This week Christina and I were privileged to be hosted by friends of ours who own a big farm in Iowa. They grow corn, soybeans, and raise sheep. For dinner we were served the first fruit of their corn and potato harvest. One morning I got up to help Gary with deworming the sheep. Gary has 750 sheep that need a deworming injection. The process requires to gather the sheep into a chute were they pass by one by one while Garry injects them. My job was to let the injected ones out. It may sound simple, but these sheep kept pushing their way out and it was all I could do to not let uninjected ones escape. I watched the sheep as Gary was manoeuvering them through the chute. They fought like crazy. I guess just like kids, they don’t like shots. They were giving Gary a real hard time and even the other helper was having difficulty herding them towards the chute. As a Bible reader I could not escape the analogy. God compares us to sheep. Do we give him such a hard time? At the table that night Gary’s wife told me that being compared to sheep is not complimentary. Sheep are poor problem solvers. I noticed that Gary would lead certain sheep enticing them with grain. “This is one of my lead sheep!” he said. “I’ve got to be nice to it. It’s part of their training.” Sheep do not follow the shepherd; they follow the lead sheep. The shepherd therefore has to develop a close relationship with the lead sheep so it obeys him. To do that the shepherd gives it extra care and food. If the lead sheep is well taken care of it will follow him and lead the others. Does this principle apply to human behavior? Every company, society, church, family, group with a leadership structure needs its pillars who lead the people, and these pillars are groomed through the establishment of good personal relationships with leadership.
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t was December 1931. Ted and Dorothy had just bought the only drugstore in a small town on the edge of the South Dakota Badlands, a town of 326 poor farmers wiped out by either the Great Depression or the drought Ted and Dorothy gave themselves 5 years to make the business grow, after that they would leave. By the time the summer of 1936 came around, business hadn't grown much at all. Their five-year trial would be up in December. What would they do then? Along with nine-year-old Billy, Dorothy and Ted now had a one-month-old daughter, Mary Elizabeth. One hot Sunday in July, though, a great change swept us up. It started quietly, in the deadening heat of an early afternoon, when Dorothy said to Ted, "You don't need me here, Ted. I'm going to put Billy and the baby down for a nap and maybe take one myself." Ted minded the empty store swatting flies with a rolled-up newspaper. An hour later Dorothy came back. "Too hot to sleep?" Ted asked. "No, it wasn't the heat that kept me awake," Dorothy said. "It was all the cars going by on Route 16A. "That's too bad," Ted said. Dorothy replied, "No, because you know what, Ted? I think I finally saw how we can get all those travelers to come to our store." "And how's that?" ted asked. "Well, now what is it that those travelers really want after driving across that hot prairie? They're thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we've got plenty of ice and water. Why don't we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water? Listen, I even made up a few lines for the sign: "Get a soda . . . Get a root beer . . . turn next corner . . . Just as near . . . To Highway 16 & 14. . . Free Ice Water. . . " The next weekend Ted and the boy went out to the highway and put up signs for free ice water. By the time I got back to the store, people had already begun showing up for their ice water. Dorothy was running all around to keep up. "Five glasses of ice water, please," a father called out. "May I have a glass for Grandma?" a boy asked. "She's in the car." "Say, good sir," one traveler said in a Scottish brogue, "we're going all the way to Yellowstone Park. Would you mind filling this jug with your water?" "Hey this free ice water is a great idea," said a salesman, sidling up onto a stool. "How about selling me an ice cream cone?" For hours they poured gallons of ice water, made ice cream cones and gave highway directions. When the travelers started on their way again, refreshed and ready for new adventures, they gave Ted and Dorothy hearty thanks. When the day was done, Ted and Dorothy were pooped. They sat in front of the store, watching the sunset, feeling a cool breeze come in off the prairie. The next summer they had to hire eight girls to help them, and now that the store is in the good hands of their son. Today the store draws 20.000 thousand people on a good summer day. Here is a great lesson. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need, even something that is free! What was the full name of the man? Ted Hustead Founder of Wall Drug Store in Wall South Dakota A friend of mine shared an interesting video with me. It was about a man who created and built a backward bicycle. When the rider turned the handlebars to the right, the front wheel went to the left and vice versa. The inventor’s goal was to see if people could ride this bicycle and adjust to the change simply by knowing how it worked. He mounted the bike and discovered he could not ride it. As he lectured across the US, he challenged people to try to ride this bike offering a $200 reward to anyone who could. Many were sure they could do this, but failed miserably. After eight months the creator finally conquered the skill and oddly enough, his six year old son acquired the same skill after only two weeks! Later this man hopped on a regular bicycle and discovered that he was unable to ride. He had to re-learn how to ride the normal bike. These things touch a lot on how the neuro pathways in the brain work. I am not a neurologist so I cannot comment on this. However what I can deduce is that knowing something does not necessarily mean understanding, hence the need for practice and drill of the things that we know are good and proper. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0 Whenever decisions need to be made in a democratic fashion, while all parties sincerely desire to arrive at the same goal, several divergent opinions arise as to how to get there. There are particular dynamics behind these divergences of methods. Two of them I would coin as the “saw,” and the “scalpel.” Cutting out a blemish in the wood with a saw does the job quickly and effectively while creating much waste in the form of wood tearing and dust. Making an incision in a human body with a scalpel requires skill, patience, but cuts exactly what needs to be cut out, no more, no less. It is easy to want to adopt the “saw” approach. It cuts right through the issue. Using a scalpel requires us taking the time to really measure each argument to the fraction of millimeter so we do not create waste in the form of ignoring people power. This has the potential to also take us on a never-ending merry-go-around that can stalemate our decision-making process. When making decisions then it is first important to decide what it is that we are “cutting.” Is it something we don’t mind to waste or precious material that we don’t want to hurt or lose? In the case of wood, we don’t really care about the wood dust, but when it comes to humans, we have to be very precise. Of course, in the case of decision-making we are talking about people, and people who are honest, willing, devoted, and dedicated, are the most important commodity of all. Retention and participation is much higher when people feel included as a part of the decision-making process and that their opinion matters. So which is it? The saw or the scalpel? Both have a cost. One in time, the other in people. Maybe that’s a new twist on the concept of, “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost ...,?” (Luke 14:28) During a philosophical discussion I once had with my high-school class, I suggested that when 2 people argue together, both relying on solid proof-text and undeniable evidence and/or documentation, the argument will never end, and that is because they probably both are right. They are both right but looking at the situation through a different lens, a different angle, a different need. This happens in families, at work, or any kind of group that works through democratic consensus. How do you then solve the issue and come to an agreement? Since the opponent is also correct in his position, the wise person will humbly acknowledge it and even use that extra information to better his own point. It doesn’t necessarily mean to budge from our own position, but it does mean to incorporate the position of the other person into our own. These issues often happen in parenting or leadership. How do we maintain control, order, and respect of protocols? Do we exercise the blind and unbending full measure of the letter of the law, or do we try to “temper the wind” to the point of anarchy or enablement? How many a parent have had this discussion concerning the raising of their children. For a boat to go forward, both the right and left oar must work together at the same time. If either the right or the left stands to go it alone, the boat will continually travel in circles, going nowhere. We see then that both are needed. King Solomon of the Bible said, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” (Ecc 8:11) Yet while that may be true, King David, his father, credited his own success greatness not to God’s unwavering punishing hand but to His gentleness, “...your gentleness made me great.” (Psa 18:35) The truth is that both are right. Justice, or the cold application of the letter of the law, and mercy, the principle of governing with the heart, are like two sides of the same coin. To govern justly one must uphold justice while exerting mercy. It is a difficult act to perform but one every good leader must learn. That is why again, wise King Solomon said, “By mercy and truth iniquity is purged:” “Mercy and truth preserve the king: and his throne is upholden by mercy.” (Pro 16:6; 20:28) I read a leadership course one time that taught that leaders must at all times appear stoic, self-assured, and unmovable to their people, especially when they don’t really know what they are doing or are flying by the seat of their pants.This type of leadership may no doubt have its place and time, but should it really be our M.O for everyday relationships and business? Former First lady Rosalynn Carter aid,”A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” So to me, the real question is, “Does this philosophy of leadership really help me to bring people where they ought to be? Does it make people want to endorse the vision I am trying to impart to them as much as would simple honesty, truthfulness, and humility?” Everybody loves a hero, until they find out that their hero has , like them, feet of clay, so why not be honest right away. This type of honesty will not only inspire trust but give hope to others that they discover they also can be leaders for the cause. Lawyer Ralph Nader said one day that, “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” The world has enough followers who just contribute the minimum they can. Let’s produce leaders who will give their all to the good cause and worthy cause they believe in Here is a story to illustrate that last point. A conversation is said to have taken place between a hen and a hog when they passed a church and observed the subject of the pastor's sermon: "How