Chip Filson
In life, both fiction and for real, we often do not know the full story until the last chapter.
Yesterday, a funeral service filled with gratitude opend this new week for my wife and me. Not just a memorial service, but also “The Celebration of Life and Service of Witness to the Resurrection.”
What do those last four words mean?
Funerals are brief and often insightful summaries of what made the person unique-not just as an identity, but also for a life lived. The full story completed.
For non-family members, the service provides a brief glimpse of the arc of a person’s life by those who, in most cases, knew them best. When one is not family, we often are only aware of brief moments of familiarity that rarely capture one’s full story.
This service was for a mother of two girls, who divorced in the early 1970’s, raised the family by herself while earning an MBA and pursuing a career. Life was filled with job changes and relocations to make ends meet.
My wife and I only knew her as a grandmother, who sang in the choir, volunteered in the Opportunity Shop, and was a full time caregiver for her grandchild, raised by her own single mother.
Her life was defined in her family’s remarks, as one of unconditional acceptance of others, care and service to the community.
There is a saying among farmers that the land they cultivate is not theirs. They are stewards of the legacy they inherited. They are not owners free to do whatever they want with the property. Rather their ultimate obligation is to manage the land so the legacy continues to benefit future generations.
This is similar to the belief motivating and sustaining many credit union leaders past and present.
But it also portrays one of life’s realities for all.
How one spends their most precious asset, their limited years, becomes their legacy. Family will recall, as they did on Sunday, the experiences that influenced them as children, grandchildren pr as a brother.
In the service bulletin was a note that offered suggestions if someone wanted to make a donation to honor the person’s memory. Chosen by the family, this list is a glimpse pf the person’s priorities in life:
This is how the family suggests others support the values the person lived in her life.
This list is for gifts of thanks giving. It is how the family wants their mother ‘s actions and priorities remembered. And passed on.
This Sunday service was not just a celebration of past deeds It was a pivot to how a person’s example will continue to shape the future. Through family and friends. It is why funerals matter. We will all have one.
Fall brings new options from nature’s closet-some staying on from summer and others new. My wife wants the yard to display color in every season. Here are samples from nature’s local outlet of the fall line.
My Star mangnolia in full dress mode
The last rose of summer
Pansies in a flower box should winter over
Fall camilias are the star of this season 
Yuletide camilia just starting to bloom
Nandina or heavenly bamboo berries
Summer chrysanthemum in container-bring in or recyle?
Ready tor fall
From John McCain: Glory is the act of being constant to something greater than yourself.
A young person explains his decision to attend the US Naval Academy. This recent video, sent to his high school college counselors, was forwarded to family friends by proud grandparents.
His grandfather attended college on an ROTC scholarship. He became an Army ranger during Vietnam. Afterwards he was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and closed his many career endeavors as a college political science professor. A life of service beginning with the call of duty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, The apple does not fall far from the tree. When values liked these are handed down, America’s future is in good hands.
(https://youtube.com/shorts/ENDGNI_HxpI?feature=share)
Will Rogers: There is no credit to being a comedian when you have the whole government working for you.
The Maple Leaf-A Metaphor for Life
by Rondalyn Whitney
I hope my death is like a maple leaf,
a final, radiant show.
Not a storm of sudden, brutal grief,
but a gentle, amber glow.
To fade as autumn comes to call,
to loosen its grip with grace.
Not cling to the branch, but simply fall,
and find a new resting place.
A flash of crimson, orange, and gold,
a final, vibrant hue.
Then, a slow drift, stories untold,
a journey forever new.
To spin and twirl on the final breeze,
a dance upon the air.
Rustle softly through the autumn trees,
a beauty beyond compare.
And when it lands, a soft, hushed sound,
upon the forest floor.
A new beauty on the cold ground,
until it’s seen no more.
Starting an odyssey to change cooperatives. Before you read this CEO’s statement from LinkedIn, consider a brief thought from Emily Dickinson, By a Departing Light:
By a departing light
We see acuter, quite,
Than by a wick that stays.
There’s something in the flight
That clarifies the sight
And decks the rays.
I have always been a bit of a square peg struggling to go into a round hole. I have always pushed against the grain regardless of my role. Sometimes that has been appreciated. Other times, it has been criticized.
I have debated for years how I can best serve this wonderful industry. In a space that is riddled with hypocrisy and attrition, I have concluded that I am of more value outside the bubble than inside.
I’m not only stepping down as a CEO. I’m stepping away from working inside credit unions altogether.
