MAMMA TEACHES WORK ETHICS

In my first post I introduced you to Fred. If you will recall, he was the elderly man in the neighborhood whose grass I mowed. This story is about how my mamma and Fred worked together to teach me a lesson about work ethics. I was sixteen years old, and almost at the pinnacle of knowledge and wisdom. In other words, I was a teenage boy who thought he knew everything. You couldn't tell me anything. Being somewhat  of a typical teen, I had developed quite a habit of procrastination.

I had agreed to mow Fred's yard once a week. It was summer time, so the days were pretty long and for the most part care free. About the middle of one week, mamma asked me, "son, are you planning on doing Fred's yard today?" I told her that it was not in my plans for that particular day, and she let it drop. Good. I went along my merry way. But like a gnat usually returns to torment its victim, mamma asked the same question the next day. She got the same response. I thought I detected just a bit of irritation in her voice, but again, she didn't persist on the subject.

This went on for the next two or three days. Same question. Same response. However, with each passing day, I could tell she was getting more and more aggravated with me. You have to understand one thing about  my mamma. She had several non-negotiable rules, and one of them was that you didn't do anything, and I do mean anything, to show disrespect to an elderly person. (This has served me well, being a nursing home administrator.) To mamma, "putting Fred off, " as she called it was on the verge of crossing that line. Once a week, meant once a week. Period.

Saturday comes. Its been one week since the last time I mowed Fred's grass. For those of you who aren't familiar with southeast Texas, it was not uncommon for people to mow more than once a week during the rainy, hot summer time. But, since Fred was relatively content with once a week, so was I. Sure enough, I got up Saturday morning, and the inquisition began anew. However, this time I told her that I was indeed planning on mowing the yard. My plan was to wait until the early evening hours, when it would still be light, but not as hot. 

This is where things go from bad, to a bit worse. After lunch a couple of my buddies showed up unexpectedly and announced they were going to the island to play golf, and did I want to come along. What do you think? Of course I wanted to go. So, I go in the house and tell mamma, "I'm going to Pleasure Island to play golf." Her immediate objection, as you could have predicted, was that I needed to go mow Fred's grass. I explained that we were going to play only the front nine, and I would be home in plenty of time to get the job done before dark.

Her response was brief, but firm. "You are going to mow that yard, TODAY." 

Now we go from bad to really worse. I had a wristwatch that was flopping around bothering me every time I swung the golf club, so I asked one of my trusted friends to put it in his pocket, as I was not so equipped that day. We played nine holes, and I began to tell them I had to get home to do my work. One of them said, "it's still real early," and he showed me my very own watch to prove it. What a little dummy. I fell for it and off we went to play the back nine holes. I do remember thinking that it sure felt like we had been there longer, but I dismissed the notion, until it started getting dark. I think it was 4:30 pm by my watch.

I hit the back door pleading my case. "Mamma, they played a joke on me." 

"Well," she said, "I'm sure sorry about that, but you are going to mow that yard."

"But it's dark outside."

"I'll at least loan you a flashlight. Get the one from the kitchen drawer."

So off I went, in the dark, to mow Fred's grass with a flashlight and a 50 watt light bulb hanging over Fred's garage door. It was miserable. The mosquitoes were out in full force. They all found me. I couldn't swat at them, because I was holding the flashlight with one hand and pushing the lawnmower with the other hand. I tried putting the flashlight in my mouth, but it was too big. I just had to suffer through it. I remember thinking at the time that my mamma had lost her mind.

Today, I understand what she did. She called ahead and told Fred for him not to take pity on me as she was, "teaching that boy a lesson." I'm sure now that they both felt a little sorry for me, but they believed that that life lesson was critical. And to be sure, it was well learned. Today, I never mow the grass after dark without mosquito repellent.

