What's going on in Rome, lately? Is there a new voice crying in the wilderness? Pope Francis declaring the Church has become obsessed with birth control, abortion, and gay marriage? Shades of Anthony Quinn.
Who's Anthony Quinn? He was an actor probably best known for his roles in Zorba the Greek (1964) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). He was also cast as the first Russian pope in the film, The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). What brings him to mind was his character's willingness to drain the Vatican of its wealth and holdings in order to feed a starving Chinese nation and stave off World War III. For him, charity took precedence over tradition. I wonder if that may be true for Pope Francis as well.
Whether it is or it isn't, he's certainly not afraid of going out on a limb. In an interview published in September, 2013, he stated: "A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of
homosexuality. I replied with another question: 'Tell me: when God looks
at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with
love, or reject and condemn this person?' We must always consider the
person."* This is fairly radical, it seems to me, bending Church doctrine around the needs of people rather than the other way around.
Such a pope might prove to be a powerful ally at a time when faith-based groups are arguing for exemption from the stipulations of the Affordable Care Act regarding coverage for contraception. Bearing in mind their legitimate concerns about conscience, it helps to bear in mind another, equally legitimate concern, namely, of the four million births in the United States in 2011, 393,772 were to mothers ages 15-19. What is that, about 10%? The picture is complicated by the fact that teen pregnancies are associated with greater risks for low birth weight, preterm birth, and death in infancy.
How many of these births could have been avoided had their mothers had access to contraception? All of them, potentially. What if one was your daughter or mine? Which would we prefer, to discover she was having unprotected sex whether we approved of it or not, exposing herself to sexually-transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy? Or to be assured that even if she was having sex, her future (and ours, by the way) was far less likely to be altered, negatively, by an unwanted pregnancy?
I don't think there's a parent on the planet who welcomes the thought of their daughters or sons being sexually active teenagers, but it happens. It happens to the best of families in the best of communities. It happens to families of faith as well as families with no faith. It happens to Democrats and Republicans, Whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, and everyone else. It just happens.
Effective parenting is not ideal parenting because there are no ideal parents. There's only us and we try to do rightly by our children and sometimes that's not enough. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Admitting the truth is hard, but the consequences of denial are much harder. Preparing our children for adulthood entails protecting them from the impact of their own impulses. I can't be with my children 24 hours a day and expect them to grow into independent, functional adults. I've got to give them a measure of freedom and that means taking a few risks. Of all the ones I must take, an unwanted pregnancy is not one of them. I hope it turns out, the New Fisherman agrees with me.
*Citation from The New York Times, 9/20/2013.
(Creative Commons image by twm1340 via Flickr)
While yesterday's post was obviously humorous, it demonstrates the use of creative license. A "Hearing Curve," in actuality, is the product of an audiogram, a clinical measurement of hearing loss, though it easily became something else in the service of a story. Its use illustrates how we can apply a term in a number of ways, some more accurate than others.
Take "myth," for example. The way I used it and recently, its most common use, suggests a fairy tale at best and an outright falsehood at worst. As I've said before, however, "myth" refers to a fictional story that serves as a vehicle for truth. Notice the difference. Not a "false" story, but a fictional one that may have some connection with history. It's like a film credit attributing the screenplay to "real events" while certain details having been altered to render the story more interesting.
The myth of Jason and the Argonauts and the pursuit of the Golden Fleece depicts the extent to which one will go and the dangers one will face, to lay hands on a treasure. For all we know, Jason may have been an ancient Greek sailor known for acts of bravery and a desire for wealth, but even if he wasn't, we can identify with him. My journey through medical school was definitely one in pursuit of "treasure." I even seem to recall facing the many-headed Hydra in the form of first-term gross anatomy. I'm sure I wasn't alone in that experience.
Myth represents a type of creative license, taken for the purpose of communicating truths that might otherwise elude us. Truths that do not lend themselves well to factual or common sense explanation. The writer of Genesis was confronted by such a difficulty. How to explain why people do terrible things, why evil seems always present, even in the very best of circumstances.
Imagine a quiet, solitary oasis somewhere out on a Middle Eastern desert, a few thousand years ago. The night sky is littered with stars and a family sits round a campfire telling stories before the children are shooed off to bed. One of them asks her father, why do bad things happen? The father gathers his thoughts and says, "Mm, well, once upon a time, before there was anything at all, there was God and everything was peaceful. Then he made humans and gave them the capacity to love and make decisions in the same way he was able. Things were fine until their choices went awry, creating a pattern subsequent generations have followed far too closely. In short, my daughter, evil is present because some of us act evilly and have done so since the dawn of time. We are responsible for much of the evil we see."
