation of I'm your dad. But this is we're journeys, we're journeying together here.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Well, I first of all, I I really appreciate your uh willingness to share a little bit about your journey in terms of what you learned at a particular time of your life through the painful choice to get divorced. I wonder the thing that I want to ask you about, and um regarding that, has to do with being in the church as the leader of the church and having to make a choice that um maybe people would perceive you differently in your leadership role, having gone through a divorce. And I'm wondering, it was there anything to be learned by that?

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Oh, that changed everything to me. That you know, I was always trying to do, you know, I'm running the church, I'm you know, the business part of it. And actually, it was one time I actually saw an angel. Oh, okay. That was that was a I remember trying to come out to do the service, and uh, you know, everything in my life has fallen apart, and I just had it was just nothing there, no, my soul had just melted onto the ground. And I yet still, okay, just keep going, do it. And I walked out and stood behind the altar, and I looked out, and it was as if this archangel was behind everybody, and it just terrified me. And all I could on my mind, I'm trying to telepathically tell everybody don't turn around, just whatever you do, don't turn around, it'll kill you. I mean, this is like this is this a fearful image and looking at me, and it somehow it cracked something in me, and I don't know if you could like psychologically define this, but I came down and uh to preach, and I looked at every one of these people in the room who I just viewed as you know, accomplished people in a different way, and I viewed this person who had lost a daughter, this person who'd gone through a divorce, this person who had had a life-changing you know, uh surgery that made their mobility, and every person I looked at in the room, I saw with their wounds and their struggles, and as they were looking at me. And I mean, I changed everything I did in ministry. Um, it was there was never never any, you know, who's important, who's not, or who's accomplished this or that. It was seeing a vulnerability from my wound and that place of desperation that somehow cracked something in me. I verbalized that as seeing this angel, um, but that crack that that we're in this together. Um, and that has helped me, you know, and as a priest, I I would go to somebody who's got a multi-million dollar house and listen to the challenges of their life, and then 10 minutes later be talking to a homeless woman who's living under the by the library in Rockland, and or at a wedding where I'm talking to the father of the bride spending$200,000 on his daughter's wedding, and I'm talking to parking attendants and the bartenders and the musicians and the the people who are visiting, and you know, it this is all these different levels, and we're all in this together, and that cracks, and there's really no difference.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

Yeah, well, I I I love that so much. Uh what it makes me think about, Peter, is especially in the midst of how uh right or wrong or indifferent, where people who are priests or who are pastors or who are in these leadership positions are usually exalted on some pedestal. And it, you know, not in Maine, not in Maine. Well, well, even so, I do think that there is a perception, at least on some level, but the idea of what I hear in you say is that whatever experience you went through in that, based on your own pain and your own wounds, allowed you to kind of meet people where they were more effectively because you had gone through a similar experience. Exactly. Yeah. Well, uh, I appreciate that so much.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

And wound meets wound. You know, being broken meets the break. I mean, this is where we connect most professionally. So why after a big storm, everybody gets out, we've made it through the storm together, we shared that experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Well, we've have a few minutes here left, and I just wanted to shift this a tiny bit because I think that. One of the biggest challenges of creating an intervention that's proportionate to whatever the problem is, any given leader, whether that's in your family or whether that's a community issue, requires typically the ability to collaborate with other people. You're about to go into the state house, and if you get elected, you'll have to create collaboration between bipartisanship, hopefully, to create to move things along. And you've been in this role many, many times. And I'm just, and it can be messy. And I'm just wondering what have you learned in terms of what makes collaboration real or causes it to fade.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