Steve ( www.tidwinkle.com )

OLD FAVORITES

I was driving home from San Jacinto College yesterday afternoon, listening to the oldies station. "Smoke on the Water" started playing, and I was immediately transported back in time and started reminiscing about how my best friend and I would play the air guitar when we heard that familiar intro. Come on now, you know it: bum bum buuum, bum bum bum buuum, bum bum buuum, bum buuum. It made me feel good to think about that, so I started to thing about other things, like watching Bonanza with my grandma on Saturday nights and eating Sunday lunch (we called it dinner back then) after church. Since I was in an analytic mode, I thought about why these memories were among my favorites and why were they capable of producing such soothing emotions. 

I came to the following conclusion: We need simplicity in our lives. Each of the above examples, and I could go on with dozens more, represent a time in life when things were much easier and simple. Since I grew up in the TV generation, several old shows came to mind. Can you remember wishing you lived in Mayberry, or Mayfield, or Hooterville? It's because they were safe, predictable places where family and friends actually counted for something. Of course they were just fantasies, but they did serve a purpose, at least for me. 

Here are some of my other old favorite things: home made ice cream, going to a fish fry picnics on Easter, Double Bubble chewing gum, playing dodge ball, junior high dances (which were horribly awkward feeling at the time,) going to Fred Miller's toy store with daddy and my $2 allowance, and on and on and on.

I hope you will take a few minutes and do some reminiscing of your own. Please feel free to share some of your old favorites in the comments section. I'm going cut this one short. I have some daydreaming to catch up on.

See you next time..........Steve ( www.tidwinkle.com ) 

LOVE IS NOT AN EMOTION

To say that we use the word love to the point of making it cliche, is ironically cliched itself. But, it is true, and it's worth thinking about again. My job here is to convey a fresh perspective on that by getting us to stop and think about what real love is. I love my wife; I love to go out and eat; I love my car; I love football; I love, I love, I love, ad nauseum. We each understand in our everyday usage that the above examples all  use the word "love" in different ways. The only one that truly conveys emotion is "I love my wife." So it would be fair to say that love can be associated with emotions in that case. However, I want to focus on the idea that love is NOT an emotion, at least in its highest form.

It is not my goal to have this blog entry to be an academic treatise in theology, but we do have to start with a bit of it. The Bible tells us, "God is love." It goes on to describe a form of love known in the Greek language as agape. Many hundreds of thousands of writers, most a great deal smarter than me, have written on the subject, so perhaps it is a bit arrogant of me to think I can contribute anything of significance. However, I will just share my thoughts and you the reader can take or leave what you will. Agape love, in my elementary understanding of it, simply means a form of love that is given unconditionally and in a self-sacrificing way.  In other words, it puts your needs before my own, whether you deserve it or not and whether I  "feel" like it or not. Therein lies my premise that love is not an emotion.

The Bible makes several demands on me in terms of love. Some of them are: "Love one another," "Love your neighbor as yourself," "husbands love your wives." Notice that it doesn't say, "husbands love your wives, if you feel like it, " or "husbands love your wives if she's in a good mood." The meaning is more like, "husbands love your wives even if she's in the crankiest mood ever and you had a horrible day at work." When you consider it that way, its easy to see that a warm emotion may be hard to generate at the moment. 

If love isn't an emotion, what must it be then? I maintain agape love is intentionally chosen behaviors. It means I'm called upon to be kind and do something to meet another person's needs. That's not always easy to do, even when it's a person that is usually easy to like. The greater challenge is to behave that way toward a stranger or a quarrelsome neighbor. It doesn't come naturally to us to be that way. But as I understand the instructions Jesus left me, I have to CHOOSE to behave that way toward even my enemies! Hard? Yes. Worth it? It must be, because God uses agape love as the strongest transforming power in the universe.

Have a great week. See you next time........Steve ( www.tidwinkle.com )

     The last time we talked about building walls between people. As promised, here are my thoughts on building bridges between people. In the physical sense, what does a bridge do? It simply allows two areas that have an obstacle between them, such as a river or valley, to be connected and accessible to each other. They have to be made of sturdy material such as steel and iron. Bridges between people allow them to connect and be accessible to each other, just like our real world bridge. What are the building materials of "people bridges?"

