I just got back from a week in Washington DC.
I get to go to a computer software users convention each year for
users of a product called Colleague. Colleague is the enterprise
software used by PUC to operate the campus and we are just one of
over 800 colleges in the US and Canada that use this product for
everything from my office to the Registrar to Payroll and Accounting.
Over 2,000 staff and administrative users gathered at a Marriott
Hotel inside the beltway, next to the Metro and spent three days
sharing tips, tricks and best practices for getting the most out of
this monster software beast that is so far reaching that no one
person attempts to know all about it.
For the first time, I gave a presentation on a tiny segment of
software that we are using effectively in the Enrollment office. I
was pleased to have around 100 people attend my session and I was
even more pleased to not look the fool and actually present something
that others found useful. Several very gracious attendees spoke with
after the 50 minute session and thanked me for making the convention
more useful for them. I was pleased it went well. Before the
presentation I was so nervous that I asked one of my coworkers to NOT
attend my session for fear I would fall flat. All is well that ends.
In my free time I rode the Metro underground to various parts of the
city where I would surface and have dinner with Lynn who is my
technical computer support person in our IT department.
On one of my journeys alone into the city I made my way to the United
States National Archives. This is the home of all the foundation
documents of our republic and it was my first time to see the Bill of
Rights, Constitution and Declaration of Independence. I was
profoundly moved by the experience. In the dimly lit rotunda of this
rather high security building are the actual documents that our
country is founded on. I was moved to emotion that bordered on tears
as I thought of the hands that prepared those documents, the
arguments and shouting matches that led to the final drafts and the
timeless principles that they are based on. At the same time I
thought of the many, many people I personally know in military
service right now, willing to give their lives if needed, in current
battles around the world. Battles involving freedom.
At that same moment I was also profoundly distressed to think of the
incredible twisting of America's founding principles that is taking
place in the highest levels of our current government to press upon
us the Patriot Act, detain "combatants" in Cuba and deprive us all of
our historical rights to no search and seizure without cause. I pray
and worry about the direction our country is going politically. To
hear the President declare that we must evaluate our freedoms and be
willing to set aside some historical freedoms to protect our security
is to wonder how it is that principles that have stood the test of
over 200 years of history are not adequate to carry us into the future.
Without putting a Biblical eschatology spin on our current situation
I wonder if we are a nation in decline (ala, The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire). How can you tell if a nation is in decline? And
what would the signposts of decline look like? I was raised in an
American culture that feared the freedoms of lifestyle and expression
espoused by the Democrat Party and other so-called portions of the
"left". I think I now fear far more the moralistic mongering of the
"right" with all the attempts being made to keep society somehow pure
by enacting more and more laws that restrict personal behavior and
yet do nothing to strengthen the heart of society.
May God help us.