The Journey

A little girl was asked to bring her birth certificate to school one day. Her mother wisely cautioned her about the important document and told her to be especially careful with it. But in spite of her good intentions, the child lost it. When she became aware of its loss, she began to cry.

“What’s the problem, Honey?” her teacher asked sympathetically. The little girl wailed, “I lost my excuse for being born!” There are enough reasons to say, “Excuse me.” I am not about to apologize for being born. 

Some people live, though, as if they are sorry for being different, or for having an opposing opinion than others or for not running with the herd.  Author Linda Stafford was one of those people. When she was fifteen, Linda announced to her English class that she would someday write and illustrate her own books. She remembers that half of the class sneered and the remainder just laughed at her prophecy. To make matters worse, her English teacher responded that only geniuses become writers and then smugly added that she was on track to receive a D as a grade for the semester. Linda broke into tears. 

She went home and wrote a sad, short poem about broken dreams and mailed it to a weekly paper. To her astonishment, the newspaper not only chose to print the poem but they also sent her two dollars for publishing her writing. When she shared the news with her teacher, her only reply was that “everybody experiences some blind luck from time to time.” 

But as if to defy her teacher’s assertion, Linda continued to write. During the next two years, she sold dozens of poems, letters, jokes and recipes. And by the time she graduated from high school, she had a scrapbook filled with her published writing. 

Linda never again mentioned a word of it to her teachers or to her fellow students. Why not? Some people are “dream-busters,” Linda would later say. And her dream was too important, and, at this time in her life, too fragile to risk being shattered by careless comments from people who didn’t believe in her.

Mark Twain said this about dream busters: “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” 

Linda made no apologies for her ambitions, for her confident belief in herself or for wanting something more out of life. Even at her young age, she somehow knew that nobody on planet earth was more (or less) valuable than she; nobody was more deserving of happiness. She knew that she needed no excuse for wanting to make the most of her brief time in this life and eventually she did become the author she desired to be.

I have found plenty of dream-busters over the years, and I imagine that you have, too. But I have also discovered a few dream-builders along the way – people who encouraged my aspirations and challenged me to take the next step. It was the dream-builders who said yes when others said no. They were the ones who held my vision before me when I wanted to turn away in discouragement. They protected my dreams and reminded me who I really was.

It has always been the dream-builders who made the greatest impact. It is to them I am most grateful. If some people are dream-busters, others are dream-builders. And I know which ones to listen to. I also know which I want to be. 

And so, we pray: Lord, there are plenty of dream-busters out there thinking they were ordained to bring you down and bust your dreams. I have had many cross my path… if I had listened to them I would not have gone to school for twelve years and become a pastor. However, the world is also filled with dream-makers who have believed in me and encouraged me along the way. It is for them that I give thanks… and I pray the world will be filled with many, many more. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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One woman tells that she worked as an assistant at a jewelry store. She often arranged for engaged couples to have their wedding bands engraved with something special — the date they met or married, a sentimental phrase, their names or even their wedding vows. She once asked a bride-to-be what she would like inscribed inside her fiancé’s ring.

“We aren’t very romantic,” the young woman replied.  She added that they were marrying on her fiancé’s birthday so he wouldn’t forget the date.

“But isn’t there something you’ll want him to remember as he looks inside his ring?” the assistant wondered.

“There sure is,” she said. And that’s how “Put it back on!” came to be inscribed inside her husband’s ring.

Perhaps she was trying to help along her husband’s commitment to the relationship.

A woman named Catherine, from Scotland, may have wanted to help along her lover’s commitment to their relationship. For several decades actually. Finally, after 44 years of courtship, her 68-year-old boyfriend George proposed. Maybe he was waiting for a convenient time. Maybe was was waiting to get up the nerve. I don’t know.

Catherine, however, was more than understanding about waiting four decades for him to pop the question. “He is a bit shy, you know,” she said.

Author Ken Blanchard says this about commitment: “There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when it’s convenient. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses – only results.”

Is there an area of your life that feels more like an interest than a commitment? Does it deserve more from you? You can be interested in a job, or you can be committed. You can be interested in a relationship, or you can be committed. Interest may get you a paycheck or someone to be with, but commitment can change things. Whether you are pursuing a project, following a dream, changing a habit or preparing for your future, can you get the results you want without commitment?

Maybe the real question is not about how committed you are, but rather — are you ready for results? Well, I am very thankful for the results as well as the commitment we share. I never took my wedding band off, even in Vietnam, on liberty in San Juan, or in any other port or circumstance. The results have been a life filled with love and happiness… a fabulous son, daughter-in-law, and two amazing grandchildren.