There is never a good time. There are always what ifs. Unfinished work.
December 18th is my 25th anniversary in the credit union industry.
In my 25 years, we have lost more than 50% of our neighborhood or community credit unions across the country.
So what are my motives? Family. Opportunity. Change. Fit.
Change. Something has to change.
I could sit in a credit union trying desperately to conform to my round hole. To complacency. To status quo. To fit.
Or…
I can dedicate myself to change. Change to challenge complacency. Change to disrupt the status quo.
I’m betting on myself. For my family. For opportunities. But also for a chance to make an indelible change to our industry.
If we want future generations to know credit unions, we must be about the work of saving them.
If I am fortunate, I have 25 years left in my career. During that time, my priorities will be God, Family, Career. In that order.
The second half of my career will be focused on finding as many ways as possible to help our credit unions win. Creative Strategy. Next Level Results.
I won’t stand by idly watching credit unions get regulated out of existence or go quietly into the night.
So this is not a goodbye. This is a hello.
I am not leaving the fight. I’m just getting started.
November 14th. I close one door so that I can run through another.
See you then.
(James McBride, CEO, Connects Federal Credit Union)
Getting ready for flight or fright.
Halloween has Scots’ origins. It was popularized in the 18th century by Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns in his 1785 poem, “Halloween.” The poem, which describes the gathering of locals on All-Hallows Eve to present crops, enjoy a feast, tell fortunes revealing one’s true love, trick-or-treat and frolic with the opposite sex, became a source catalog documenting folk customs celebrating All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. The three days are collectively known as Allhallowtide, that portion of the church year “dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (“hallows”), martyrs, and all the departed. (Source: The Jefferson Educational Society, Book Notes # 78)
Autumn Movement
By Carl Sandburg
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and old thing go, not one lasts.
Halloween “music” from the American Bandstand TV show October 1964, The Monster Mash: Show your grandkids music from another era.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNuVifA7DSU)
Seeing and participating publicly in community creates hope, especially around shared values.
Common purpose was on full display this past weekend. Nationwide people exercised their rights of self-expression and assembly supporting democracy.
These principles are also the foundation for cooperative credit unions. The movement claims over 100 million members and democratic governance. Are these assertions still true? Would members show their support as in these weekend scenes from the DC area?
The Young
And old
Not his first rodeo
Humor
And costumes
No sign, just noise
Brevity
Fpr all Americans
Real conerns
A candidate for 2028 whose appeal is truth
A democratic harvest festival for fall.
How does your credit union celebrate its democratic foundation?
We live in a era of competing viewpoints and rhetorical advocacy.
Often logic, reason and especially facts are missing in the fire of verbal combat or when issuing public relations statements supporting a position.
The more consequential the decision or a person’s position, the more elaborate the verbal bouquets. These communications are not meant to persuade. Rather they entertain, advocate, sometimes threaten while shimmying past critical issues.
Examples this week include the speeches by the President and Secretary of War to hundreds of senior military commanding officers, policy utterances by single NCUA board member Hauptman, or the rhetorical display announcing NCUA’s approval of the DCU merger with First Tech.
So it was enlightening to read someone explaining at length what is at stake in our often charged and sometimes flippant public dialogues. Here is an example:
In Boston yesterday Judge William G. Young answered an anonymous correspondent who trolled the judge on June 19 by writing a postcard that said: “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS…. WHAT DO YOU HAVE?” Young reproduced the writing at the top of his decision finding that Trump’s attempted deportations of legal residents for their pro-Palestinian speech violated the First Amendment.
Then the judge answered: “Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States—you and me—have our magnificent Constitution.”
“The United States is a great nation, not because any of us say so. It is great because we still practice our frontier tradition of selflessness for the good of us all. Strangers go out of their way to help strangers when they see a need. In times of fire, flood, and national disaster, everyone pitches in to help people we’ve never met and first responders selflessly risk their lives for others. Hundreds of firefighters rushed into the Twin Towers on 9/11 without hesitation desperate to find and save survivors. That’s who we are.
“And on distant battlefields our military ‘fought and died for the men [they] marched among.’ Each day, I recognize (to paraphrase Lincoln again) that the brave men and women, living and dead, who have struggled in our Nation’s service have hallowed our Constitutional freedom far above my (or anyone’s) poor power to add or detract. The only Constitutional rights upon which we can depend are those we extend to the weakest and most reviled among us.”
“I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.
“Is he correct?”