Can We Help the Poor?" After a moment's reflection, the hen said, "I know what we can do. We can give them a ham-and-egg breakfast!" The hog protested, saying, "The breakfast would be only a contribution for you, but for me it would mean total commitment!" https://youtu.be/GJGNmgy676I “How do you eat an elephant?” is the question. “One bite at a time!” is the answer. Life sometimes faces us with seemingly insurmountable problems and issues. We don’t know where the head is and much less the tail. We look at what’s in front of us and want to scream. It can be compared to arriving at a disaster scene. One has to keep his calm, assess the situation and come up with a plan. The worst thing to do in time of disaster is to let ourselves get overwhelmed by every little detail. This would cause us to get confused and discouraged, which in turn would keep us from any positive decisive action. To properly assess a disaster or a bad situation one must keep his cool; take one, if not several steps back as this helps to see the full spectrum of things and not get distracted with minute details. Once we have done this, we plan our work and work our plan, one “bite” at a time. Sometime we may feel like we are too small; that as one person there is nothing we can do to solve the problems of the world. I, for one, remember the story of a shepherd who single-handedly reforested a whole area of southern France by planting trees. One seed at a time, he restored life to an area that had been deserted because of over-logging. There is an interesting African folk tale about a hummingbird. When he saw a forest-fire, while all the other animals fled or witnessed the devastation in despair, with his tiny beak and tiny wings, he went to try to put out the fire. We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once! Here is another good example of what the power of one can do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-VjisHm4sw When we travel around the country my wife and I like to stop at thrift and second hand stores. We find it especially interesting when in very small agricultural or historical towns. It is in such a place this week that I saw a wooden sign saying, “The extra mile is never crowded.” This statement came to me in sharp contrast with the crowded Los Angeles beaches we saw as we drove on the Pacific Highway. I personally wondered, “Where is the pleasure and the rest from sitting on a crowded beach?” But I digress. Let's go back to that wooden sign. I read a poem one time describing the world as a marathon race. In a marathon you generally have three groups. First you have the front runners; those who push to win the race. Then you have the pack; the place where lies the majority of the runners. Then you have the straddlers at the end, those who lag behind everybody. Of all the places in the race, the front one is the least crowded. Indeed, those who push extra hard, those who go the extra mile to push the concept are few and far between. They are sometimes viewed as obsessed, imbalanced, even irrational. But could it be that they simply are dedicated and without reservation about their commitment? And is that bad? I dare proclaim that the world is in need of some more of these “imbalanced” folks, of people who are without reservation; who are determined to push for integrity, honesty, for the values of humanity. If one wants to find rest and peace away from the pack of the indifferent “beach goers”, that is the place to go to, the place of those who run the extra mile.
Perhaps you have a heard about this young shoe salesman in the first half of the 20th century who was sent to Africa. He must have landed in a place outside the city because he wrote a very discouraged letter to his boss asking to bring him back home. He said in the letter, “It’s impossible to work here; nobody wears shoes.”The young shoe salesman was sent back home but his place was taken by another who couldn’t get the shoes to come fast enough as he wrote to the company saying, “Send me more; everybody here NEEDS shoes!”
Some of us look at difficult situations as impossibilities, but others look at the same situations as opportunities. The situation is the same; the difference is in us and in how we look at it. What we have to do sometimes is change the perspective, the angle from which we look at the situation. We can complain of the dishes or thank God that we had something to eat. We can complain of our colleagues or appreciate that we have a job. We can complain about our work and shores or thank God every morning that have something to do which must be done whether we like it or not, because being forced to work and forced to do our best, breeds in us temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and contentment, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know. I heard it said, “If you don’t like the conversation, change the narrative!” But our lives are what they are. Sometimes we can change them but more often than not we can’t, or at least not without ignoring major ethical concerns. One thing is possible though, while we may not be able to change the narrative of our lives but we can certainly change the conversation about it. I remember the story of a little boy who was swimming one day in a lake when suddenly he suffered some type of physical difficulty and could swim no farther. The boy struggled for his life. He had gone under twice, when he felt the strong arm of a man lifting him. The man had seen the little boy's desperate plight and had swum out to save him. The man took the boy safely to shore and, after making certain that everything was well, turned to leave. The little boy said, "Thank you, sir, for saving my life." The man replied, "You're welcome, son. See to it that you are worth saving."