Today is my wife’s birthday. She is 24 plus shipping and handling. Happy birthday sweetie.

And so, we pray: Lord, I thank you for interests for they keep me going. Even more I thank you for commitment between my wife and me. It has brought many years of happiness (54), joy, laughter and beauty. I thank you for always being part of our lives. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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Did you know that Albert Einstein could not speak until he was four years old and did not read until he was seven? His parents and teachers worried about his mental ability.

Or that Beethoven’s music teacher said about him, “As a composer he is hopeless”? What if young Ludwig believed it?

When Thomas Edison was a young boy, his teachers said he was so stupid he could never learn anything. He once said, “I remember I used to never be able to get along at school. I was always at the foot of my class…my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided that I was a dunce.” What if young Thomas believed what they said about him?

When F. W. Woolworth was 21, he got a job in a store, but was not allowed to wait on customers because, according to his boss, he “didn’t have enough sense.” I wonder if the boss was around when Woolworth became one of the most successful retailers of his day.

When the sculptor Auguste Rodin was young he had difficulty learning to read and write. Today, we may say he had a learning disability, but his father said of him, “I have an idiot for a son.” His uncle agreed. “He’s uneducable,” he said. What if the boy had doubted his ability to excel?

A newspaper editor once fired Walt Disney because he was thought to have no “good ideas.” The great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso was told by one music teacher, “You can’t sing. You have no voice at all.” And an editor told Louisa May Alcott, just a few years before she wrote the classic novel Little Women, that she was incapable of writing anything that would have popular appeal.

History will long praise each of these famous people, but what became of their critics? Nobody even remembers some of their names, which is all that need be said. 

But what if these young people had listened to those critical voices and became discouraged? Where would our world be without the music of Beethoven and Caruso, the art of Rodin, the ideas of Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, the imagination of Walt Disney or the literary contributions of Louisa May Alcott? As it was so accurately put, “It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.” (That from Oscar Levant.) What if these people had not become what they were capable becoming, had not done what they actually could have accomplished, just because they were discouraged by people who couldn’t see them for what they were?

We all have potential and, whether you realize it or not, your desire to do or be more than you are is your best indicator of future success. Others may discourage you, but the most important voice to listen to is your own. Do you believe in you?

Still the voices of your critics. Listen intently to your own voice, to the person who knows you best. Then answer these questions: Do you think you should move ahead? How will you feel if you quit pursuing this thing you want to do? And what does your best self advise?

What you hear may change your life.

And so, we pray: Lord, Help us to keep on going especially when others think so poorly of our ability… not to prove them wrong, but to become the fullest of who we can become. Cover us in your mercy, love and grace… and always keep you loving hand on our shoulder. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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Apparently, when Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., he was carrying two pairs of spectacles and a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a linen handkerchief, and a brown leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate note as well as several newspaper clippings on the Lincoln presidency.

The newspaper articles are a curiosity. Why did he carry them with him? The eight clippings found in his pockets were largely positive portrayals of his leadership, but the president was not egotistical. In fact, if we know anything about Lincoln, we know that humility was one of his most attractive virtues. Many historians stress that his possession of these clippings was less proof of a president’s ego than of a man who needed reassurance. The recently- ended war had been long and costly. His re-election campaign had also been a difficult slog. Lincoln rarely knew a day without public criticism. The newspaper articles would have been affirming to him.

Historians are aware that Abraham Lincoln suffered from bouts of serious depression. Could it be that in those “dark nights of the soul,” when despair settled over his mind like a cold and heavy snow, that he could reach into his pocket and find hope? Could it be that these words reminded him of what he had dedicated his life to, the good he had tried to do and the lives he had affected?

Francis of Assisi once said, “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” Maybe each newspaper article was a sunbeam that he collected and kept with him. 

Have you collected sunbeams? Have you saved away letters and mementos that warm your heart and encourage you when you need a lift? They can drive away many a dark shadow.

Dale Carnegie tells us this: “You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”

Here is little habit that can make a big difference. Send sunbeams.Intentionally send a word of encouragement or appreciation every day to one person. Plan ahead. Keep open to those who need a lift. A letter, card or email will suffice. Or a phone call. It can be short, but must be personal and it must be sincere.  

Occasionally you’ll learn what a difference your communication made. Sometimes you won’t. But know this – as you drive away the world’s shadows you will also fill your life daily with a little more joy.

And so, we pray: Lord, help me to step out of my own darkness long enough to be a light to lift someone else out of theirs. Help me make that phone call, text, letter… that word which will lift someone into the light. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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When a first-time father cuddled his newborn son, he immediately noticed the baby’s ears conspicuously standing out from his head. He expressed his concern to the nurse that some children might taunt his child, calling him names like “Dumbo.” A doctor examined the baby and reassured the new dad that his son was healthy – the ears presented only a minor cosmetic problem.

