“Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”  – Mark 10:9 

We seem to reminisce a lot these days, Tee and I, and while some might muse we’re acting like old people, in defense of that the fact is older people reminisce because they have accumulated years’ worth of stories to tell, whereas younger folks haven’t even yet scratched the surface. Besides, the stories we reminisce about belong to us, we created them, we wrote them, we lived them, and we’ve earned the right to retell them.  Mostly, though, we laugh in our reminiscing, even at things that were not so funny at the time.  Good or bad, funny or not, seems most things that happen eventually work out or teach us valuable lessons, or else we simply live right on past them.

The stories we share with each other – and others from time to time – are more than just sweet memories, much more in fact.  They are history, real history, history that matters, history that needs to be passed on.  Thus we reminisce.  As acclaimed author, speaker and Benedictine Sister, Joan Chittister states in her powerful book The Gift of Years: “Family tales have always been the parables one generation handed down to the next to tell us who we are and where we came from. . . . The tale-telling of the older people [is] the catechism of the family.  These [are] the life lessons meant to make us all stronger, wiser, and truer.  It is those stories told in front of the fire, in the kitchen during a wake, at parties and memorial services, at holidays that become the fiber of a family, a group, a people.  These stories become the living history that binds us together.”

A primary role of grandparents, I believe, is to ensure that grandchildren are aware of who they are and where they came from.  We must teach them the “catechism of the family” as Joan Chittister refers to it.  They should know our stories, for better or worse, rich or poor, in sickness and in health, life lessons to help them grow stronger, wiser, and truer.  It is what marriage and family is all about; why it remains one of the most sacred and influential of all institutions; and why we must endeavor to preserve and protect it.  “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate,” the scriptures say.  Or if I may be so bold as to rephrase, “what God has instituted, may mankind forever honor and perpetuate.”  It is in the spirit of that institution that my beloved and I celebrate this very weekend fifty-two years of marriage (September 4, 1971).  May, by God’s grace, we be blessed with many more stories to tell and many more years to tell them.

“You will go and leap like calves released from the stall.”  – Malachi 4:2 

While there are certain people who are justifiably incarcerated for committing criminal offenses, even those of us who are not criminals sometimes experience imprisonment in one form or another, though perhaps not physically locked up in a jail cell.  Such imprisonments may be due to an abusive home environment, a job we hate, a bad boss, an unhappy marriage, financial burdens, or debilitating health issues – imprisonments that are unfair, unjustified, that are no fault of our own, simply misfortunes of life.

Sometimes, though, we become prisoners from our own doing, not criminal activities, simply burdens and mistakes we lay on ourselves.  We’re like Otis, the town drunk in the quaint village of Mayberry on the Andy Griffith Show in which Andy Griffith played the role of Sheriff Andy Taylor along with Don Knotts who played Barney Fife his inept sidekick deputy.  Occasionally Otis would appear in one of the episodes stumbling into the sheriff’s office in a drunken stupor where he would wobble over and lock himself up in the jail cell for the night.  We do that too, don’t we, with our secret thoughts that may include regrets, insecurities, or bad thoughts or feelings toward someone?  Those private thoughts can confine us in the hoosegow just like Otis, holding us back from moving forward and using our gifts and talents to the fullest.  Otis, at least, would sleep it off and be set free the next day.  For the rest of us breaking free is not so simple.

It is not simple because freedom and imprisonment are a great paradox.  That is, what gives us real freedom, to the immature mind can look like imprisonment; while what to the immature mind appears to be freedom only leads to imprisonment.  I recall as an adolescent myself sometimes fantasizing about what it would be like to have plenty of money with no cares or responsibilities.  On the surface that looked like freedom at the time, until I began to realize that kind of freedom was only a pathway to the imprisonment of self-centeredness.  Paradoxically, becoming responsible, dedicating oneself to purposes greater than oneself, which on the surface may look like imprisonment, is actually the pathway freedom – real freedom to utilize our gifts and talents to their fullest.  It is when we discover those unique purposes that God has bestowed on us that we find true freedom.  Then, “You will go and leap like calves released from the stall.” . . . . . . Free!

“God created man in his own image.”  – Genesis 1:27 

Maybe I was a little sarcastic in the way I said it, in fact I probably should not have said it at all, except by then it was too late to take it back.  “I’ll bet that every meeting you attend you are the smartest guy in the room,” I had blurted out sarcastically without thinking.  It was an inappropriate remark for an executive coach to make to a client.  Yet his reaction surprised me.  While he acknowledged that he believed that to be true, his facial expression and body language seemed to indicate I may have struck a nerve.