If I'm looking for a solution and not first beginning with relationship, I'm not never going to get anywhere. If I'm first looking at relationship and meeting another person who's in journey with me, there's a hope. And I think this is where refocusing, not just trying to accomplish, but to rethink and pull out large and law far enough back so I can somehow just appreciate the journey with somebody, is what can build uh open a door. I mean, there are people I profoundly disagree with on political issues, um, but that's not the basis of my life. They might have, they might have something that that I need to hear, and I need to be open. I know, people that I've learned the most from are people I feel like they're open to hearing what I have to say. I mean, politicians that I respect the most are people that sometimes I really disagree with, but they at least took me seriously. And and they they explained why they think differently. I may agree or disagree or say, oh wow, I never thought about that. And that's being able to be surprised, being able to know that that I'm not always right and I'm not always wrong, but this is this is what can I learn? And I you have said something earlier in your talk that I want to, you know, maybe I don't know how much time there is, but how to learn from almost any experience. And and any experience, any job I've had, 10 years, 20 years later, I realized, wow, I learned that skill. That's something that I didn't even think, you know, it was a part-time job that I was only doing to get some money for the summer, whatever it was. That's where I learned that skill that I need now, you know, years later. This is I volunteer for the main media workshop just to help them out if they need, you know, actors or models. And I sat in on their director's class. And while I was sitting there, I learned more about being a priest by listening to the director's class and any seminar I had on you know what to do as a clergy and the role of the clergy. It was like, I mean, the simple thing when you're a director, you want to make something, the movie or whatever you're making to tell the story. You don't want them to walk out of the theater saying, Wow, that was a great director. You want that story touching my life. In the same way, when you come out of a wedding, you walk out and say, the bride and groom were so wonderful. Their love just touched my heart. You don't want them to walk out, wow, that priest is really good. That's the last thing I want them to say. That's right. I mean, and this is to understand that from a different vocabulary, a different language helps me to learn in my own language. Learning about Buddhism taught me more about Christianity, you know, learning about different how different people do things or think or their their story, uh, their background that's I can learn so much from. And it builds a relationship, and and that's where any solution comes from, is when we it's we're all in this together. And I, you know, the little work I did in the church is so minuscule, but the work anybody does in a church is minuscule. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Well, you're your your curiosity is so contagious. I just I really love talking to you because uh in almost every answer, there's this real deep curiosity about what you don't know or what you haven't experienced, or what could be seen in your life as one thing, and it turns out to be another through a wonder and mystery and awe, and and and and I really love that. And I again we're running out of time, but I I wanted to see if speaking of curiosity, whether or not you're curious about a question that you might have for me as you've been ruminating, not only on the I know you're a faithful listener to the podcast, but um, you know, uh in terms of this topic or other.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

I just watching how you do things, how you've done this podcast, how you add you know, simply you know, how you ask questions throughout and think and are paying attention is really I'm learning. Yeah, I did an interview for you know, we're trying to start this podcast up, and it was horrible. Then I got thinking, how did God do this? So I mean, it's uh you know, watching you and and and just this journey of your life, how you've been able to adapt. Um, I mean, it's you know, institutions, you know, Trekkers has gone through major changes over the years, and that's it should, I hope it does. Um, communities go through major changes and and and the like. And that's we're we're just a part of uh of that. Just seeing how you do things and what you're doing, getting into this, you know, the book and the the meditation piece of the book helps me to to verbalize things. Um and it gives me, you know, hey, what can I do with this? Maybe I can, you know, it gives me some inspiration.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Oh, that's really kind, Peter. I'm glad uh it it feels full circle. You've uh inspired me a great deal. So uh if I can be of some sort of inspiration for you, that means a lot.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

Yeah, there's a lot of inspiration, and it's always been that way. I've just looked watched you that and this is where watching your joy in what you're doing is then kind of matches, keeps me kind of okay, keep upbeat here. I can slip into and we need each other to kind of you know pass a baton back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

Yeah, no doubt. Uh that's why I was so uh interested to have you on the podcast, because I think that you really have a lot of wisdom when it comes to learning from mistakes. Well, I was gonna say just meeting people, like meeting people where they are. It's a huge theme to what you share today, and I'll get into what I'm taking away from it. But let me just ask you a final question: like, what would what advice would you give to a leader who may see problems clearly and maybe has an idea for addressing it, but knows they may not be able to do it alone. What advice would you give to them?

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Well, nobody can do it alone. That's the great American heresy. That you know, I've made this revival, I did this, I made my fortune. Uh, even in Christianity, the great American heresies, it's me and Jesus. It's never. We are only part of something bigger. And we'll only ever accomplish a little bit in this trying to address this need, this work that needs to be done. Um, and it's not for us to solve it, it's for us to be a part of the journey and the the solution and the and to build the relationships that will solve it.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Yeah, that's beautifully said. Well, I I would be remiss knowing that you have, let's see, what what number of um grandchild will this be uh that uh shows up tonight?