Problems arise when we insist the elements of a myth have greater significance than its meaning. The first chapters of Genesis weren't meant to explain the origin of life. They were meant to explain how humans, even when they reside in paradise, will make bad choices. An ideal environment can be the setting for murder as easily as a ghetto. Genesis was intended to set forth the basis for ethical behavior and mutual responsibility.
Science and religion really are talking about two different things. Conflict results when persons of faith mistake the language of myth for fact and persons of science believe them. Darwin wasn't the enemy and our children don't need protection lest "evolution" turn them into amoral beasts. Faith poses no threat to science because faith, from the beginning, has been about relationships. Literalism is the enemy, attacking both science and faith with equal ferocity, utilizing "divide and conquer" as its chief strategy. The laboratory and the pulpit are where this battle should be fought, faith allied with science, determined to overcome ignorance and do so together.
(Creative Commons image by the mad LOLscientist via Flickr)
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ~ George Santayana
I don't know that remembering has much to do with it. Human nature being what it is, we seem bent on some things whether they've worked at all, worked only a little, or ended up in disaster. Knowing they've been tried before doesn't appear to prevent their being tried again with similar results. Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes and wearin' his disguise, as the late Rick Nelson put it.
I'm thinking about Germany in the early 20th century, in case you're wondering. High unemployment (30% in 1932), deficit spending, economic depression overlaid with inflation from the printing of large amounts of paper money, unable to meet foreign debt payments, national pride in the gutter. Whenever I watch something about the rise of Adolf Hitler, as did yesterday afternoon, I can't help thinking about the social conditions that made him possible.
And then I start thinking about Santayana's quote.
I know, I know, Germany didn't have 1776 and the aftermath of two hundred years of democracy. Then again, she didn't have slavery and the subjugation of the western frontier. Let's play fair. I'm not one of those writers who makes a living telling you what's wrong with America, but neither do I want to ignore the obvious for the sake of good feelings. When something stinks, there's usually a reason.
What Hitler accomplished was masterful -- demonic, but masterful. Instead of taking reality on its own terms and leading Germany to do likewise, he fled into a delusional fantasy and created a massive marketing machine to sell it like Volkswagens. There are at least two ways to offer hope to those in need of it. One entails accepting responsibility for yourself, your successes and flat out, falling down failures, and by so doing, show others how to survive doing the same. Another is to imagine there's nothing wrong with you or wouldn't be if it wasn't for someone else. Say it often enough, sooner or later people will start believing. Say it long enough, maybe you'll win, and then you get to rewrite history so no one remembers the way it really was.
For instance, an editorial in an upcoming Southern Baptist theological journal, in complete ignorance of the wider social issues involved, described the fundamentalist takeover -- some have suggested "highjacking" is more apt -- of the Southern Baptist Convention a few years ago in terms of a restoration of biblical Christianity. The subsequent split with social-theological moderates, the virtual purging of non-strictly-doctrinaire seminary faculty, and the smear campaign against those who stood up to be counted, were conveniently overlooked. When the ends are used to justify the means, whether we're talking about theology, the search for weapons of mass destruction, or the virtues and vices of universal health care, a lot of things get overlooked.
Trouble is, this is precisely how we end up repeating history. And isn't that a hell of a thing.
(Creative Commons image of singer Rick Nelson via Wikipedia)
Not wishing to remove my gloves in the cold, I said, "I'll catch you on the way out." It would be simpler, I thought, to keep my wallet handy once I'd finished at the cashier's. She smiled and nodded, not missing a beat, our conversation another verse to the song she played inside her head.
I didn't have to say anything; her back was to me, I could have walked on, completed my business, then done as I intended. No one needed to know; none would be the wiser.
Except that I wanted her to know because so many just walk on by. I almost forgot myself, until the last second when I saw her again and remembered. I marveled at her patience, at her consistency. It wasn't like she expected everyone to stop; only those who were supposed to. She was on her appointed rounds, waiting for her people to show up, even if they didn't realize they were hers until that very moment. In the meantime, she kept on, ringing what I heard as Jingle Bells and she maybe something else, her eyes peeking over the rim of a muffler wrapped round her face, twinkling in good faith.
