Part 1 of a two-part series.   (Reprint from 2014)  

“I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things, things from of old – what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us.”  – Psalm 78:2-3 

My Grandmother’s Wedding Dress – Part 1

I had never seen my grandmother’s wedding dress, even though it had been in my possession for at least fifteen years; that is, until the day I sold it to a local antique dealer a few years ago.  When it was bequeathed to me in the course of settling my parents’ estate it had long before been carefully packed in a large blue box and sealed with shrink wrap for preservation. I dared not break the seal to take a peek for fear of exposing it to the elements and causing it harm.  So, for years the beautiful, delicate, slightly tattered lace dress my grandmother had worn on her wedding day in 1909 sat tucked away in an airtight box on the top shelf of a rarely used closet in our home.

What should I do with it, I sometimes wondered, for I often felt it was something with which I had been entrusted, something sacred that was not mine to keep?  Yet it just sat there.  Then one day I met Debbie who owned an antique shop in downtown McKinney where we live.  After some conversation I felt Debbie understood my plight and knew exactly what to do.  So the two of us, Debbie and me, carefully unwrapped and unpacked my grandmother’s sweet delicate wedding gown from its sealed wrapper, and I finally laid eyes on it for the first time.  Debbie displayed the dress on a mannequin in her store in a prominent location and attached to it a brief history of the dress along with a short biography of my grandmother I had written so the prospective purchaser would be buying not just the dress, but also the story behind it.

“I will utter hidden things, things from of old – what we have heard and known . . .,” the Psalmist declares.  So it is I am sharing this story about my grandmother and her wedding dress – because her life mattered.  For in her almost ninety-six years she experienced the same ups and downs we all experience, yet faced them all with dignity and grace, supported by her strong faith, a life of prayer, concern for others, and doing the right things. . .  Well, the dress did sell, and when you read Part 2 next week you’ll see how my grandmother’s life still matters to this day, and why yours matters too.

“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”  – Matthew 25:35 

We were having breakfast the other morning, my beloved and I, as we always do with the newspapers spread out between us, which inevitably caused our otherwise pleasant conversation to drift toward the state of the world – all the violence, hatred, war, injustices, and political discord – and asking ourselves what in the world we, little old us, can do about it.  “All I know is,” Tee replied, “I can either sit around and be woe-is-me, or I can ask myself how I can help someone today.”  My jaw went slack when she shared that little pearl of wisdom.  I literally froze momentarily, staring into her eyes, until I could find a scrap of paper to write down what she had just said.

It occurred to me after my wife so eloquently awakened my senses at the breakfast table, about the parable of the starfish.  A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm.  When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up and toss it back into the ocean.  People watched her with amusement.  Finally, a man approached her and said, “Little girl, you can’t save all these starfish.  You can’t begin to make a difference.”  The girl reached down and picked up another starfish and hurled it back in the ocean, after which she looked up at the man and replied.  “Well, I made a difference for that one.”

Ironically, this past weekend I was reading David Brooks’ column in the New York Times entitled “How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times.”  In it Brooks asked a challenging question.  “Are you a person who obsesses over how unfairly you are treated, or are you a person who is primarily concerned by how you see and treat others?”  (Was David Brooks eavesdropping on our conversation the other morning, I wondered?)

Jesus tells his own version of the starfish parable.  “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,” he says.  But the righteous were puzzled and asked, “when did we do that?”  “O, you did it alright,” He replied.  “What you did for the very least, you did for me too.”  So, what can we, little old us, do to help during these “brutalizing” times?  I think my wife is right, we can either sit around and be woe-is-me, or we can ask ourselves how we can help someone today.

“To each one of us grace has been given.”  – Ephesians 4:7 

Sometimes I have these flashbacks, like ghosts from the past, about stupid things I have done in my life, including things I should have done but didn’t.  Regrets!  We all have them I assume, but I’ve got some real doozies.  “Stop reminding me!” I sometimes yell back at the ghosts in my head.  “I know what I did, and I’ve regretted it ever since.” In some cases I have even been reconciled with those I have harmed or disappointed, and I have certainly received forgiveness from God.  True, yet the flashbacks appear anyway.

Some would say those flashbacks are nothing but the Devil playing with my head, trying to convince me I’m not good enough, a bad person, a failure.  And for a while I even buy into it.  But then my more rational memory takes me a little deeper into those ghost stories, beyond the misdeeds themselves, to the many times I was saved from what could have been serious consequences from those misdeeds – harm to myself or others, fights, broken relationships, traffic tickets, financial problems, or worse.  Not that I have gotten by with everything I ever did wrong, but I certainly skated by more times than I deserve, for which such favor can only be attributed to God’s grace.

