Refilling our lives after pandemic's great 'emptying'

A little over a year ago, I had a big, beautiful blueprint laid out on my desk. After 10 years in our building, our Catholic nonprofit was moving to new office space.

As a first-time CEO, this was my chance to create a space to match the culture we have worked so hard to build and to make sure that our home helped us strengthen that culture even more. Every picture would have meaning, every conference room a focal point. Things would be different, feel different, look different!

Then, one month after moving in, the staff grabbed their laptops and cleared out of our new home by order of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and, like everyone else in our world, we moved into the virtual reality of this past year.

Throughout the pandemic, I have continued to come into the office most days, purportedly to check the mail and ensure everything is okay. In all honesty, it’s really because I have four little children, and Dad needs his space. Don’t worry, I’m quite sure my wife has figured that out and agrees with it wholeheartedly!

With a freshly signed seven-year lease, I’m still very committed to the idea that physical office space has value. So, as I roam the empty office every day and dread yet another Zoom, I’ve begun to imagine what it will feel like when this space is full of people again. How will people interact after having been apart physically for so long? Will we resume some of the office habits and informal rituals we used to have? What will be different in the new dynamic?

At some point in my daydreaming, I realized I was imagining what the future might bring for our space and forgetting that, as a leader, it would be incumbent upon me to make it happen and not just hope it does.

Only the Lord knows when this pandemic will end, and it’s highly probable that life will in some respects change forever. We have experienced a great “emptying” this year: emptying our offices, emptying our schedules, emptying our extensive travel plans. As we conclude this second Lent in the pandemic, what else do we still need to empty? What are we still holding onto that is holding us back? How will we choose to fill all of those now-emptied spaces of our lives? More importantly, will we choose, or will we have the spaces started to fill without our knowing? In the same way we as leaders are intentionally welcoming back our teams and defining our corporate cultures in this new reality, are we taking the same care with respect to all of those interior spaces that are so much more important – our families, our friendships, our faith?

When we emerge from this once-in-a-century challenge, what would be worse: that life has changed forever, or that it hasn’t changed at all?

As ambassadors for Christ in the marketplace, we are called to fill all of our spaces with an authentic witness of constant conversion and intentional living. We are always called to empty ourselves in order to make more room for Him.

DAN CELLUCCI is CEO of Catholic Leadership Institute (www.catholicleaders.org), which provides leadership training and support to Church leaders throughout the world. He is a frequent speaker to Legatus chapters and has been a featured speaker at the Legatus Summit.