My Word For 2025: Turbidity

As I have written, I do not do New Year’s Resolutions. I focus on a word. The word seems to find me! Past words include carin, civility, and selfie. The word that has chosen me for 2025 is turbidity.

“Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of both water clarity and water quality.” – Wikipedia

“Turbidity is a key indicator of water quality and ecological health. By understanding its causes, measuring techniques, and management methods, we can better protect water resources and ensure safe water for all uses. Continued research and innovation will play vital roles in addressing the challenges associated with turbidity in water bodies around the globe.” – Peter Annunziato, M.Sc. (Engineering), P.E.

Hurricane Helene’s aftermath here in Western North Carolina involved a severely damaged public water system, which taught me about turbidity. It became a part of our daily language as we tracked the water quality coming from North Fork Reservoir (NFR), our primary water source. Turbidity is measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU). According to the EPA, turbidity should be under 1 NTU. After Helene passed, the turbidity at NFR was at 30. We were without running water for over three weeks. Flushing toilets required dumping creek water into the toilet. We were without potable water for 53 days. The lack of water reminded me how much I take this fundamental life source for granted.

I recognize the turbidity in my life—the cloudiness, uncertainty, and quality—and its impact on my well-being. I see turbidity in others.

As I deal with life’s difficulties in 2025, I will ask myself these questions:

Do I understand the turbidity of the situation? What am I not seeing, hearing, or aware of? How can I better understand the turbidity? What and who am I taking for granted? Who could help me to deal with the turbidity?

Other questions that I could ponder on:

How am I being experienced by others in this turbidity? Am I being a part of the solution or contributing to the problem? Has the turbidity of the situation kept me from accepting responsibility, delaying gratification, acknowledging the truth, and maintaining balance?

When I experience joy and pleasure in 2025:

How did I overcome the turbidity to find joy? Why did I let turbidity keep me from joy?

Turbidity will remind me to undo the knots, find clarity, be more curious, and seek a clearer mind.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

Happy New Year. May all your words be thoughtful, helpful, and filled with good intent.

 

The Thin Places That Have Connected To My Soul

My leadership coaching sessions always involve conversations around spirituality and the soul. Some push back and say they don’t have a faith or religion. Others report they are members of a church. While religion can offer structure, the work on one’s soul is a connection to something bigger than oneself. In this work, one discovers one’s purpose and “why.” Author, political, and cultural commentator David Brooks’ recent article, The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be, offers insight.

“When faith finally tiptoed into my life it didn’t come through information or persuasion but, at least at first, through numinous experiences.” – David Brooks

Agreed. Going to church, attending church camp, and attending church mission trips didn’t make me a believer. However, it made me part of a community that shared love and vulnerability and revealed what heaven on earth could be.

What made me a believer were experiences of “thin places“—places where God revealed Herself to me and made me aware that She knows me better than I know myself.

“In those moments, you sense that you are in the presence of something overwhelming, mysterious. Time is suspended or at least blurs. One is enveloped by an enormous bliss.” – David Brooks

The “thin places” where I experienced “ineffable joy and exultation” are hard to describe. However, I recognize that Biblical passages come close. They capture the synchronicity between me, God, and the world. They are my brief encounters with heaven on earth.

Here are some of my encounters with “thin places“ where scriptures revealed for me:

I remember a beautiful fall late afternoon sail on Lake Cowan with my mother and father in 1970. Ecclesiastes 1:6  The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

The first time, my significant other and I made love. Solomon 3:4  I have found the one my soul loves.

Walking in Muir Woods, May 1982.  John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Helping to deliver our daughter at her birth.  Psalm 139: 13 -16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God-you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! You know me inside and out; you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you; the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.

Easter sunrise service at the Carillon, Dayton, Ohio, April 3, 1988.  Psalm 69:32 – The poor in spirit see and are glad. Oh, you God-seekers, take heart!