Recently, an old friend posted a quote on social media, a prayer actually, that is so profound I have it placed visibly on my desk to remind me of all the graces I have received through the years.  “God has protected me more times than I can count,” it says, “So I can only imagine the times I’ve been rescued that I don’t even know about.  Thank you. God. for always being there, even when I don’t know it.  Amen!”

Sometimes when I dig even deeper into those flashbacks I discover something else; that not only have I been rescued by God’s grace, but in many cases God has redeemed those misdeeds through the valuable, albeit painful lessons I have learned, lessons that have formed me into a better husband, a better father, grandfather, neighbor, friend, and citizen, a more kind and understanding human being.

“To each one of us grace has been given,” sometimes even through those ghosts that haunt us from the past; for God can transform anything – and anyone – into good.  So, thank you God for your amazing grace, even when we are not aware of it.  Amen!

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  Proverbs 27:17 

Tuesday mornings at 7:30 a.m. you will almost always find me hanging out with the same small group of men.  We’ve been meeting together for over twenty years, nowadays mostly by Zoom, yet unlike what you might think it is not a bunch guys drinking coffee and gabbing about sports and politics – far from it in fact.  No, we meet for a specific purpose with a strict agenda that begins with a brief prayer after which each of us share three things:  (1) what is going on in our relationship with God; (2) what each of us is studying to increase his knowledge and understanding; and (3) what we are doing individually to help someone else, or to make the community and the world a better place.  That hour on Tuesday morning is without question the most inspiring and powerful time I spend during my week, which is why I seldom miss.  Nothing I do influences and holds me accountable for the way I live my life from week to week more than spending time with that group of friends.  It is for me as the old Proverb so wisely proclaims, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” 

That Tuesday group also serves to keep me centered in my professional life of executive coaching which is also tied directly to the old proverb.  Although, often misperceived as advisors, counselors, or consultants who are experts in a particular field, coaches instead are men and women whose primary function is to sharpen others as iron sharpens iron.  And as much as those of us engaged in this profession receive pleasure from watching our clients hone their abilities to become more effective at what they do, we often discover, ironically, that we too have been sharpened.  For me it is a rare instance when at the conclusion of meeting with a coaching client I have not benefited as much if not more than my client has.  And the more I have experienced this dual benefit the more I have come to firmly believe that when people meet together for the purpose of open, authentic and serious dialogue, and are fully present with each other with open hearts and listening ears, the result will inevitably be that both are sharpened – just as iron sharpens iron.

How blessed I am to have a group of friends who gather weekly to sharpen each other, and what a privilege to work in a profession whose function is to do the same.

“A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” – Luke 12:15 

Many years ago several of us were sitting around fantasizing about winning the lottery, when one of our colleagues remarked that it was a good thing that he had not won the lottery and become rich, because “if I was rich,” he mused, “I would become a really sorry human being.”  A roar of laughter filled the room when he said that because we all knew, just as he knew about himself, that he was already a scoundrel anyway, and sudden wealth was not going to change that, only turn him into a worse scoundrel.

In a profound parable Jesus tells about a man whose farmland produced an enormous crop one year, big enough that it was like winning the lottery.  All that was required of him at that point was to build bigger barns to store away his harvest, then sit back and enjoy his good fortune the rest of his life – eat, drink, and be merry; that is, until he was reminded just how brief this frivolous lifestyle, of being a sorry human being, was going to last.  Whether that meant he was literally going to die, or simply become so disgusted with himself that whatever happiness he thought he would gain from his newly found wealth would quickly lead to misery instead.

“We are not our best perched at the summit,” someone once said.  “We are climbers, at our best when the way is steep.”  My former colleague never won the lottery.  Neither did he ever cease as far as I know from being a scoundrel.  But there is one thing I always admired about him, that despite his many character flaws, he realized that he would never find satisfaction by reaching the summit, only by staying engaged in the climb.   By his own admission, had he won the lottery he would likely have become an even worse scoundrel than he already was.  Deep down I don’t think he ever had a serious desire to win the lottery anyway.  He was a climber, after all, who was much happier working and staying in the game, which he did most of the remainder of his life.

Jesus’ parable reminds us that the good life has nothing to do with being wealthy, which of course is the exact opposite from the message we hear from a society in which advertisers spend billions of dollars to try to entice us to believe that if we have more and buy more we will be happier and more fulfilled.  Don’t fall for it, was Jesus’ message, for “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”