Whoever we are, we all had a mother, a father, or someone who took care of us during our most vulnerable time of childhood. It may seem natural for them to do so, but each person’s sacrifice that helped us survive one of the most vulnerable period of our life equates to saving our life. Even the the course of our adult lives may have not gone so smoothly. Though disease or accidents, we may have come so near to death that we felt its chill on our skin but someone, be it kin or stranger, may have been there to save us. Thus we ought to ask ourselves, “Was I worth saving?”; “Is my life a testament to those who took care of me, those who sacrificed in order to keep me going?” Thus to serve, help, and rescue may be our reasonable service in paying it forward. By the way, the boy in the story above has never forgotten those challenging words by a man whom he did not even know. Neither should we forget those who care for us in the most vulnerable seasons of our lives and daily ask ourselves, “Were we worth saving?” The difference between a received or rejected advice or idea seems to be in the wording of its presentation. That is why promoters are paid a lot of money. They learn how to present things in a way that it makes it desirable to others. Using lighting and psychology in presentations skills, store owners learn how to set things on a shelf in an attracting way. The food industry has developed a scientific recognition of smells that will make people come to their restaurants. When it comes to business, it does feel like an eerie form of manipulation, but the principle remains. Even God uses it. Encouraging us to healthy, moral, and ethical living He tells us that His commands will keep us spiritually, and sometime physically alive, while we may spiritually, and sometimes physically die if we choose to disobey them. (Deu 30:19)
A good leader has to learn how to present his ideas so that his crew feels that they are part of a great program. On the other hand, a crew member needs to learn how to present his objections without hitting at the ego of his commander. A lot of it is done through semantics and a humble attitude. In the movie Anna and the King, Jody Foster plays an English teacher who had come to teach the numerous children of the King of Siam (now Thailand). One day she is approached by one of the queen‘s wives. “Please, we need to tell the king that he should not go to war. He will listen to you!”. “I will tell him!” responds the teacher. The wife then says, “Oh no; not like that. You must tell him in a way that he thinks it is his own idea!” Here is another story to illustrate the point. Once a king dreamed that all his teeth had fallen out. Immediately he sent for one of his soothsayers to interpret the meaning of the vision. With a sad countenance & mournful voice, the soothsayer told the monarch that the dream meant that all his relatives would die & that he would be left alone. This angered the king & he drove the servant from his presence. Another was called & the king told him of the dream. At this, the wise man smiled, & replied, "Rejoice, O King; the dream means that you will live yet many years. In fact you will outlive all your relatives." This pleased the king a great deal, & in his joy he gave the interpreter a rich reward. The two men had said, in different ways, the same thing. A story is told that once the passengers of a vessel steaming along the St. Lawrence River were very angry because, in spite of the fact that heavy fog was encircling the boat, full speed ahead was maintained. At last one of them approached the first mate, & complained. "Oh, don't be afraid!" the mate replied with a smile. "The fog lies low, & the captain is high above it, & can see where we are going." As any military or paramilitary organisation knows, obedience to leadership is imperative to elevate the odds of any safe and successful mission. A man one time told me that he had no problem yielding to authority except when he didn’t agree. Well, that is the point, obedience doesn’t require us to agree. Situated way “above” everybody else, the captain has a perspective unequaled to anyone else's. What obedience requires is not agreement but trust, and trust is something leaders have to cultivate with their subordinates. As a captain, the person in charge has much more vested in making the right decision than anyone else on the team. He has a higher responsibility. If thing go well, he receives praise; but if anything goes awry, he will be the one whose not only the conscience, but the law and public opinion will blame. Having received more more training and gained more experience, much more is expected of him. We may not necessarily like the captain. It is good if we do, but we are not required to. What we respect is the uniform and the responsible command it represents. As a believer in God, I do appreciate that the Captain of my soul sits way up high and that he has a perspective on my life like no-one else’s. Like my earthly “captains,” He receives the praise for the good things in my life and doesn’t shirk from the blame for the things that go wrong. It is the Damocles’ Sword that comes as the price of leadership and obtaining responsibility. She who was called, “America’s Grandmother” died this week at the young age of 92. Seeing all the articles about Barbara Bush on TV I grew more interested in her life. As First Lady, she seemed to have had very definite opinions about things, but was also wise enough to say that she “just could not make that choice for someone else.” About some of the issues that divide this nation today, she also said that,"... personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, platforms and conventions." She is known to have fought for literacy in America. As I listened to the many reports about her life and accomplishments, one particular saying of hers attracted my attention. During George W Bush presidency she saw the downward spiraling of the political conversation and said,“I hate the fact that people think 'compromise' is a dirty word.” Is “compromise” a dirty word? What is a compromise anyways? It is a word coming from the Latin and means, “A Mutual promise”. According to the dictionary, a compromise is: “an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions.”; "an ability to listen to two sides in a dispute, and devise a compromise acceptable to both." This year I have been teaching my class of teenagers about the American Constitution. As I studied it myself, I stumbled into a study of the Constitutional Convention. I read many of the debates, disputations, and argumentation of the people that were present at that history changing convention. At the end, I realised that the American constitution was signed by people who each had to give a little in order to come to an agreement. Like Barbara Bush, they did not