Several decades ago, when I was a University of Notre Dame student on a brief trip to Pittsburgh (another story for another time), I lodged in a house belonging to the Catholic "Spiritan" order (the Congregation of the Holy Spirit) for a few nights. There an African priest told me that "God writes straight with crooked lines." This statement has stayed with me throughout my journey through time, cultures, religions, universities, and diverse life experiences and landscapes (both inner and outer). I take it to mean that 1) no human path -- be it personal or professional -- is linear or completely by our own conscious design, despite what our CV or resume says, and 2) the "crooked" lines are often the most important, for these represent the paths or places where we learn our most important lessons and harvest wisdom from the experiences that those paths or places have presented to us. So, in my work with clients and friends, not to mention my self work, I deliberately seek those crooked lines and look for the wisdom and guidance they can offer.
These "crooked" lines are everywhere, within institutions as well as individual life stories and career paths. Sometimes we board up or bury these treasure troves of wisdom because of the shame we associate with these experiences or the "bad" decisions that led us down those crooked paths, and so accessing the wisdom and illumination these experiences and places can give us often takes courage and hard work. We often have to excavate the treasures buried beneath the shame and denial and fear of what others may think. This is one of the reasons why consultations have to take place within a theatre of confidentiality and confidence that we are working together to read the Divine writing, embrace the lessons therein, and get ourselves on a trajectory of being better, doing better, and walking a path of individual and/or institutional flourishing. No shame. No stigma. Just the Divine writing and the wisdom it holds for us.