I would get impatient, I'm sure. Impatient, disgruntled, discouraged and then cynical, passing judgment, playing God. It would be easy to do, to forget how easy it is to be guarded in times like these, to blame the unfortunate for their misfortune, to cross to the other side of the road like the Priest and the Lawyer once did and a Good Samaritan didn't.
A Samaritan, by the way, who wasn't like we paint him, one of the good guys going about doing good deeds at Christmas, someone you'd like to have living next door or upstairs. He was a Black man in 1950s Alabama who dared touch a White woman who'd been raped and left for dead. Or, maybe she's homeless, living in a tent constructed from cardboard boxes. The Good Samaritan was like that, unacceptable by the book, but caring anyway.
She was also a Salvation Army Bell Ringer on a frigid Portland morning waiting for me to step up and be counted. To stuff a bill in her bucket. To render aid. To follow her example, to not cross the street and walk on by.
"Merry Christmas," she said.
(Creative Commons image by miliu92 via Flickr)
Call me thick, but sometimes I don't get how conservatism and religion became such intimate bedfellows. And, before I go any further, isn't there something kind of gay about that word? Bed-fellows. I'm not sure the folks who pontificate in the name of moral preservation would like it very much. But what else can we say? Bed-fellows-fellas (male and female) sounds like an orgy in the making and that would be offensive, though one can never be quite certain, I suppose. Maybe we should just call them intimate associates, how's that?
Now, before I go even further, let me tell you what's got me all churned up about this today. I was reading my favorite inspirational author and he reminded me of Jesus' inclination toward paradox. You know about paradox, it's what you get when you find two doctors together in the same place at the same time. I know, it's a silly joke, but I like the play on words and figured a smile wouldn't hurt, and since Jesus has been called the Great Physician, it's not too far off-topic.
When I mention him and paradox in the same sentence, I'm referring to his proclivity for acting contrary to the expectations of what I think we can fairly and safely call the Religious Right of his time. Hanging out with social outcasts and welcoming them into his circle of friends didn't earn him Brownie points. Yet, he did so because he was interested in redeeming those whose flaws were so glaring they couldn't hide them if they tried. And if they did, someone else would probably point them out. It seems like nothing got his juices flowing faster than the presumption of religious or moral superiority.
If he was walking around now, I have an idea he'd be considered pretty darned liberal and, of course, he was essentially accused of that back then. Now, if his way of being in the world set him up to be so labeled, and if it's reasonable to suggest he'd like those who claim to follow him at least try to act like him, why don't they? When the one who established the basis for their faith dispensed with social convention and political affiliation when these were irrelevant to his purpose, why do some place so much importance upon them?
There was a time -- about a hundred years ago or so, that's not too long, is it? -- when the impetus for social justice was driven by religious conviction. We see its residue in the form of Salvation Army bell ringers this time of year. Somewhere along the line, the "social gospel" got assigned to mainstream, so-called "liberal" Protestant denominations (e.g. Episcopal, Presbyterian) and the "religious gospel" to groups such as the Baptists. So, here's the real kicker: Jesus made no such distinctions (nor did the Early Church, by the by). Caring for others and accepting them on no other basis than their admission of need was an outgrowth of loyalty to him. Some distinctions we can do without and this is one of them.
What I'm driving at is, I think many issues that have become religiously-charged recently, have no business being such and the sooner we get honest about that, the better. Arriving at solutions is easier when we stop using the Bible as a club. Besides, if I take my faith seriously, I ought to be more concerned about others as persons of worth than whether they conform to my particular views on morality. Put another way, I think my attitudes and convictions, if they're real at all, ought to be geared toward redemption and healing. There's enough pain in the world already without my adding to it.
(Creative Commons image by FadderUri via Flickr)
The comments on yesterday's post (To the New Class) have me contemplating the similarities between medical and theological thinking this morning. That there are similarities might be surprising since we ordinarily regard medicine as a scientific enterprise, theology a religious one, and never the twain shall meet. There is a way, however, of talking about the kind of thinking we do in each that may provide a healthy corrective and help us understand how these disciplines address the human condition in a manner that is complimentary, rather than mutually exclusive.
Let's begin by defining our terms. When I use the word theology I'm referring to a critical reflection on the nature of religious experience. Not religious as a category of human experience, but very specifically, one that falls within the framework of an identifiable religious tradition. This is in distinction from religious studies, which is the scientific, historical, psychological, or sociological examination of a religious tradition or religion in general.