     The building materials of our people bridges are actually pretty intuitive, but I suspect we don't spend much time thinking about them. It seems to me that the first and basic one is communication. We talk to people all day. Notice I said "talk to" and not "talk with." There is a big difference. Good communicators learn that almost everyone's favorite subject is himself or herself. They seek to allow that person to talk about themselves and are truly interested in hearing the information. They use what is called reflective listening skills,   meaning they ask questions along the way to insure they are truly understanding, and not just hearing, what the person is saying. At the end of a conversation with a good listener, the person feels they are understood.

     The next "steel beam" on my list is kindness. How many times did our mothers admonish us that if we didn't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. That's the first basic point of kindness. In our society, we are somewhat geared to think of ourselves first and then the other fellow. It okay to intentionally give up our number one position and put the other person's needs and feelings first. A simple example of this happened to me recently at the grocery store. I ran in just to get a gallon of milk. I arrived at the checkout stand at the same time (or a second or two later) than this man who had a whole basket full of groceries. He saw that I only had the one thing, and graciously allowed me to go ahead of him. I felt blessed and thanked him. He had every right to not do that, but he chose to be kind. It's sort of contagious, because as I was leaving the store, I got to the door at about the same time as someone who had a large load she was struggling with to get to her car. In my moment of largess, just moments before inspired in me, I helped her get her basket to the car. I know that's no big deal, but just used to make a point. One of the shortest, but most profound scriptures in the Bible is, "be ye kind to one another." (Ephesians 4:32) Just as real world bridges need paint to keep from rusting or rotting, people bridges need to be kept painted regularly with kindness.

Some may not agree with me on this, but I think a great bridge material between people is laughter. Its hard to not feel connected to someone when you share a good, hearty belly-laugh with them. Conversely, sharing moments of grief with someone builds strong bridges as well. The Bible puts it like this is Romans 12:15, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." We don't always feel as comfortable in sharing sorrow as we do in laughing, but if you practice both, you will have more bridges built that you can imagine.

So that's it for this entry. This by no means is a comprehensive list of bridge building materials, but only a good start. Go get some construction materials of you own, and start building more bridges today! See ya next time............Steve (www.tidwinkle.com)

What Are We Building? Walls or Bridges?

     I have heard it said that there really are no new thoughts. Maybe that's true, because as I thought about my weekly blog installment, I thought maybe I had a pretty original, clever analogy to share with you. A curious Google search quickly proved that many others have been moved to write about the same thing. So be it. I still want to present my thoughts on the subject of walls and bridges. The basic premise is easy enough to grasp. Bridges unite; walls divide and separate. Its true in the original meaning of the word, and it is true in the allegorical sense as it applies to people. So here are a few things I want to think about. (Yes, I'm preaching mostly to myself here.)

     Which is more common, walls or bridges? Which is easier to construct, walls or bridges? Maybe it's different for you, but for me it's more common and easier to construct walls than bridges. Not that I want it to be that way, but it seems to me to be the way we humans are inclined to be. We build most walls to hide aspects of ourselves from other people. To some extent that is a good thing, because it keeps us civilized. Imagine if we just allowed some of our primal instincts to be exposed, uninhibited. We all have unsettling thoughts and temptations creep in on us often enough. We should be grateful for the walls that keep these things at bay. They are the good walls, and we should keep them erected, and strong. But what about the kind of walls we put up to keep others away from us? I suppose it could be argued that some of those walls are needed as well, but that is not my focus. I want to make myself think about the walls we build that limit or even damage our relationships with other people. Let's take a look at some wall building methods and materials.

