In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of dealing with crisis and how to adapt and overcome. The context of this series is the physical and financial fallout that resulted from the COVID 19 pandemic. Crisis management is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

I was born and raised in a small town in Pennsylvania to wonderful parents and a family of service members, educators, engineers, and entrepreneurs. From a young age, this legacy of service inspired me to put the needs of others above my own. A mural on my grade school auditorium read that memorable challenge from John Kennedy’s inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” I didn’t pay nearly enough attention during school assemblies, because my eyes were always drawn back to that mural. I knew then that I wanted civic action and service to define my life.

My alarm goes off at 6 am, waking me before the sun has a chance to warm the frigid river air that bites at me as I hurry to make the 7:15 Mass on time. I stumble through the Mass parts in German, holding back tears because everything feels so foreign. Afterward, I run to my German school down the street.

Oh, but how we make Him so in our prayers. Oh, how He functions based in the constraints of what we know in our minds. Sure, God meets us where we are. Sure, God the Father is the source of our very image and as the maker of our soul knows our every circumstance and allows us to create limited images of Him in our limited minds, but, I’ll say it louder – God is not American.

I live what is, at times, a lonely and overwhelming lifestyle. My husband is in the Army, and while we have three children to keep me company while he is away, there is a blaring difference between being alone and being lonely.

It was Ben Franklin who said that only two things are certain: death and taxes. We spend a lot of time here at Seeking Excellence preparing our souls for the first, but with the July 15th deadline for personal income tax returns coming up soon, let’s spend some time talking about the second.

A three-part series of open letters from a biracial man to a hurting nation. This is part three. To my dear fellow Christians, I didn’t sign up for this. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Do you ever feel like this? Like things are just wildly overwhelming and unfair?

This is part two. To my dear black family and friends, It has been an emotional last two weeks for me. I can’t even lie, I tried to just avoid all this at first. I was so caught up with work, my new ministry, and personal life that I didn’t want to dedicate time to addressing this problem.

Wake up sleeper,

Rise from the Dead,

And Christ will shine on you.

This past week, I was reading through Ephesians. It’s one of my go to reads for a quick, humbling, lay-it-all-on-the table reflection session. Ephesians, a letter from St. Paul, [debatably] written in Ephesus, is an instruction manual in many things.

A three-part series of open letters from a biracial man to a hurting nation To my dear white family and friends, as you well know, this is an incredibly trying time for our nation. Who would have thought we would exit the fear-filled mysteriousness of a worldwide pandemic right into this societal hurricane of nationwide racial tension?

Isn’t it interesting that, time and time again, death comes as a surprise? One could argue that it’s really the only guaranteed thing in life; the death rate for humans is 100%. We all know it’s coming, but we still manage to take most days for granted.

Last week, I introduced and reflected on one of my all-time heroes, St. Maximillian Kolbe. He was, and is, the epitome of a warrior for Christ. If you don't know his story, I recommend reading part 1 before going forward. St. Maximillian Kolbe, amidst his own suffering, preached about the problem with indifference.

One of my heroes was born on January 8th, 1894 in the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. He received a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary when he was only 12 years old, during which she predicted that he would persevere in purity and become a martyr for our Faith.

I almost always keep my iPhone on “do not disturb” mode. I’m easily distracted, so it helps guard my mind from the unending notifications coming from text messages, ESPN updates, news headlines, and the like. Luckily, though, Apple Inc. also gives me the option of putting contacts in my “Favorites,” allowing their calls to come through even when I’m on “do not disturb.”

As I have mentioned earlier, one of my biggest objections to joining the Honors Program was that I didn’t see enough value added to counteract the decrease in test scores and GPA that was sure to follow in these harder classes. I made this assumption because, after all, I was not in honors or advanced classes in high school. In my mind, if I couldn’t do it then, why would I be able to succeed in these classes now?