believe that “compromise”, or the “ability to listen to two sides in a dispute, and devise a compromise acceptable to both”, was a dirty word. And neither should we! Everyday in the news we hear about another leader or social role model falling from grace. Their fall is always due to certain indiscretions, either of a sexual, financial, or ethical nature. It is true that in any type of group, society, political, or religious movement, leaders are under a greater scrutiny than the rest of the people. It may seem unfair, but it is nevertheless the Damocles’ sword that comes with leadership. Maybe this is what James of the Bible meant as he warned, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”(James 3:1) Human nature is such that we tend to copy and emulate those leaders we admire. We also tend to scrutinise and oppose those leaders which we despise. In any case, for good or bad, whether we like it or not, they influence us. Like children, we also tend to follow the actions of a our leaders rather than their good words of advice. We are like the children of whom the parents complained, “No matter how much we try to teach them good manners, they consistently follow our bad sample.” This should stand as a warning to any of us who operate in leadership. The people who love us, will not only emulate us, but often take our words and sample much further than we would have ever anticipated. I often compare leadership to a whip. Only a tiny movement of the wrist is needed to have it go its full length at the other end. In the same manner, a little off-color remark, a little bending of the rules, a little disrespect can trickle down the ranks and bring down the high standards we have worked so hard to establish. Even the appearance of impropriety is dangerous. The leader’s motto should be, “Others may, but I can’t!” It isn’t necessary to have a title to be a leader. ? A leader is someone who does everything with “leadership” meaning like everything depends on it, because it does! He shows dedication, integrity, and altruism. He does not count the hour nor the money. In everything he does his motto is, “I may just be a little daisy, but l’ll be the best daisy there ever was!” No one is an island. We all have influence be it on our spouses, friends, co-workers, children, colleagues, etc … and that makes us all leaders. THE LAST JEDI, EASTERN PHILOSOPHY, AND TODAY. In The Last Jedi Kylo Ren tells Luke Skywalker: I'll destroy her. And you. And all of it. Luke Skywalker answers: No. Strike me down in anger and I'll always be with you. Just like your father. This reminded me of episode V when Luke Skywalker’s saw himself becoming like his father, Darth Vader, as he tried to kill him. While this idea is part of Eastern philosophical concepts such as Hinduism, oh , what basic truth it contains! Case in point. This week, someone from England sent a letter around calling for “Punish a Muslim Week” on the 3rd of April. The letter was sent to many people in many countries and even made its way to America. Part of the letter was a reward point system for hurtful things done to Muslims or to the Muslim community at large on that day. When I saw that I thought, “How odd; fundamentalist Muslims themselves teach the idea of heavenly rewards for the killing of certain people, mainly Jews or Americans. It also reminded me about Haman the Persian who decided that on a certain day of the year, all Persians should go and kill their Jewish neighbors. Like in the Last jedi, hatred and murder, in the spirit of anger and vengeance make us become those we hate and kill. We often see it. In trying to obtain justice and vengeance, someone wronged will often resort to the same actions, thought patterns and philosophy as the one who wronged him. The God who created us knew that, and this is why He teaches us to resist anger, hatred, and hateful murder while leaving Him with the job of avenging us, if not in this age, in the Age to come. If you liked what you read, help me produce more.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pgabriellumbroso Messianic Parasha Weekly Teaching: http://www.thelumbrosos.com/blograsha/ Messianic-Sephardic Music in Hebrew and English: http://www.thelumbrosos.com/downloads.html A mass was held this week in a Catholic church in the southern French city of Trèbe to honor a national hero. A terrorist hijacked a car, and shot at a group of police officers that were fitness training, jogging along the side of the road., Then the lone terrorist came to a small supermarket where, among others, he took a young female hostage. The kidnapper demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the 2015 Paris jihadist attacks that killed 130 people. Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, former officer in the French army, was the first on the scene. He disarmed himself, discretely set his live cell phone on the counter while beginning negotiations with the terrorist. The officer then offered to exchange places with the young woman. The terrorist accepted and the grateful woman fled. Through the police officer’s phone, the special police forces outside could hear everything that was happening in the store. They heard the negotiations and the terrorist stabbing the policeman several times. When the terrorist started shooting police reinforcements stormed the scene and killed the aggressor. Arnaud died later of his wounds in a local hospital. I find this story truly heroic. I keep imagining the officer’s wife meeting the woman he changed place with. What would she say of this great sacrifice? Would they develop a relationship? Would there be bitterness, friendship, a sort of bound between them? We are approaching the season of Passover. In the days of the Jewish Temple, people believed that they owed their salvation, their escape from spiritual death, to the killing of a lamb. Thousands of lambs were killed in one day. On that day, the Temple looked more like a slaughterhouse than a place of worship. How were these lambs killed? By the slicing of the carotid and tracche, the same way that incidentally, doctors concluded that this heroic officer who took the place of another was killed. Another kind of first-responder! This is something that happened one day in the old City of Jerusalem. A rabbi was walking home from the store when he saw a child falling from his bike. The face of the child must have hit a rock as blood profusely flowed from a big gash on his face. The rabbi ran to pick up the child and quickly brought him to the nearby hospital to get stitched. An elderly woman saw the rabbi running and said, ”Don't worry rabbi, God is in control and won't let anything bad happen to that child!” Then she gave a closer look at the face of the child and realized that it was her own grandson. Suddenly it was she who was frantically running and calling for help.