Theological thinking attempts to describe one's experience of ultimate mystery in a way that is communicable, and as such, is limited by language. How do you put into words that which by its very nature, transcends comprehension? Someone has said theologians should be poets. Religious studies, on the other hand, isn't interested so much in the implications or practical application of religious experience in the context of a faith persuasion. Instead, it wants to know to what extent the experience can be scientifically examined, placed in an historical setting, or evaluated psychologically. Theology presumes one is speaking as a believer; the practitioner of religious studies can be, and not uncommonly is, an atheist.
For our purposes, in place of theology and religious studies, I'm going to substitute clinical thinking and medical science. This is my own choice of terms, by the way, so be aware other writers may choose differently. Medical science refers to the process whereby we analyze, describe, and diagnose, while relying the scientific method, examination, the accumulation and evaluation of evidence, and technology where applicable. Clinical thinking is the process of reflecting on what we do as physicians; its tools are experience, education, training, and hopefully, maturity. Medical science, in a sense, tells us how well we do it and how to do it better.
If theology is a reasonable analogue of clinical thinking, it follows that one must be a clinician of some sort to engage in it. Not necessarily a doctor, but someone whose livelihood is earned in the trenches. A critical reflection on being a clinician and the experience of caring for persons implies possession of first-hand knowledge. It's why many physicians are poets. Medical science knows no such condition; observation is accessible to anyone willing to pay attention.
Now, all of this gets sticky when we consider how practitioners evaluate their own disciplines. It's tempting for a psychiatrist to say, for example, that only psychiatrists are in a position to critically appraise the field of psychiatry and the same holds true for other specialties. But that begs the question, just as it does for Christian theologians, because our situation within a given theological or medical context colors our perceptions. Consequently, of great value to both is the opinion of one who stands outside the perimeter of "faith."
All of this is not to say the theologian's or clinician's self-criticism is invalid, only that it is inherently limited and one should resist marrying one's perceptions. Whether in medicine or theology, we're working with humanity in ways that far exceed the capacity of any single person. We need one another if for no other reason than to keep each other honest. In the pursuit of understanding, the only dead ends are the roads we refuse to take.
(Creative Commons image by rustytanton via Flickr) 
I was having an imaginary conversation with my imaginary daughter this morning while walking the dog -- typically, an excellent time for imaginary conversations. She was around nine and informed me, rather solemnly, that she'd realized the Easter Bunny was make-believe. I asked her how she felt about that and she replied, "A little sad." I understood very well, having felt similarly when I was her age, and told her so.
She said she still liked hunting for eggs, especially since her brother was too young to know "the truth." At this point, I decided to take a leap of faith and try to put into words a nine-year-old could grasp, why I thought the Easter Bunny was important. "Believing in him teaches us how to see the magic and wonder that are all around us, not just on Easter morning, but every morning."
I've had friends who were persons of faith and had serious difficulty allowing their children to embrace such mythic characters as the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause (oops, sorry Santa -- I meant "Claus"). They were concerned that the religious significance of Easter and Christmas might be overshadowed by a preoccupation with more secular figures. For the longest time, I really didn't have a good way of responding to them, but perhaps I do now.
Developmentally, children have a limited capacity for understanding symbolic representation. It isn't until around age 13 that sufficient neural connections have been established in the brain to permit abstract thinking. Until then, children depend a great deal on imagination to enrich their experience of life. "That's fine, but I don't want to lie to my children; I want them grounded in reality," one might say.
It's not a lie to relate to children in ways that make sense to them. As a matter of fact, it's unreasonable to do otherwise; they aren't little adults, no matter how precocious some may appear. They grow up fast and before we know it, they're telling us things we'd prefer not to know. In the meantime, when we allow ourselves to become simple enough to play with our children, to let the Easter Bunny live in their imagination (and ours, if need be), we help them grow in their capacity to view life with hope and anticipation. It's one of the best things we can do for them.(Creative Commons image via Wikipedia)
From a theological perspective, the problem of evil is usually expressed like this: how can an all-powerful God permit evil and suffering to exist? The presumption being that since evil and suffering are counter to the nature of God's goodness, it only makes sense that such a being would wish to eliminate them at every opportunity. Given the presence of genuine evil in the world, either God doesn't have the power to do anything about it, in which case he's not God, or he's not willing, in which case he's not good.
Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. There are probably as many ways of addressing this issue as there are theologians who've dared to try. It reminds me of the Kobayashi Maru, the no-win scenario from Star Trek, and I have the sneaking suspicion, like James T. Kirk, God has somehow reprogrammed the computer. That he did so without telling anyone is an inside joke. And, I think leaving us to clean up the mess, just may be the punchline.
