His Fan

Not long ago, some work was being done at Visible Music College--Chicago, where I serve on the staff. One day, some workers came by to load up about a half ton of old metal desks to be salvaged as scrap.

As they started the loading process, one of the two men carefully lifted a box fan out of the truck and placed it tenderly on the ground by a shovel they use in their work.

"I'm going to fix it," he said.

I don't know what was wrong with it, but $20.00 would have replaced it.

He didn't want a new fan.

"This is all I have left," he explained. He went on to describe how hard luck had fallen on him, and he was, with his work partner, trying to get by. The old fan was all he had left from his former situation. But he wasn't bitter. He accepted his part in his demise and was resigned to start anew.

His words moved me as I slipped my $700.00 (if I didn't have a contract) phone out of my pocket to take a picture.

I live in such a way that I am comfortable by ANY standards. I push my income to the limits and need nothing. I have some luxury items, of course, and justify having things like a DSLR, up-to-date tablet, and fancy screens for my computers. Yeah, that last word is plural. In contrast to the owner of the fan, I live like royalty. Most of us do. I am sure I am not the only one to be mostly blind to conditions of others around me.

Yet, despite being in a hard way, the fan's owner had not give up. He was doing what he could to start over.

His work partner's word's moved me more: "I'm trying to help him get back on his feet. It's been a hard time for him."

"Yeah, [Name Omitted] takes care of me," said the fan's owner.

But [Name Omitted] is far from living the high life. Yet, he is doing what he can to help his work partner. At $50.00 for a half-ton load, the going is slow.

Long after they left, I was haunted by my interaction with these two men. I shared this anecdote with my son, who happens to work at a salvage yard in another city.

"Dad, I see stuff like this every day. Guys coming in with $8.00 loads three times a day trying to feed their families."

But hearing my story, he added, "I won't look at customers the same after this."

These two guys--indeed, with troubles and problems, some resulting from their choices--have been on my mind in in my prayers for a few weeks. My words here come so short in painting the full picture, but I don't think blog readers would attend to many more.

I am going to take a chance and call them ([Name Omitted] has a phone for their salvage services.) and invite them to lunch, my treat. I don't know if they will accept, but I am going to ask.

Don't Over-do and Don't Settle

In a Tweet that I scheduled* for earlier today (@BillSnodgrass), I claimed the following:

The world's standards are a lie--either unrealistically too high, or too low, accepting anything as a "good try." Seek truth!

Think about it...

The world wants us to think we all must look like the models we see in magazines and on television-- with the tight stomachs, or "six packs," with perfect hair, white teeth, and clear skin. Guys have to be ripped and girls need to curve in all the right ways. Bulges are for muscles only.

The world wants us in the nicest cars, fine homes, and expensive clothes. No one will accept us if we come up short!

The world wants us to smile and be happy. All the time. We must be perfect on the job, rarely making a mistake.

Media all around us demands that we reach these standards, or else we are failures! And advertisers are sure to remind us of this!

On the other hand, trends in society of accepting anything also abound. I have heard stories of teachers and coaches who were required to give EVERY member of their team or class a trophy or an award so no one would feel left out. EVERY level of performance was rewarded.

Society and media allow--even suggest that it is normal for men to be poor husbands or ill-equipped fathers because "that's just how men are." Women get, likewise, to be moody or irresponsible with money. We are told to accept substandard conduct, never judging it inferior or demanding improvement.

"Accept him for what he is," some will urge with regards to someone who consistently makes life difficult for others. "That's just his way."

Neither the unrealistically high, nor the anything-goes standards are right.

There is a better way. Look to sources of wisdom--time tested teachings, principles, and thoughts--and you will find that neither demanding perfection nor allowing blatant underperformance is acceptable. Unrealistically high or dismally low standards are not good for the person nor for society.

Set standards that make sense. Be healthy, but don't worry if you won't win a body-building contest. Try to have reliable, functional goods and safe homes, but don't worry if you can't drive a $75,000 car and live in a million dollar mansion. Learn to share life nicely with others and don't excuse yourself for things you haven't bothered learning to do. Learn to attend to others with honor and respect and don't let your natural, selfish nature hold you back.

Standards should be realistic. High standard arguably lead to a better quality of life. Fit is better than unfit. A car that works properly is better than one that won't start. Tattered clothes are usually a bummer.  But the media ideal is created by our lustful eyes and by other people's desire to SELL STUFF to us.

Accepting others is nice, but don't accept their bad habits without trying to help them overcome them to live better. Urge them to reach a reasonable standard of performance, whether it is in how they keep house or how they perform at work.

Neither set standards too high nor too low.

______________________

*I also scheduled this blog to post in advance, too. I wrote both the tweet and the blog some time ago!

'Tis the Season... For What?

Last week, the United States celebrated the holiday, Thanksgiving. Sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, it seems this once-sacred holiday has become, for many, little more than a feeding frenzy before the shopping apocalypse now known as Black Friday. 