It is so easy to comfort others from a external position. That is why as a chaplain, though I have seen a thing or two in my life, I do not like to say, “I understand” or, “I feel your pain.” We have to stay in the “exterior” in order to bring comfort but as such we cannot truly know what someone really feels. And that is why also I think that first-responders are amazing. Though in the “exterior”, they respond day after day to tragic life-threatening situations with an “insider” sense of urgency. For them, it is personal. I attended the drill on PTSD this month. The instructor told us how first- responders carry with them all the things that they see and hear. These sights and sounds always remain with them and unless they have a way of pouring it out of themselves, it can negatively affect them. These people are often volunteers. They don't have to do it. Many of the calls they respond to are accidents, but many of them are also situations where people's carelessness and unhealthy habits are at fault. In any case, the first-responders respond just the same. As such, also in any case, they voluntarily take upon themselves the consequences of our health issues or unhealthy living in order to rescue us; a burden that will negatively affect their lives if they don’t learn how to put it down. I thought this to be good “food for thought” as we enter the season when we remember the sacrificed Passover Lamb reminiscent of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. How fitting is the connection with the events that happened in Jerusalem 2000 ago at this time of the year. Indeed, a time when someone, as the true, First-Responder, also voluntarily took upon himself the burdens of our health issues and foolish living. Kudos to our first-responders! When I was in school in France we were made to memorize Aesop's fables. These Greek fables had been adapted to the French language by a poet called Jean de La Fontaine. La Fontaine lived during the reign of Louis the XIV who brought France to it’s post-medieval zenith. La Fontaine used much material from ancient Greece and Asia for his writings. He transformed these prose and poetry into gentle political satires that held a mirror to the hierarchical society of his days. One such fable is one of a strong and mighty tall-standing oak having a discussion with the weak bending-to-every-wind reed in the river below it. The oak would jeer at the reed. “ Look at you!” he would say, “You bend at the slightest breeze. Now to the right, now to the left. How can you live this way?! Look at me strong and tall. Nothing moves me!” In life I have noticed that Someone always hears our proud boastings, especially when they done against the weak. As the wind heard the proud oak, it blew, and blew, and blew while the self-assured tree stood strong and firm. All the while, the reed bent lower and lower to the ground, to the point where he would even embrace the shape of the ground under it. The oak laughed and laughed at the reed’s weakness, mocking it for its apparent lack of strength till a sudden increase in the wind uprooted it. All the while, the bending reed was left unharmed. As the oak looked around with surprise, he remarked to the reed, “I am tall and strong, but you are small and slender, how did the wind knock me over but leave you untouched?” The reed responded, “The wind will blow and it can’t be stopped, but those who are proud and stubborn are unable to withstand its assault, however those who are humble and adaptable are able to continue to stand after the turmoil has passed.” Here is a great reminder. Life brings many challenges and we live in turbulent times; but those who seem to cope best aren’t the rigid, proud and dogmatic, but the malleable, humble and pragmatic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rus3yHVnfHk During an interview on CBS This Morning, TV show host and comic Stephen Colbert explained that fear prevents us from thinking straight. He quoted his mother who often said to him, “When you can laugh, you can think!” The idea here is that you cannot laugh and be afraid at the same time, so laughing implies that you have conquered the fear that paralyses you and keeps you from thinking. Fear is a very interesting subject. I read an article a long time ago that used a dog attack as an example. The article proposed the notion that the dog barks because he can sense the fear in the human. It is vicious cycle. The more the dog barks, the more the human is afraid, and the more the human is afraid, the more the dog barks, all because the dog believe that a human who is afraid will hurt him to protect himself. The article then proposes that it is better to ignore the loud scary barks, the growls, and the show of teeth, and go toward the dog as if we didn’t fear him. I have since put this notion to the test. I used to do fundraisers door-to-door. I encountered my share of dogs, some less friendly than others. I knew the worst thing I could do was run. They have four legs and I have only two! So when a dog would come racing towards me, I would immediately face it and even at times walk towards it. Surprised, it would then stop and bark all the louder, in no uncertain terms showing me what he intended to do to me. At those times, one thing I made sure of, is to never, ever, ever, let him get behind me. It required me to constantly dance around on my feet as he would try to get me from behind (which confirms that he was afraid to attack me face to face). It got a bit hairy when one time I had two dobermans after me. The tactic never failed. Eventually the dog would calm down and go away, unless of course the animal was trained to attack face to face. Here is what is important to understand about fear. As in the case of the dog, fear holds its power within us, in how much we give in to it, in how much we respond to it. But like the Wizard of Oz, much of it might just be scary sights and sound to intimidate us. It pops like a balloon, vanishes away like a bad dream as soon as we face it showing that we don’t buy the show. US President FDR must have understood and believed that as he is known to have said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” I saw in interesting documentary the other day. It was about a violin maker and how he chose the wood to make his instruments.