When we read Peter Gomes’s book “The Good Book,” a member of our men’s small group shared his vulnerability. 2 Corinthians 12:9  My power is made perfect in weakness. Phillippians 4:13 Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Walking the labyrinth at Camp Joy.  Galatians 5:16 Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

Receiving communion from a homeless person at Haywood Street Congregation. Micah 6:8 – But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.

These experiences renewed my hope and reminded me why I am in a relationship with the Holy and why She loves me with all my imperfections. 

“Thin places” opened up the mystical and mysteries, not certainty. I agree with Anne Lamott: “The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty!” What I am certain of is the mystery and the mystical. I am open to more.

I want to walk the Camino de Santiago and see if that experience could be an encounter with a “thin place.” Perhaps you would like to join me?

Are You Trustworthy? What Is Your Evidence?

In my Teams Are Verbs© circle, trust is among the twelve essential verbs for creating a team and building a community. Everything begins with trust, including relationships, processes, operations, performance, and strategic plans. Trust has always been the opening conversation in any organizational development program or retreat I facilitate. Trust is my first conversation in leadership coaching, beginning with two essential questions: Are you trustworthy? What is your evidence?

Conflict, indifference, ugly behavior, and fear are the root of distrust. Distrust kills collaboration and cooperation and destroys teams and communities.

Building trust, maintaining trust, and repairing trust when broken should be a lifestyle and fundamental habit. The work of and on trust relates to one’s emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and social skills.

In Charles Feltman’s  The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, Third Edition, he updates the four trust assessments: Care, Sincerity, Reliability, and Competence. By being mindful and practicing these four assessments, trust becomes a competency, a set of skills that can be learned and improved. There is a link to a new study guide PDF that you can download.

“Trust is choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.” page 4

Consider Feltman’s four opening questions on trust:

1. What are your core beliefs about trust?
2. On a scale of 1 – 10, how trustworthy do you think you are?
3. How do you decide to trust people in your life and work?
4. What would lead you to distrust someone?

Care is the most critical trust assessment. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”—Theodore Roosevelt. Care requires vulnerability, Care about the values, concerns, hopes, and dreams, care to understand before being understood, and care about the growth and development of others.

Sincerity is the second trust assessment.  It begins with knowing your core values and principles. Do you walk your talk? Do you hold yourself accountable to them? Sincerity requires consistency. It also seeks feedback from others on how they are experiencing you.

Reliability is the third trust assessment. It is about keeping commitments. It requires understanding the language of requests, offers, and commitments. Know the difference between direct requests, indirect requests, and drive-by requests. Feltman delves into the Cycle of Commitment, its key components, and its importance.

Competence is the final trust assessment: skills, ability, and knowledge to act effectively within a specific domain. Being competent is not about being perfect. It requires being honest with yourself and others and asking for help where you are incompetent.

Feltman sites studies on mistrust and distrust in the workplace have the most significant economic impact on an organization. Organizations were substantially more profitable where there was behavioral integrity – reliability, and sincerity. Trust had a more significant effect on profit than employee satisfaction and commitment. “In organizations where employees believe their managers trustworthy, everyone was a beneficiary.” (Page 60)

“Mistrust doubles the cost of doing business.” – John O. Whitney, Professor, Columbia Business School

What do you do if you betray someone’s trust? Acknowledge and apologize. What we resist persists.

Don’t take an apology lightly. Suggest watching V’s (formerly Eve Ensler) TED Talk, The Profound Power of an Authentic Apology. V says there are four components to an authentic apology:

1.) Recount the event in detail. There is liberation in the details.
2.) Give the reason why. The injured are haunted by the why.
3.) Open your heart. Have empathy. Feel what the injured feel.
4.) Take responsibility and try to make amends. It’s the only way to set the injured and yourself free.

We teach our children many things, many skills, and many processes. We emphasize practice. We don’t teach our children about trust or apology. We assume that trust and apology are a given and learned by osmosis. This work calls for attention, understanding, and practice. After all, everything begins with trust.