With the Halloween decorations, in recent years, sharing shelf space with Christmas decorations, my sons and I started calling the period of time from mid-October to December 26 "Halgivemas"--two months of commercial gluttony abandoning anything remotely resembling the historical origins of the holidays contained within.

Even Halloween, in its inception, had a religious connection. It was the eve of All Hallows' Day, a day set aside to remember the saints. However, my "bah, humbug" is centered, not on the trick-or-treat tradition, but on the decline of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The history books of my school days taught us that Thanksgiving was founded by the pilgrims--a group of highly religious people, the Puritans--as a way to show thanks to God for getting them through the early days and near disasters of their colonization. (Historical revisionists of the Twenty-first Century will critique this on many levels, pointing out the errant ways inherent in the practice of colonization, but that critique does not erode the Puritans' stated intent--to show thanks to God.)

What began as a religious observance, by the mid-Twentieth Century, was beginning to become a time to be thankful, less for God's blessings, but rather to be thankful for family and friends. Sports events and parades begin to take part in the day, giving people something with which to fill the time. After all, a whole day of giving thanks is a long time, right? By the turn of the Twenty-first Century, the religious aspect of Thanksgiving had all but been marginalized. Surely the Puritans would never have imagined that the day of thanks would require some people to have a designated driver to get them to and from the gatherings.

Now, the day after Thanksgiving marks two events--Black Friday and the beginning of what most call Christmas. Before the leftovers are eaten or thrown away, people of the United States have moved on to getting ready for Christmas. Seasonal decorations come out, seasonal music begins to play, and people go into hyper-consumerism mode.

Central to the current celebration of Christmas is the exchange of presents. This exchange necessitates the purchase of presents. Retailers thrive at this time of year, needing, in fact, to hire more people to handle the escalated shopping.

Indeed, many will include church services in their attention to the season. Yet, for many of those who include church, it is second to the parties and the presents.

What is lost starting with Black Friday is that Christmas marks and celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. The season starting four Sundays before Christmas (right after Thanksgiving) is actually the Advent season, the period of the year that we look forward to the Christmas season. It is a time to reenact the coming of Jesus Christ. Believers were meant to spend this time preparing themselves for the day when Christ's birth--the incarnation of God into the world--would be celebrated.

THEN for the next twelve days, Christmas season is to be celebrated. But most people in the United States, by the first day of Christmas, are so tired of everything, they take down all their decorations and start making plans to celebrate New Year's Day.

The whole purpose Christmas, the celebration of God's gift to humanity, is lost to the practice of giving gifts to each other. The important sacred moment is lost to the commercial, secular ending of Halgivemas season!

Church historians will tell us that Constantine appropriated the calendar period of a pagan holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ. People were already accustomed to celebrating at that time, so he adapted that celebration to a sacred celebration.

This change reflected the shift, at that time, of society's attitude toward an acknowledgement of the central importance of God in the lives of humanity.

So what does society's attitude shifting away from the sacred to the secular tell us?

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The True Meaning of Christmas video: http://youtu.be/hLE08Jm8csE

Photo: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=28183&picture=christmas-background&large=1

Rich Is As Rich Thinks

Too many times, it seems to me, people tie the idea of being happy with the aquisition of stuff. This is unfortunate because so rarely does stuff actually bring about lasting satisfaction.

From ‏@lNSPlRING: There are two ways of being rich. One is to have what you want, the other is to be satisfied with what you have.

Having what you want is a tricky proposition. How many times does a person see something they want, purchase it or otherwise obtain it, and then discover that it really does not bring to their life the expected pleasures? It is very easy to over estimate how much joy something will bring. Our wants often mislead us with promisies--vapid claims that if we just have that one more thing then...

Oh, to be sure, I have acquired some things that I am very fond of! The utility and convenience some things bring contribute to my sense of happiness.

I am writting this blog on my iPad, which I resisted purchasing for a long time. When Visible Music College asked me to relocate to the Chicago area to head up the opening of a new campus, I thought the functions of an iPad would be valuable, and I was right.

Does this device make me happy? Hmm... It does not make me happy inherently. Not sitting on a desk. I am happy with what I can accomplish as a result of having this wonderful piece of technology, not just because I have it.

Therein is the key. Happiness does not come from things. Happiness comes from our mind. How we think about the things we have results in happiness--the things themselves are incapable of producing ANY emotional response within us. Our reaction comes from the ideas, values, and beliefs we hold and how those internal predispositions interact with the things in our life.

I have a couple of pictures of my sons that probably cost me less than $20.00 total to have printed and framed. When I see them, my mind is connected to years of experiences and memories. I respond positively; I am happy as a result. The happiness does not come from the "things." If another person who did not know my sons had those pictures, they would NOT respond with the same happiness.

Being satisfied is a decision. Looking at what you have and, if it realistically performs as it should, deciding to be content disempowers the lies of our wants. Deciding to be content will lead to being happy with what you have.

If we define being rich, not as a measure of how much we have, but rather as a measure of how little we want, then it is far easier to be rich by wanting what we have and being satisfied than it is to be rich by acquiring more and more stuff.