I know, that sounds like I'm suggesting God is playing games with us, but truthfully, I'm not. There are some things we need to struggle with, over and over, in order to arrive at a measure of maturity as human beings, responsible for each other and the planet we live on. And evil is one of the biggies. Those who would dismiss the problem by denying the presence of evil or blaming God for refusing to make things easier, miss the point. We're supposed to do it because we become better in the process.
When I was in junior high school, my wood shop instructor taught us to submit a bill of materials before beginning work on our class projects. We had to make a drawing of whatever it was we planned to build, determine which tools and how much wood we'd need, then write up a list and get his approval. If we apply this to the question of evil, we have a number of tools to choose from, and the ones we select will have considerable influence on the appearance of our "project" when we're finished.
For instance, if we were to take one of the traditional theological ones, we could say evil results from the exercise of free will and since God isn't willing to violate our freedom, we make our own bed, so to speak. Then again, we might eliminate God from the equation entirely, and say, along with some of the existentialists, that evil is a consequence of living, and since life has no intrinsic meaning, neither does suffering. That's kind of bleak, but it's one solution, nevertheless.
We can build our house out of anything if we try hard enough. The question is, which of the three little pigs are we going to emulate? Ultimately, the solution we come up with has to provide a way of making ethical decisions that we can live with. And that's the rub. Conscience makes cowards of us all, said Hamlet. We can say one thing in the classroom but when confronted with flesh and blood, feel compelled to do another. Maybe it all does comes down to conscience after all, because suffering is personal, no matter how we formulate it.
(Creative Commons image of Star Trek 2009 cast by Las Valley 702 via Flickr)
At or about the same time my great grandfather was engaged in a gun fight over cards (Heritage 6/3/09), a little to the north and on the other side of the family, one of my great uncles was a circuit-riding Methodist minister. In those days, rural communities may or may not have had an organized church, so they depended on ministers who were assigned a particular circuit and rode horseback from one community to the next over the course of a month.
As may have been common among circuit-riders, my great uncle kept a diary that has been passed along in the family. Being an ambitious young minister myself in college, I was eager to read his story, imagining we had in our possession the equivalent of The Journals of John Wesley. If you've read any of Wesley's writings, even as an historical exercise, you know his Journals contain the development of his theology which eventually coalesced into Methodism more or less as it's known today.
After the first couple of pages, I realized my great uncle wasn't John Wesley and his interests were far more ordinary. Instead of reflections on the nature of religious experience or even the details of local history, most of his entries include a date, which family he stayed with, what they had for supper, and whether anyone had been sick, given birth, or died lately. It was more an Excel spreadsheet than a Word document.
Like most people, I suppose, I've always rather hoped a scribbled note in the margins of my family history would reveal a connection with someone who "did something." And maybe there is such a note, but I've never seen it. A court house fire in the mid-1800s severed the cord that links what is to what might have been, so there are questions that won't ever be answered. Becoming comfortable with who we are sometimes involves learning to live with what we may never know. And accepting that we don't need to know everything to be comfortable with what we do.
(Public domain image of John Wesley via Wikipedia)
Image via Wikipedia
"Now the dawn is breakin', it's early morn', the taxi's waiting, he's blown his horn..." Well, there's no taxi out here and no horns either, thankfully, but everything else fits. John Denver was Leavin' on a Jet Plane while I'm just starting my day. There's a light breeze and out my window I can see the grass barely nodding in recognition. A small plane just flew overhead -- beyond that, it's silent. Now my neighbor's car on her way to work. I imagine my friend heading for her clinic.
If it's okay with you, I'm still thinking about children this morning. My first genuinely positive adult experience with them occured when I was the pastor of a small church high up in the Colorado Rockies. We had decided I should invite the children to gather with me at the front of the church for a "children's sermon." The first time I tried this, instead of them sitting in a semi-circle as I'd expected, two tried to share my lap, others stood round with a hand on each of my shoulders, and I was almost buried in children. Disbelievingly, I looked at the congregation and grown men were dabbing their eyes. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
Previously, I'd thought of myself as the guy who scared little kids. I had nothing to base that on except the fact that I'd never been too successful at making babies laugh -- they usually cried instead. But something must have happened to me that day in the church. Those kids imparted a blessing or did whatever it is they do. All I know is, since then kids and dogs find me. It doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing. If there's a little kid around, s/he can be counted on to come up and smile, wave, or say "Hi." Kids I've never met, kids I've never even seen before -- they drive by with their parents and wave.