     If you examine the walls in our lives, I think we can see some interesting features. One of the most common types of walls is made from the bricks and mortar of misjudgment.  A very frustrating thing I deal with on both a personal and professional basis, is the fact that we are quick to jump to conclusions. We have a need to have a complete picture of things in our minds. When we don't truly have all the necessary information, we tend to make up the missing details. Let me give a simple, but fairly common example. Let's say I'm at church (could be school, work, etc.) and I pass someone and they don't speak to me. Here we go. My mind will start making up the missing parts of the story, just as if I knew it was the gospel truth. I think they must be angry with me. Or maybe I think they don't like me, or that they're a snob. It must be something like that, right? So I start putting the first bricks up in my new wall. But the truth is, we are often wrong. Maybe that person had a problem they were thinking about and wasn't even focused on what was going on around them. Or maybe they didn't feel well and weren't acting like themselves. My point is that there are alternate explanations many times we don't even consider. Why do we always go to the worst case scenario first? We think we have a complete lock down on why others act they way they do. The fact is, we don't, and we build walls that don't need to be built.

     There are other walls that go up in similar fashion and with the same basic materials of assumption. How many times do we fall victim to the evil effects of gossip? This usually comes in the guise of someone coming "as a friend" to inform us of something we need to know. We accept what they say as absolute truth and work double time to get our wall started. Its often impossible to track down the origins of a rumor, but what  can usually be seen is that as the story develops, its gets enhanced for better consumption and greater impact. The originators and spreaders of these wall building bricks rarely get their facts right and cause unimaginable damage to relationships around them. I wonder how many walls I have built in my lifetime based on at least partially false information. Think about it. You may have a few of your own.

     By no means is this an exhaustive list of methods and materials. For example, we didn't consider the green walls built because of pride and jealousy. For the next few days, I am going to try and be aware of the walls in my life. Maybe you will do the same. Let's evaluate why we built them and whether or not we really need them. Maybe we can start tearing some of them down, brick by brick if we have to. Building walls comes easily and naturally for most of us. Tearing them down, is difficult. But next time, I hope to have a few thoughts developed on the hardest challenge of all, but the challenge that if met produces the greatest rewards and satisfaction, You guessed it- building bridges.

     Until next time......Steve ( http://www.tidwinkle.com )


   

The $5.00 Christmas Tree

     Two men sat in a small metal building on the parking lot of a supermarket. An electric heater glowed orange and at least took some of the chill out of the December air. They were both members of a local civic organization and they had drawn the short straw to man the annual Christmas tree lot on this Saturday night. Their club raised money each year from the sales of Christmas trees. Business had been steady enough, but the main rush had been the weekend before, so the men had time to sit and talk. They only had about an hour to go, before closing the lot for the evening. For about the first forty-five minutes of that hour, no one had pulled up, and they actually thought about just closing fifteen minutes early, but just before they did, a car slowly pulled up and stopped just outside the door of their make-shift shack.  

      As they watched, an elderly woman opened the car door. The first thing they saw was a walking cane came protruding from the car. The old lady carefully positioned the cane for safety and finally stepped out.
She was bundled up so much, that they wondered how long it had taken her to get ready to get out and brave the cold. She was dressed for the Christmas season, with a bright red scarf topping everything off. Under the scarf they could see her snow white hair. One of the men told the other one, "why don't you finish up in here, and I'll wait on this lady." He stepped out into the cold and cheerfully greeted the old matron with a loud, "Merry Christmas! May I help you?"

     "I hope you can help me find a nice Christmas tree," she replied.

     "I'll sure try," he said. He pointed out which section had which type and sizes of trees, secretly hoping she wasn't going to be overly picky.

     "I just love Christmas time and always enjoy my live trees. I guess it's okay for some folks, but I just don't like the artificial trees. I know I have to be careful with my money now that I'm a widow, but I think the Lord will forgive me this once a year extravagance."

     "I'm sure He will," answered the man.

      As they walked around the lot, his hopes of doing this quickly began to die. However, as they walked and talked, the Christmas tree man learned more about her. He learned that her husband of over sixty years had recently passed away and left large medical bills for her to deal with on a tight and fixed income. He also found out about her own health concerns, She told him about her kids and grand kids and what she was going to have for Christmas dinner. She explained that her family all lived a distance away and that she didn't get to see them often, and how she wanted to host them at her modest little house in a nice, festive atmosphere. The way she told him these things weren't done in a complaining way, nor in a way to make people feel sorry for her. She genuinely expressed joy for the season.