But the nervous father persisted. He wondered if the child might suffer psychological effects of ridicule, or if they should consider plastic surgery.

The nurse assured him that it was really no problem, and he should just wait to see if the boy grows into his ears.

The father finally felt more optimistic about his child, but now he worried about his wife’s reaction to those large, protruding ears. She had delivered by cesarean section, and had not yet seen the child.

“She doesn’t take things as easily as I do,” he said to the nurse.

By this time, the new mother was settled in the recovery room and ready to meet her new baby. The nurse went along with the dad to lend some support in case this inexperienced mother became upset about her baby’s large ears.

The infant was swaddled in a receiving blanket with his head covered for the short trip through the chilly air-conditioned corridor. The baby was placed in his mother’s arms, who eased the blanket back so that she could gaze upon her child for the first time.

She took one look at her baby’s face and looked to her husband and gasped, “Oh, Honey! Look! He has your ears!”

No problem with Mom. She married those ears…and she loves the man to whom they are attached.

The poet Khalil Gibran said, “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” It’s hard to see the ears when you’re looking into the light.

And so, we pray: Lord, we all have so sort of defect… we are all broken in some way, some form. Thank you for loving us anyway… in spite of what we may look like. Help us to see with our hearts and your love. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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Former prisoner James Knapp confessed to police that he’d robbed two stores in Oklahoma (USA), because he missed his old cell mates. Police said they’d see if James could be reunited with his buddies.

But I think Mr. Knapp might have said something worth listening to. We need friends, no matter where we find them.

And do you know who your best friend is? Automaker Henry Ford was having lunch with a man, when he suddenly asked the man that very question. “Who is your best friend?” Ford asked.

The man hesitated and Ford went on. “I’ll tell you who your best friend is,” he said. Then he wrote this sentence for the man to read: “Your best friend is he who brings out the best that is within you.” Our best friends are those who do more than simply like us. They also believe in us. They support us but, occasionally, they nudge us as well.

Someone put it well: “A friend is someone who knows you as you are, understands where you’ve been, accepts who you’ve become, and still, gently invites you to grow.

“Now…who is your best friend?

And so, we pray: O Lord, the world can be so lonely at times. Many of us grow up without that special life-long friend to help us through life. Help us all to find someone who understands, accepts us, and still remains our friend. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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Something magical once really happened in Cinderella’s Castle in Florida’s Disney World. Children and parents were crowded into a room waiting for Cinderella’s appearance. She made a dramatic entrance and the children clamored around her.

Whoever hired the young woman to play the role of Cinderella found a remarkable match. She was perfect. Flawless skin; beautiful face; bright eyes and smile; and, she was costumed exquisitely. She looked as if the cartoon character had come to life.

The children wanted to touch her and have her wave her wand over their heads. She smiled down at them and the room was electric with excitement.

Electric for everyone except two boys, apparently brothers, who stood next to a far wall, away from the other children. The older boy held the hand of the younger, much smaller boy, whose body and face were disfigured.

The look in the young boy’s eyes was that of yearning. How he wanted to be with Cinderella. How he wanted to be a part of the other children. But he held back, probably out of fear. He had likely been hurt too many times before by children who didn’t understand.

But unexpectedly, Cinderella turned and saw the boys. And she must have noticed the longing in the little one’s face, for she slowly made her way through the throng, inching toward the far wall.

Then something magical happened. Cinderella did the most remarkable thing — something I’m sure she never learned in Cinderella Training Class. She bent down and kissed the little boy’s face. He smiled a big and beautiful smile. Cinderella kissed him!

Could anything be so wonderful? Cinderella kissed him. Out of all of the children in that room, Cinderella kissed him. No matter what happens to him, he’ll always have that — Cinderella kissed him.

And when he looks into the mirror he will always see the face that Cinderella kissed looking back. Who knows… for months, for years, maybe forever stings and barbs of life will hurt a little less. And he will stand a bit taller and feel a little more special. He’ll never forget that… something magical happened… the day Cinderella kissed him.

And so, we pray: O Lord, help us be like Cinderella and kiss the wounds and hurts of the world that all who are wounded and hurting will hurt a little less. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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The daughter of comedian Groucho Marx was once denied admittance to an exclusive country club swimming pool with her friends because she and her family were not members. Realizing what had happened, embarrassed officials sent the Marx family an apology and an application to join. Groucho declined the invitation with the comment, “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

Someone still tried to smooth over the incident by persuading the comedian to allow an application to be submitted for membership. The country club was embarrassed further when the application was denied. The reason? The Marx family was Jewish and the club was “restricted.”