SPEAKER_00 52:23

Well, Elias has five kids in all sorts of different ways. Um, this is number two for Jonas and one for Samsung, whatever that five, six, seven, eight. And then there I would also count. I mean, I count the two exchange students we have as kids and whatever they and kids I've worked with when they have kids. I mean, my relations is the American nuclear family is a very limiting thing. Uh, my family keeps growing with every but that it's the the blood I don't know how you describe it. It it's blood and love, is what one parishioner used to always say. Blood and love. That's however it works.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

It's uh well let me let me let me end on this question. What do you hope for the the baby who be born later tonight as they enter the world and begin to evolve into their own voice and agency, identity, and those sorts of things? What do you hope most for them as a as a person, as a grandfather, as a um father of your son?

SPEAKER_00 53:39

That they might find the joy and wonder in the mystery of this life and just be able to celebrate them the majesty that is in the littlest thing, and just find love. And and just to be loved, you know, as my mother used to say, I just want someone you marry someone who loves you like I love, you know, like I love you, that they love you. That's all I care about, and that we've that they can find love and they can find meaning in the relationships in their life.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Peter, thank you for uh being such an inspiration. I I appreciate the wide-ranging conversation and uh I knew it would be I knew it would be awesome. So thank you. Well, thank you. And thanks for the time. Yeah, absolutely. And if you can just stay on for a minute or two as I close this out, and then uh I can say uh goodbye to you at the end. Okay, great. Awesome. Well, as I sit and think about what I'm taking away from my conversation with Peter, especially specifically on this topic, but also on others. I think it's hard to come away from a conversation with Peter without, as I mentioned, his the effect, the the contagion of curiosity. It's something that is just a gift of his. And I wish, I hope it rubs off on me just by uh uh through screen to screen. But I I really loved and talking about what it means to endure in leadership and really make change within a community. He acknowledged four major things. One was to just show up, consistently, consistently show up, and to love the people you're serving. And that, you know, when we're talking about leadership, it doesn't have to be um, you know, running a church or running a nonprofit or you know, running a school or whatever it might be. You're if you see yourself as a person who loves other people and wants to serve them, you are making the third thing, casting your lot with those folks, that their successes become yours and and their failures become yours, and you work with them as a way to make the society better. And then the fourth thing was to have fun. I just love the fact that he had that, and and you could feel his sense of humor throughout and his love for life. That was awesome. When I talked about the idea of like how do you come up with a solution that is proportionate to the problem, he mentioned over and over again that every solution comes from a connection to a relationship, a relationship with the community, a relationship with the community members, and that when the when a solution comes or requires relationships, there becomes hope because it becomes a community effort rather than a single person's effort. And I really love that. And then he mentioned, I want to mention just two other things. One was that he goes by the motto that nobody is always wrong and nobody is always right, and to be able to make sure that we're putting ourselves in position to talking, to being in relations with people who may feel like they have an ants, uh, a particular perspective on life that is different from yours, but it's incredibly important that we uh engage people, um, no matter what um lifestyle or political or spiritual or otherwise background that they come from. And then finally, I thought he was incredibly uh honest and vulnerable in talking about how the ability to meet people where they are first comes from acknowledging our own wounds and our own um challenges. And if we can be honest with those things, that we can then meet other people in a way that can actually with empathy and compassion, because we are creating empathy and compassion to ourselves through our own brokenness. And that leads to what he said at the very end that what he hopes most for his kids, his grandchildren, is that they experience joy and wonder and a sense of majesty towards this life and that they can be loved and to love others. So it was a beautiful conversation. I'm so grateful for it. And um it's hard to transition from there, but uh let me leave you with two thoughts, questions, props, uh, and otherwise. And the first one is where might the work you are leading right now be too small for the size or complexity of the problem you're trying to address? Where might the work you're leading be too small for the size or complexity of the problem you're trying to address? The ability just to acknowledge that is so incredibly important. And then who is missing from the table? If Peter's right that relationships are everything when it comes to solutions, when it comes to community change, then who's missing from that table? And what might become possible if the solution was built more collaboratively with those people? As we close, big thanks to Peter. I'm just so grateful for you and for your presence in my life. So thank you. My thanks all as always is to Omar for producing these episodes. If you found something meaningful here today, would you consider sharing this with one other person? It would help grow the audience, and I'd be so grateful for that. And if you have a reflection or thought you'd like to share with me, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at any time at Don at Carpenter Company Consulting dot com. Thanks for listening, and always remember the journey of leadership begins with them.