One of the great privileges of my life has been the many times I’ve been trusted by others to provide counsel or to help them with their various issues, some of which that put them in an irregular situation with the Church. As such, I take requests for such meetings very seriously and do my level best to make time for everyone who asks.
Nevertheless, there are only so many hours in the day and between my responsibilities as a husband, father, a full time engineer and program manager, as well as the many regular responsibilities I have as a Deacon, it leaves surprisingly little time for these sorts of meetings. Almost always, agreeing to these meetings means something I cherish must be sacrificed.
And so I ask you to please be considerate of the time and sacrifices that I willingly make and understand the following before you book a meeting with me:
- Please do not request a timeslot less than 24 hours away without asking for approval.
- When you book an appointment, please do your best to make sure it is a time that you’ll be able to attend.
- Try to anticipate ‘day of’ conflicts – things like doctors appointments that tend to run late.
- Please do not cancel if you are afraid of spreading an illness. I’d rather risk getting sick than see a meeting get cancelled. (I don’t mind coughs and sneezes… REALLY!)
- The same goes for COVID. I’m willing to meet if you are feeling physically well enough to meet.
- If you were planning on having a meeting as a couple, but one of you can’t make it, I would prefer to meet with one of you than cancel, particularly at the last minute.
- I also am not concerned with your appearance. Please do not cancel because you fear you’re not “presentable”.
- While I’d rather people were on time, if I’m forced to pick between someone who’s late and someone who cancels, I’d rather you arrive late.
- Finally, if you’re working on an annulment or convalidation and the paperwork you planned to review hasn’t arrived or is not yet completed, please contact me to discuss whether we should still meet as opposed to presuming I’d rather not meet and cancelling the meeting.
This is not to say that I’m unsympathetic when someone must cancel. I understand that some cancellations, even at the last minute, are unavoidable. But please do your best to observe the above guidelines so that I can support as many of you as possible amongst my other commitments.
To confirm that you’ve read this page, after you’ve booked a timeslot, please e-mail me with the date, time, and purpose of the scheduled meeting along with the Crawford clan motto “Tutum te robore reddam”.