Following the Signs, Showing Up, and Remembering That We Belong to Each Other

What is it to be called? Some may get the “burning bush” moment when the message comes through loudly and clearly. Perhaps it’s the voice from the cornfield promising, “Build it and they will come.” For some, it may be the billboard giving clarity: “This is the song you’ve been looking for.” For most, it’s in the normalcy of life that the signs appear. Starting quietly, and only growing if we can tune-in to first consider, and then getting clearer as we begin to respond. Oddly, the signs become most clear when we look back at them through our rearview mirror.

Standing on a platform in front of a crowd of about 500 people on this beautiful Saturday morning, I looked out to see a block of white t-shirts belonging to my Northwind family…including Sally and some of our children and grandchildren. My words disappeared into the microphone as my heart soared with joyful pride. The good kind. Once again, our team showed up when needed, in a way that mattered.

Following the Signs: The Scourge of Diabetes

Yesterday’s event was the American Diabetes Association’s Step Out Walk to fight diabetes. This is the Indiana version of a national campaign to raise awareness and money for the ADA. Just a few weeks ago, we were invited to participate in this event but we’ve been coming to this moment for years.

First, a few facts on our nation’s growing problem with diabetes:

• 38.4 million Americans have diabetes – that is 11.4% of our population.
• Almost 23% of those with diabetes are undiagnosed.
• 1.2 million are newly diagnosed with diabetes each year.
• Diabetes is the 8th leading cause of death.
• 1 out of every 4 healthcare dollars is spent on the care of people with diabetes.
• Almost 40% of Americans have prediabetes. That is almost 100 million people.

These data points are definitely signs that need to be followed. Diabetes is a metabolic disease centered on how we process sugars in our blood but it’s implications can affect our heart, kidneys, eyes, feet, skin, hearing…you get the picture. For those living with diabetes, it demands constant vigilance with life-threatening consequences if poorly managed. Diabetes generally goes hand-in-hand with obesity which has a 40% prevalence in Americans over 20 years old and many of its own consequences beyond diabetes.

Showing Up Where We are Called

“Diabetes is a disease of degrees. Effectively  managing those degrees is a life or death proposition. It is also a quality of life proposition. We are here today to support the ADA’s efforts to find answers. How do we eliminate this disease and how do we best manage it?” So began my brief comments to yesterday’s Step Out participants. As I looked at those white shirts, I thought of the St. Anthony of Padua quotation printed in black across the front: Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. Seeing or hearing the signs is of little use if we don’t respond. Smiling, I considered the action-oriented group in those white t-shirts.

With regard to diabetes, Northwind directly supports thousands of individuals through our Clinical Blueprints – programs that pair medications, supplies, technology, and clinical coaching/support. We launched these about 5 years ago as one of the ways we work to help employers and their employees manage healthcare and its costs. What we’ve learned along the way is just how closely bound human flourishing is with our physical health and the state of mind it drives. When one begins to physically feel better, particularly through his or her own efforts at improvement, everything else in life begins to feel, and look, better.

Disease often attacks hope, and a massive opportunity for those in healthcare is bringing hope in those times that it is elusive. The best sources are signs of progress and the feeling that we’re not in it alone. We all get this. We know it intuitively, but such knowledge seems empty when feelings of frustration and despair grip us. The massive size and complexity of our healthcare system can make it difficult for those needing it to get what they need and for those working within it to give all of which they are able. It takes a lot of work on both sides. To show up ready and able to make a difference is a high call.

To actually make a difference day in and day out in quantifiable and unquantifiable ways is truly miraculous. Thus my smile as I looked at that Northwind team. “They showed up,” I thought. They keep showing up when and where they are needed.

We Really Do Belong to Each Other

A short while later, I found myself standing before that same team at our Fall Picnic. (Sorry Team, lots of listening to me this week-end.) “You showed up,” I said. “You keep showing up and it is making a difference.” We talk a lot about following the signs and showing up. We spend much time and energy interpreting the data we review, planning the strategies to help address challenges, and then acting on it in direct encounters with those who are counting on us. It can become easy to look at the tasks and go into execution mode with single-minded focus on getting things done.

However, when we understand why we’re doing what we’re doing, how it ties to our greater purposes and movements, and what it’s implications truly are, then we can return to the source in a way that enables us to draw energy and redeploy in ways that go beyond the tasks. In this place, we return to the call that was whispered to us through the voices, the data, and all of the signs, appearing in our lives. This source helps us unify our efforts in a way that goes beyond our individual selves and strengthens us for the difficulties and resistance we encounter along the way. Our own, our organization’s, and those being born by the people we serve.

Yesterday, looking at the beautiful collection of individuals gathered in that bigger unity we call Northwind, I was struck by the profound way that we become more in our belonging. We really do belong to each other. Not in a possessive, controlling way, but in a collective responsibility built upon our gifts, capabilities, and unity of purpose. In this way, we are made stronger together and better able to fulfill the duty of our call.

Standing together under a pavilion at a park, it is very easy to see it. Walking out into the broad world, it can get lost. Considering our morning at the ADA Step Out Walk, the broader fight against diabetes, and the possibility that comes from unity of cause and purpose, I realize that we really do belong to each other. Amid all of the complexity of the world around us and within us, there is a lovely simplicity to that notion. Perhaps that’s the brightly blinking sign hidden right in front of us.