He says that wood has a voice; that he can hear the wood’s resonance and its music. It reminded me of another article I read a long time ago about another luthier. He had searched all his life for wood that would serve for making violins with a certain beautiful and haunting resonance. At last he succeeded when he came into possession of wood gathered from the timberline, the last stand of the trees of the Rockies, 12,000 feet above sea level. Up there where the winds blow so fiercely and steadily that the bark to windward has no chance to grow, where the branches all point one way, and where a tree to live must stay on its knees all through its life, that is where the world's most resonant wood for violins is born and lives and dies. What beautiful imagery we have here: beautiful music conceived from a life of tribulations. Wordsworth said, “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” The problem though is that when going through trials some of us don’t sing, we just make selfish indignant complaining noises. The trials, the tribulations and the tragedies life endows upon us are made to teach our hearts a new song, a song of care, of love, of humility, and of generosity. The crushing of our hopes and dreams is the process which creates the fragrance of empathy, a very expensive fragrance which can only be conceived in the vessel of our broken hearts allowing it to seep onto others. Life is not always kind to us, but like trees in the Rockies, may we let the wind that would uproot us; the wind that keeps us barkless and vulnerable; the wind that pushes us down on our knees; create in us beautiful music to soothe the heart of others. Here is the documentary I saw: https://youtu.be/33KMToBmtXU I live outside of Estacada, OR. Near my kitchen there is a door that overlooks in a wild area that is only populated with young trees, blackberry bushes, and all kinds of other greeneries. On Tuesday night, before going to bed around midnight, I looked outside the window of that door to check if it was snowing when from within the bush I saw a light like those from a cell phone. “Someone is out there!” I thought. The light kept going on, then off; and off, and on again. I do watch TV crime shows and heard of several break-ins in the area. It was getting scary. I do have a BB gun on that porch and a conceal-carry license. I kept watching till I saw a big shadowy 4-legged thing moving in the bushes alongside a 2-legged one. I really was wondering…! It is then that as the two shadows came out of the bushes I saw that it was our neighbor taking her anatolian shepherd dog to relieve itself from the discomfort of an over-full bladder. The next morning I was texting her about the last night’s adventures, and this is how the conversation went: --You scared the heeby-jeebies out of me last night. --Haha, Shomer (that is the name of the anatolian shepherd) had to pee! --Especially when I saw a four-legged creature accompanied with a person in a ski-mask, I thought it might be a robber or that the FBI had finally caught up with me --Haha --I braced myself expecting to see assault weapons (you know with the news these days …) –-Then I saw that it was only you and Shomer guarding the place. She then said, --- I should be thankful you didn’t shoot me first! To which I replied, –- I learned to stop, look, and listen, before shooting! --Did you learn the hard way? --Yes but not with guns, thankfully, but with my mouth and actions. --Ah yes. Deep! It is a deep, but yes, a simple lesson. I was talking to a friend this week who was wondering if the devil was responsible for the bad things that happened to him. I told him that the devil doesn't have to hardly do anything to mess up our lives. We are entirely capable to do that by our own selves as we act irrationally, omitting to take the time to stop, look, and listen before we do and say things. I personally learned, (and am still learning sometimes) that it takes less long to take the time to stop, look, and listen before doing or saying something than to clean up the mess when we don’t! Grigory Rodchenkov who was once the mind behind the elaborate doping program that helped Russia cheat in the Olympics was recently interviewed. He revealed that the competing Olympians of some twenty plus countries regularly use chemical stimulants to improve their performance. The more questions the journalist asked, the wider the problem seemed, until hefinally asked, “Will the Olympic Games ever be clean?”
