to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy… and to laugh along the way
Little by little, the mountains would humble me with lessons that no staff assignment could teach: that leadership begins with shared hardship, that credibility is earned rather than assigned, and that comfort, if left unchecked, has a quiet way of softening even the most experienced of soldiers. I had returned to command a Scout Ranger Company. I didn’t realize it then, but my Rangers were also slowly – and subtly – teaching their commander how to become one again.
I had barely been introduced when she looked at me and asked, almost matter-of-factly: “Sundalo ka pala? Ilan na ang napatay mo?” (So you’re a soldier? So, how many men have you killed?”) For a second, I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to take it seriously and defend myself.
If the combined federations under the UEFA, CONCACAF and AFC push through with their threat to boycott, global football could fall apart. A World Cup without European giants – like newly-crowned World Cup champ Spain, football heavyweights France, England, Germany, etc – would lose all competitive legitimacy. Add to that the football federations in the Americas and Asia, and FIFA will find itself a mother organization without its subordinate groups.
The workshop’s greatest gift is that it taught me that stewardship is not reserved for environmentalists, scientists, or large landowners. It belongs to all of us. It begins in the choices we make each day. The trees we decide to plant. The plastics we choose not to use. The compost piles we create. The local farmers we support. The children we teach to love the earth. These may appear to be small acts. But nature has always taught us that small things, repeated faithfully, eventually transform entire landscapes.
Toward the tail-end of my military career, the question I would ask myself was: “How do we build peace among our own divided people?” Now, as a small farmer, I have a new kind of war to address. And I ask: “How do we build peace with the earth?”
As I walked back across Gran Verde Farm that afternoon, I found myself looking down more often than ever before. Not because I was tired, but because I had developed a new respect for what lay beneath my feet. I realized that the greatest lesson of the day wasn’t about compost, bees, worms, or insects. It was about relationships. Nature survives because everything contributes to something greater than itself.
Color My World 