My Thoughts about Ken Lay & Enron

I live in Yewsten, Texas. In 2001, I worked for a large oilfield-support company. I had been in downtown Yewsten for a while with a desk by a window on the 26th floor. Outside my window, I watched a parking lot be transformed into the Enron II Building. It took six months to dig the hole, then they added a floor a week until I was transferred and couldn't watch construction any more. :(

After 9/11 came the Yewsten IT crunch. Maybe it was a nation-wide IT crunch. Either way, I was out of a job. And none were forthcoming. Here in Yewsten, all fingers pointed to Enron. I don't know how Enron could have affected my job with an unrelated company, except for the fact that so many experienced people were dumped on the job market at one time. Those in charge of Enron began to be villified for what they'd done.

Now, I'll be honest. I'd never met Ken Lay or Jeffrey Skilling or any of the others who took the heat for their role in the fall of Enron. But Prison Ministry has given me a new outlook on people. Prisons are full of hard-core, violent people as well as a lot of good people who made a mistake. In fact, my experience in prison, both as an inmate and a minister, shows that the latter are a vast majority over the former.

I believe that those who were responsible for Enron's failure fall into the latter category. Let's start by looking at all the good they did.

• Enron Field - The Astros were looking for a new home. They needed investors to build a new stadium, and Enron topped the list. They bought the naming rights to the stadium, but lost the rights after they couldn't pay any more. It is now called Minute Maid Park (Minute Maid headquarters are right here in Yewsten).
• Ken Lay YMCA - Ken Lay donated much of the money needed to build a YMCA branch in Katy, Texas. I've been there. It's one of the nicer YMCA facilities in the Yewsten area. After his conviction, the YMCA began considering a name change. They don't want a convict associated with a Christian organization.
• The Ken Lay Foundation - donated $2.5 million in 2000 to various organizations.
• Kenneth L. Lay Chair in Economics - At his alma mater, University of Missouri - Columbia.

Kenneth Lay was, for the most part, a good man. Like so many in prison, he made a serious mistake. A mistake that was serious enough to forfeit the rest of his life. And in true American fashion, all the good he did was completely forgotten.

Now that he's gone, we need to let bygones be bygones. The appeal of his conviction will never happen. Wherever he is, he can't take it with him. I pray that his family finds peace; that society leave them alone. We cannot undo the past. As Christians, we are called to forgive and love.

Many have told me that the reason I lost my job was because of this man. I don't care. I look at what he did in the first 59 years of his life, and see a great deal of good.