     Before he realized it, they had drifted into the section where the more expensive trees stood. She came across one of these and got very excited. "Look at this one," she said. "Its branches are perfect and it's the perfect size. And it's only five dollars!" In her excitement, she had misread the price tag. The tree was marked as costing fifty dollars. 

     Realizing the mistake the old lady had made, the man just said, "yes, it's a great tree for five dollars. I'll load it in the back of your car for you." 

     The tree now loaded, they stepped into the shack to complete the transaction. He told her, "that will be five dollars, please." He quickly glanced at his partner to indicate he shouldn't say anything.

     The lady took four one dollar bills and four quarters out of her purse and paid for the tree. After exchanging "Merry Christmas" with each other, she made her way slowly back to her car and finally drove off. As she was doing this, the man took two twenty dollar bills and a five and put in the cash box. His partner asked, "you just bought that lady's Christmas tree, didn't you?"

     "I was hoping you hadn't noticed, but yes I did. She misread the price tag and I didn't have the heart to correct her, so I just let her have it for five dollars."

     Matthew 6:3 says, "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing," The generous man never told me this story, his partner did. One of the men was my very own brother. You can decide which one it was.

    Merry Christmas!

Fred's Important Lesson For Me

Fred's Important Lesson For Me

When I was a boy, I lived near Fred and Lucille. They were old. Very old. When I got big enough to push a lawnmower, Fred hired me to be his "yard man." I would go once a week and mow his grass, trim, and generally clean his yard. Being that this occurred during the summer, and I grew up in Texas, it was plenty hot. Fred would always have me take a break and invite me to sit on the porch to cool off and have some refreshments. It was during those breaks that Fred would regale me with stories. I delighted in hearing about his adventures in France as a World War I dough-boy. I felt that I was in the presence of some mystical greatness, because Fred had actually met and shook hands with General Black Jack Pershing. And so it was that during these sessions, I began to see Fred as an adopted grandfather. 

My relationship with Fred was strong enough, that even after I was in college and no longer his yard man, I was a frequent visitor. I guess I was just too hooked on those old stories to give them up. As I was visiting once, about this time of the year, I noticed Fred hadn't put up a Christmas tree. When I asked him why, he replied simply, "oh, that's for when you have kids around." Sensing that there was more to it than that, I went into action. I got with several of my friends, and my girlfriend, (who is now my wife.) We all pitched in a couple of dollars and bought a Christmas tree, decorations, and refreshments. The next Saturday night, we showed up at Fred and Lucille's house and had a surprise Christmas party. As suspected, Fred and Lucille were thrilled. We told them to just enjoy the tree and we would come back after Christmas and clean everything up for them. As we were leaving that night, Fred stopped me as I was walking out the door. He had a tear rolling down his cheek as he said, "boy, I ought to whip you." That was Fred's distinctive way of saying, "thank you." I left feeling good because I had done something for someone else- from the heart. But that wasn't the end. Fred was still going to teach me something.

A few days later, I got word that Fred wanted to see me. Dutifully, I went when called. I walked in and asked what he wanted with me. Fred slowly made his way over to his writing desk and took out his checkbook. He signed a blank check and gave me his instructions. "Since I can't go do this myself, I want you to go to the store and pick out a nice turkey and all the trimmings. I want to treat you and your family to Christmas dinner." I started to protest that he shouldn't do this, but then I saw something in his ninety-four year old eyes that said without words, "I still can give too, and I need to do this for you." As graciously as I could, I accepted his offer. This time, it was me leaving with a tear running down my cheek.

That was the best Christmas dinner I ever had. Not because the food was any better,but because it came with the last lesson Fred ever had a chance to teach me. That is this: no matter how old we get, we still have a need to be needed by others, and that includes being able to give sometimes. Thank you, Fred.