In his slightly broken English, the Russian official answered, “You could believe, but in fact, it’s human nature; it’s our sins; it’s got nothing to do with sports. There are 10% or 15% who are incorrigible. You can do nothing. They are cheaters by their very nature!.” I do not know the religious background of this man but he identified a few words of the reason for the problems of the planet. Not only in sports, but from banks who profited on housing loans causing the recent recession to the politicians who played the system to finance luxurious vacations at our expense; from businessman who pay themselves 300 times more than their employee while refusing to hire help for their overworked workers because of the “cost”, to false advertisement, scams, hackers and ID thieves, it is all the same. We are dealing with sinful human nature with a percentage of people who are incorrigible. It is easy to blame people’s behaviors on race, religion, or culture. We even sometimes blame it on the circumstances of their youth but the truth really is that we are all created equal. If one is bad, all are bad and if one is good all are good. The whole idea is that whether we believe in God or not, we all have within ourselves the potential to do good, and the equal potential to do evil. What we do with the responsibility of that awesome choice is ours and our Russian official acknowledged that a certain percentage of people in the world seemed to have made the decision to misbehave by acting selfishly and dishonestly. I think that sticks the blame right where it belongs: with us: the universal person. Of all the creatures on the earth, we seem to be the one with the greatest ability to lead our lives through choice instead of by instinct. I saw a little illustration once. It represented the bust of a person with a small devil on one side of his shoulder and and a little angel on the other. Both were having a tug-of-war through the person’s ears thus illustrating that they both had influence on him. The tie would only be broken by the person’s choice. The flame of conscience within us can prevent us from doing the bad thing and even push us toward more unselfish choices. Ultimately, can we really blame our environment for the evil that we do? The choices really belong to us. I was listening to one of these talk shows on radio where people ask advice on marriage and everyday life. It was in 2001 and this man was asking advice on how to tell his wife that he wanted to enlist for a tour of duty in Iraq. The talk show host is herself very military minded and has children who are enlisted, but she asked the man, –“Is it something that your wife and you talked about before you decided to get married?”And then she continued –“I want a man who is home at night for dinner so I made sure not to marry a surgeon. Has your wife agreed to marry a soldier who might or might not come back from the front lines?”
When people get married they enter a contract with each other. This is actually the whole idea of marriage. It is good to once in a while review this contract and what it says. It might even be a good Valentine’s Day project to take account of how we faithfully (or unfaithfully) execute the promises of our marriage vows. Please, note that I said, to review our part of the contract not assessing our spouse’s, but how WE personally are doing. Did we say, “For richer or poorer”? Or, “”In sickness and in health?”, or even “I promise to be there for you to cherish and care for you all the days of my life till death do us part?” In the ancient world, contracts were written on a soft piece of clay later hardened in an oven. If one of the parties disobeyed the terms of the contract, the other had the option to take that piece of clay and break it as a sign that since the contract was broken, it was annulled. That’s why Moses broke the Tables of the Commandments. He didn’t go into a fit of rage; he just broke the contract God had made with Israel because Israel broke it through the making of the Golden Calf. Of course, the other party also has the option to forgive, which is what God eventually did in the case of Israel. Once a contract is made, it cannot be altered without a nullification of the former one. This is true of all legal contracts from marriage to business associations. If conditions change, we need to sit-down and re-write a new contract. Our word is only as good as we are faithful to execute the terms of what we promise. It seems a small thing today to not abide by our word but in business, marriage, or a court of law, it has wide ramifications. It was part of the 10 Commandments to not break vows (Exodus 20: 7), and Jesus said that it is better not to make vows than to make on and break it! (Mat 5:33--37). A good resource that I use for marriage counseling whenever I officiate a wedding: https://ffoz.com/adam-loves-eve-book.html This week I read about Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean who fled his country. He was raised in an orphanage where he saw many children die of hunger. One day, he tried to steal a few pieces of coal from a train’s cargo in hope of selling them or exchanging them for something to eat. Starving, he fell asleep on the rails exhausted from the weight of his sack He woke up as the train hit. “Surgeons amputated his left leg above the knee, and his left hand at the wrist. There was no anaesthetic. No blood transfusion. No painkillers.The doctor slapped him to keep him conscious every time he started to pass out. He still remembers the sound of the saw, cutting through his leg bone.” The article says.
He continued his miserable life without limbs but not without hope. In 2006, hobbling almost 10,000 kilometres on crutches that his father made for him he escaped North Korea, through China and South-East Asia to freedom. “The dogs of China ate better than my family in N.Korea!” he noticed. He did escape and now lives in South Korea as an activist to help rescue other defectors, especially crippled ones. This week he was invited at the State of the Union presidential speech. As the President addressed him, Ji Seong-ho brandished the old crutches that dragged him through 10.000 kilometers to freedom. Though he now has prosthetic legs, he kept these crutches. “To me it symbolises that you can achieve anything if you do not give up,” he said. (Click HERE for full story). Those crutches have become a symbol for this man, a remembrance of where he came from in case he should get complacent and whine about his lot in life. Not only should this story put our daily life complaints in perspective, but it should also challenge the many excuses we indulge in for not doing what we know we should be doing with our families, our community, with our lives. If any one had excuses to just roll over and die, he did. What’s ours? |
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