“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up . . .” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 

On one of my frequent early-morning bike rides recently I noticed up ahead a cluster of folks gathered in the middle of the path doing calisthenics.  As I approached it became obvious that these were high school age boys and girls, presumably cross-country runners from a nearby high school, warming up for their morning run.  My first impulse was to consider how to get around them since they were blocking the trail, until I heard one of them shout “biker coming!” after which each one politely stepped to one side of the trail or the other allowing me to pass through, not unlike the parting of the Red Sea.

As I rode my bike between the two lines of young runners I gave a quick wave as to say thank you, then smiled and quipped, “thanks to all of you for coming out to cheer me on!”  It was meant as a joke, except afterwards the most amazing thing happened, the whole crowd began to clap and cheer.  Was their applause just as much of a joke as mine?  Most likely.  Or could it have been a sincere gesture in appreciation that a man my age would be out on an early-morning bike ride trying to keep himself in shape?  Either way, joke or not, I could feel myself putting a little more pump into the pedals.

Encouragement is such a powerful motivator.  Just imagine, if a half-joking impromptu encounter like I experienced on the bike trail can put a little extra spring in my step, what a difference more intentional encouragement can have.  The story of Erin Gruwell is a good example, as told in the 2007 movie Freedom Writers.  In 1994 Erin was a first-year English teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, a racially mixed school plagued by gangs and violence.  Yet, Erin was able to transform her classroom and the lives of the individual students by being as much encourager as teacher, first encouraging them to write down the tragic stories of their lives (all their stories were tragic) and subsequently sharing them with each other.  Over time those diverse classmates, once bitter enemies, became intimate friends, most of them successfully completing high school, and many going on to college.

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.”  It doesn’t take much, a kind word, a compliment . . . a cheer on the bike trail.  The opportunities to encourage others are before us every day, and what a difference it can make.  It can change a life.

“They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity – for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”  – 2 Peter 2:19 

As we Americans celebrate our beloved freedom, perhaps we should pause to consider what that means.  In the context of human rights, the American Declaration of Independence states that humans are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Or as my old-fashioned Webster’s dictionary defines it, freedom is “personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery.”  Slavery, then, can be defined as a condition of being in bondage, subjected to another – or the exact opposite of freedom.

Several years ago political columnist Peggy Noonan made an observation in one of her articles about “the American dream” that I thought worth saving.  In it she wrote, “There is pervasive confusion about what the American dream is.  We seem to have redefined it to mean the acquisition of material things – a car, a house, and a pool.  That was not the meaning of the American dream a few generations ago.  The definition then was that in this wonderful place called America, you can start out from nothing and become anything.  [In other words] It was aspirational.”

Ms. Noonan, I thought, masterfully described the distinction between slavery and freedom.  That is, if the so-called American dream can be distilled down to nothing more than materialism, that’s slavery pure and simple, a state of bondage, maybe not the kind of institutional slavery our country once shamefully allowed, but bondage nonetheless.  Instead, if we still have the opportunity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as our Founding Fathers declared, we can continue to be aspirational toward becoming our best selves – and freedom still exists in America.

While I do agree that materialism has infiltrated our culture to an alarming degree, I have the privilege of meeting and working with aspirational people every day, folks pursuing the “American Dream” as it was intended.  May that always be the freedom we celebrate, not the slavery of our possessions.  May we learn, grow, and prosper, serving one another and God as we were created to do, and encourage our children to do the same.

“. . . you entrusted me with five talents.  See, I have gained five more.” . . . “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  – Matthew 25:20,21 

Until I read Julia Cameron’s classic book, The Artist’s Way:  A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, my long-held belief had been that creativity was limited to those we often think of as “real artists” – painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, and the like.  It never occurred to me that we are all creative.  But as Julia Cameron explains, if we are in fact created in the image of the Creator then it stands to reason that we too are creators.  In other words, we are all endowed with the gift of creativity in some form.

In the “Parable of the Talents” Jesus tells of a wealthy man who went away on a journey.  In his absence he entrusted his financial assets (talents) with three managers.  To one he entrusted five “talents”, to another two, and to the third one.  After his return he called upon his managers for an accounting.  The manager who had been entrusted with five talents as well as the manager with two had each doubled his money during his absence for which the wealthy master was extremely pleased.  But the third man had not bothered to invest the money at all with which he’d been entrusted, but instead had hidden it away.  For that the master was not only disappointed but furious.