I can't figure it. I mean, it's not like The Santa Clause -- I've lost weight, do not have a white beard (or any other color, for that matter), and reindeer don't follow me when I visit the zoo. Whatever it is, though, I can tell you it's something I'd never change. Of all the things I could or would do differently, this one I'd never touch. It's too good, it's too precious. To those children who climbed all over me that wonderful Sunday morning all I can say is, thank you.
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Thanksgiving is here again and no doubt from one end of the country to the other, in all four directions, someone will say something about being "thankful" tomorrow. I'm thinking about a comment made to me a number of years ago by a minister I knew who said, "We ought to cultivate an attitude of gratitude." Ministers are known for a fondness for alliteration; they say it helps folks remember the main points of the sermon. That I recall this little tidbit after more years than I'm willing to admit is testimony to the effect of alliteration on my memory at least.
The whole idea of gratitude implies that I'm not the only, or even the ultimate, source of those things I appreciate in my life. Something or someone has entered my sphere of experience and bestowed upon me that which I did not have before. Furthermore, they've done this out of no desire or need to obtain something from me in return. There's been no transaction or exchange of goods for service or remuneration. It might not even be demonstrable that they are directly responsible for that which I enjoy.
I'm talking, of course, about grace. But not the grace of the magnanimous or spiritual. I mean the grace of presence: the grace that surrounds and penetrates us like the air we breathe, and is most frequently outside conscious awareness. You have to think about grace in order to notice it. Most of us are too busy to notice anything ordinary. We're busy looking for things that are extraordinary. Grace is everyday, plain, simple, interactive. Grace is waiting for us to see it and be grateful.
The title of this blog derives from a metaphor a friend once shared with me. He said, "Christianity is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread." I've always liked that because it highlights one of the key facts of life, i.e. that we are all indebted to someone. None of us has all the answers and the truth be told, maybe there are very few to be had afterall -- at least on this side of eternity. So, we turn to each other and ask our questions.
There was a time when I thought mine had changed, depending on time, place, and situation. Now I'm coming to realize I ask the same questions again and again, hopefully getting better each time with their framing. Ultimately, I think that's critical because the answer we derive depends on the character of the question, not to mention that of the questioner. It isn't enough, for example, to simply ask if life has any meaning at all. That's far too general. The real issue is, does my presence on earth render life more significant. How do I meaningfully contribute to life?
I'm reminded of a wonderful tale about a businessman who decided to go on a long journey. Maybe it was one to find himself -- who knows? In any case, he left his resources in the hands of three trusted individuals. To one he left a great deal of money, to another he left property, and to the last, he left his collection of art and antiques. To each he said, "Increase my value. Invest, develop, sell -- do whatever seems best to you. Whenever I return, if you have done well, I will repay you in ways you cannot imagine."
Years past and with them any expectation that the businessman would return. Then one day, to the surprise of everyone, he reappeared looking hale and hearty. He called his friends together and asked for their reports. The first said, "I invested all you gave me in stocks, bonds, and new business ventures. You were wealthy when you left but now you are exceedingly so." The businessman praised his ingenuity and resourcefulness and gave him authority, second only to his own, in his organization.
The second reported, "I took your real estate and divided it into portions. In your name I built housing for the poor, set up hospitals for the underprivileged, and created open space for all to love and enjoy. Your reputation as a humanitarian in this country has grown beyond all expectations." Overjoyed, the businessman made his friend chairman of his foundation promoting humanitarian causes throughout the world.
The third, however, seemed less than enthusiastic. "I knew you were a self-made man and took advantage of whatever opportunities you had in life. But I decided worked that if I sold your property and invested the proceeds, I could have made a mistake and lost it all. So, I locked them up in a vault and waited for you to come back." To this man the businessman said, "I gave you complete freedom with my resources -- you could have done incredible things. Instead, you've done virtually nothing because you were afraid to try."
The moral of the story is, it's not so much what we have as what we do with it that counts. Meaning is not so much discovered as it is created. The question of life's significance is best answered by acting significantly. On January 20, 2009, we will inaugurate President who has challenged us to do just that. Everything we do, from the smallest daily task to saving a life, is filled with potential. One might seem more dramatic than the other, but it all matters.
(Creative Commons image by Moyan Brenn via Fkickr)
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