He was a brilliant man, hard-working and dedicated, and a student of every detail of his area of responsibility, a high performer in every sense.  Why then was he not getting promoted?  Why was he not being considered for higher leadership positions?  And that is how I came on the scene, the reason he had engaged a coach.  So it was that, inappropriate as it may have been, my sarcastic comment had somehow flipped on the light switch, an ah-ha moment for both of us.  What we realized in that moment was that even though he was an encyclopedia of functional knowledge about every detail and knew all the right answers in meetings, what was holding him back was in leaving his humanity at the door when he came to work.

As I read more and more about the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution taking place it has reminded me of my journey with that gentleman and the parallels between the two in that knowledge and expertise and skills, while critically important, only take us so far.  It occurred to me that we humans are more than the knowledge we may have accumulated, than the skills we may have acquired.  “God created man in his own image,” and while God may be the ultimate intellectual, He is much more, which means, thus being created in God’s image, we too are much more.

AI has potential to provide great advancements for humanity, the world, and the universe.  It also has potential for great destruction when used with the wrong motives.  Then there is the fear that it will displace human endeavors altogether.  Except!  Except, only mankind was created in God’s image, not AI, and it is only God who breathes life and spirit into us humans.  God is the ultimate moral compass.  God is love, and only God can give us hope. . . That was my client’s epiphany – and his career took off.

“I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.” – Ecclesiastes 3:12 

Back in the 60’s and 70’s during his heyday I became a big fan of country singer Roger Miller.  Many may remember him for his hit song “King of the Road”, but for me it was the nonsensical lyrics he so masterfully wrote and performed like “Do Wacka Do” that included a little “root doot doot doot do-wah.”  What I loved about those nonsensical lyrics was . . . well, sometimes they actually made a lot of sense.  Consider my all-time favorite that goes like this: “Oh, you can’t roller skate in buffalo herd, you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.  All you gotta do is put your mind to it, knuckle down buckle down do it do it do it”.

Who in the world would even think up such a silly idea as rolling skating in a buffalo herd except, of course, do-wacky-do Roger Miller?  It’s so absurd, in fact, it makes absolutely no sense, except that it does when you listen to the rest of the verse.  And that’s the whole point of the song, that even in the midst of life’s absurdities “you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.  All you gotta do is put your mind to it, knuckle down buckle down do it do it do it.”

Happiness is like love in that attaining it and retaining it is much more deliberate than it is circumstantial.  That is to say it happens because we choose it – we put our mind to it – much more than because life hands it to us.  Several years ago when my brother and sister-in-law were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary their grandson, who was himself engaged to be married, asked his grandfather, “How do you manage to stay married for fifty years?”  My wise brother responded with some very simple advice.  You just do,” he said.  In other words, living together and staying in love all those years – being happy! – does not just happen because you’re lucky.  It is because you choose for it to be so, then do what it takes to make it happen, “knuckle down buckle down do it do it do it”.

As wise King Solomon once said, “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.”  And you can be happy too, if you’ve a mind to.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”  – Matthew 7:3 

Many decades ago there was a syndicated comic strip that appeared in newspapers across the country called Pogo that featured animal characters, the title character being Pogo, an opossum.  The comic strip’s messages were written as satires about the human condition, as comic strips often are, the most famous one featuring Pogo reflecting philosophically with one of his animated friends, “We have met the enemy,” he said, “and it is us.”

Back in my mid-thirties I was a rising young executive.  I had just received a big promotion, and I thought I had become a real big shot.  One day on my way home I stopped by a supermarket to pick up a handful of items.  My head was so big, I failed to notice that the checkout lane where I placed my items on the conveyor had just closed and the clerk was going off duty.  But I was important, you see, and the lady should have recognized that, me all dressed up in a Brooks Brothers suit and fancy tie whose time was much more valuable than hers.  So, I let her have it, and even though she tried to explain and apologize, I stomped away leaving that poor sweet lady in tears.  Later that night as I was getting ready for bed I glanced in the mirror.  There I saw the real enemy, and it was me.  I felt so ashamed.  If only I could go back and apologize, somehow make it right.

There were so many things wrong about my behavior in the grocery store that day, and among them was the fact that I wanted someone else to blame besides myself.  So, that poor innocent lady behind the counter became the unfortunate victim of my wrath.  She was not the enemy, of course, and neither was the store manager, nor the store’s policies.  The real enemy was me.  I alone am responsible for the shame I have carried all these years over that incident.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Jesus asked.  There are a multitude of reasons why we do this.  For me I find it less painful to blame someone else than to admit something is my fault, that there is a big plank in my own eye.  If it is less painful, though, then why has the guilt and shame I have felt from that grocery store incident almost forty years ago not gone away?  For, too often the enemy we meet is not someone else, it is us.