I’ve often wondered why the master was so angry; after all he got his money back in full, which seems better than losing it.  Right?  Disappointing perhaps, but to be furious?  Then several years ago I began to study Julia Cameron’s works and that’s when the parable started to make sense to me; that is, we too have been entrusted with certain gifts, talents, or resources with which we can either choose to invest in the good work of God’s Kingdom or hide it away, the equivalent of squandering.

Sometimes we define creativity too narrowly, confining it to only that small chosen group of “real artists.”  But in reality, everything we do requires creative choices.  God has given each of us some special unique creative ability and entrusted us to invest it wisely.  As Julia Cameron says, “The Great Creator has gifted us with creativity.  Our gift back is our use of it.”  So, how are you investing what’s been entrusted to you?  It is a question I find myself wrestling with every single day.

“. . . let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”  – Hebrews 12:1 

Can you believe it?  Not a single person at the high school reunion I attended recently made mention of any of my great athletic achievements – not one!  Could it be that despite participating in sports my entire childhood and youth, and despite being a loyal teammate and always following the coaches’ instructions, I never actually did anything noteworthy?  Hmm, maybe!  I remember, for instance, being on the track team in high school, yet too slow to run the hundred-yard dash, and not agile enough or strong enough to excel in any of the various field events.  So, not knowing what else to do with me, the coaches would enter me in distance races, which even though I was slow I had enough endurance to at least be competitive.  Even at that I never won anything that I recall.

Perhaps that is why I have always felt such a kinship with the tortoise in Aesop’s famous parable about The Tortoise and the Hare.  The tortoise’s life seems to resemble my own as I look back on it, sort of plodding along, not just in my athletic endeavors, but in almost everything.  Except, there is one big difference between the tortoise and me.  The tortoise was insightful enough to know that if he persevered in putting one foot in front of the other he would succeed in reaching his desired goals.  I, on the other hand, wanted to be like the hare.  I longed to jump out ahead, to be quicker and faster than everyone else – even though I was notoriously slow.  I recall as a young man dreaming of being the first among my age group to rise to the top.  Instead, just like my track team days, I was the slow one, lagging behind many of my peers.  I struggled with that for a time, yet kept plodding along until one day I looked around and saw that I had caught up with most of them, even surpassing a few.  Only then did I begin to realize how life is not a sprint but a marathon, that “slow and steady wins the race,” as the fable so wisely points out.

There is a vast difference between a sprint like a hundred-yard dash, and a twenty-six-mile marathon (or a 5k or 10k for that matter); for it means little to a long-distance runner if he or she covers the first hundred yards in ten seconds.  While a burst of speed may be good, in the long run it is the ability to stick with it mile after mile that counts.  In life, as I have learned over a “marathon” of time, winners are determined not by fastness, rather by steadfastness.  So, “. . . let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” 

“. . . so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.”  – Psalm 78:6 

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders,” the late author and poet James Baldwin once observed, “but they have never failed to imitate them.”  I decided to test that recently with my ten-year-old granddaughter Corrina who, looking for a project to make some money, came over to help me re-stain the wooden fence around our backyard.  All I did was hand her a bucket of stain and a brush, then she started at one end and I at the other.  No instructions were involved, she simply imitated what I was doing.  Sooner than I expected, we met in the middle; and I must say, a professional could not have done a finer job, nor worked as fast and efficiently as she did.

Usually an elder’s influence does not produce such immediate results as the recent experience with my granddaughter.  In fact, sometimes it is generations later before an elder’s influence surfaces.  I often think of my great grandfather, Robert Boyle, who died in 1924, almost twenty-five years before I was born.  I know little about him except he and my great grandmother were Irish immigrants who came to America in 1889 when my grandmother was but an infant.  They had purchased some land in Texas where for many years they raised sheep.  In his later years he was employed in a grocery store.

That’s about all I know about him except for the fact that I had the good fortune of inheriting two heirlooms from among his earthly possessions, an old rocking chair he used to sit in, and a Bible which, based on its tattered appearance, he must have studied frequently.  For the longest time I had little emotional attachment to either item, except the chair being attractive and comfortable resides in my study.  The Bible, on the other hand, was stored away for years in a box, until one day I rediscovered it.  That is when it occurred to me that my great grandfather had once-upon-a-time sat in that rocking chair reading his Bible, perhaps praying and meditating – just as I have done every morning for many years, sitting in that same chair, imitating him without realizing it.

In his newest book Trust and Inspire, Stephen M.R. Covey reminds us that “we are who we are in large part because of the models around us.”   Or as the Psalmist says, “. . . so the next generation would know them [God’s deeds], even the children yet to be born.”