True to form, Groucho wrote back: “My wife is not Jewish. Can she go swimming and let our daughter wade up to her waist?”

I love his use of humor, but Groucho effectively shines a spotlight on the prevalence and absurdity of prejudice. He must have felt, as did Sir Isaac Newton so many years earlier, that we “build too many walls and not enough bridges.”

I yearn for a time when we courageously break down those walls that divide and build wide bridges between one another. I long for a super-highway of compassion and acceptance spanning our differences that will unite us as one. I dream of an age when people will finally be connected heart to heart and mind to mind.

My greatest desire is that we somehow learn what it means to be family.

And so, we pray: O Lord, so many times we don’t act like a family, or even friends. We are so preoccupied with our little space, our little project, our little beliefs and agendas that we build walls to keep other people out of our territory. Help us to learn to build bridges that would help to unite all your children on this earth. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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I enjoy a story about baseball great Joe Garagiola. He once stepped to the plate when his turn came to bat. Before assuming his stance, however, fervent Roman Catholic Joe took his bat and made the sign of the cross in the dirt in front of home plate. Catcher Yogi Berra, also a devout Catholic, walked over and erased Garagiola’s cross. Turning to the astonished batter, Berra smiled and said, “Let’s let God watch this inning.”

If I were God (and thank goodness I’m not), I think I would have wanted to simply watch the inning.

I likewise appreciate the story about an old Quaker who stood during the church meeting and told his fellow Friends about a young man who was not a Quaker and who lived an undisciplined life. This young man invited a pious Quaker friend to go sailing one day. A sudden storm came up and the wild young man was drowned. Having made his point, the old Quaker sat down.

Silence returned to the meeting until the old man once again arose. This time he said, “Friends, for the honor of the truth, I think I ought to add that the Quaker also drowned.”

And if I were God (and again, thank goodness I’m not), I think I would have felt sadness for both losses. Neither was a greater tragedy than the other.

I know that religious piety can be a wondrous and beautiful thing. But it disturbs me the prominent role religions have historically played in wars and brutality over the ages. If I imagine a god so small as to favor those who think like me, worship like me and act like me, then I know very little of life and less of faith. I can’t help but think this world would be in better shape if the gods many of us believed in were a little bigger.

And so, we pray: O Lord, so many times I have thought of you as being so small as to concentrate on those who believe like me… when all along the Bible even says there are many points into heaven. Help widen my world view that I can actually see all the people of the world as your children. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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A well-known surgeon was attending a dinner party and watched the host adroitly carve and slice the large turkey for his guests.

When he finished slicing, the host asked, “How did I do, Doc?  I think I’d make a pretty good surgeon, don’t you?”

“Perhaps,” said the physician. “But anyone can take them apart. Now let’s see you put it back together again.”

Like surgery, some tasks require special talent, skill or training. There are those who have what it takes to work in an operating room. Others have the kind of aptitude needed to teach a class or repair an automobile, and still others can cook a delicious meal, play a musical instrument well enough that folks want to listen or solve difficult mathematical problems. Some people have a natural ability to relate to others, some people are imaginative problem-solvers, some people can organize almost anything and others possess the gift of empathy. I have yet to meet anyone who does not exhibit a unique talent or ability.

But Spanish cellist Pablo Casals said it well: “Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters.”

And what’s the best thing to do with talent and ability? Use it. Use it generously – even extravagantly. And use it for good.

Erma Bombeck was known for her humorous journalism. But she frequently seasoned her writing with pinches of wisdom. At the end of a newspaper column on March 10, 1987, Bombeck wrote these words:

I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a higher court, it will go like this: “So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life? Any dreams that were unfulfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left? Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven’t spread around? “And I will answer, “I’ve nothing to return. I spent everything you gave me. I’m as naked as the day I was born.”

 She would agree that what we do with what we’re given is what matters.

My question is this: what would you find if you emptied your pockets today? Any unused talent? Is there anything inside that should be spent, shared or given away? When it comes to your time and resources are you living a life of extravagant generosity?

I’m going to mentally empty my pockets tonight at bedtime and see if I’ve been holding back. I think that’s important. I want to make sure there is nothing left at the end of the day that could have been used. And then tomorrow I’ll see what I can use up.

I can hardly think of a more worthwhile and joyous way to live.

And so, we pray: Lord, I look hard to find a talent… whatever it is help me to find it and use it all up sharing your love, mercy and grace with your children everywhere. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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