“Two are better than one . . .  If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” – Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 

In his novel entitled Brendan, Frederick Buechner tells a story of a man pushing himself up from the table revealing that he only had one leg.  As he began to hop sideways to reach for his walking-stick he lost his balance and would have surely fallen on the floor except for Brendan who was nearby jumping up and catching him.  “I’m as crippled as the dark world,” the man confessed, to which Brendan responded, “which one of us isn’t?”  “The truth of what Brendan said stopped all our mouths,” says the book’s narrator.  “We was cripples all of us.”  “To lend each other a hand when we’re falling,” Brendan then philosophies, “Perhaps that’s the only work that matters in the end.”

“We was cripples all of us,” and no story better illustrates this than the Passion story we commemorate this Holy Week preceding Easter.  Jesus had endured an exhaustive trial, flogged, beaten, ridiculed, spat upon, and tortured in every way imaginable, both mentally and physically, then forced to lug the heavy timber on which he was to be executed up the road leading to Calvary.  Exhausted from all this he stumbled, falling face down in the dirt.  It was then that a man from Cyrene named Simon was summoned to the rescue, not unlike Brendan who rescued the man with but one leg.

So, if even the Creator of the universe and Savior of the world can stumble and need someone to lift his bloody, filthy face out the dirt, then carry his burden for a while, what does that say about the rest of us?  How many of us have not from time to time been rescued by another human being?  I often consider how I would never be where I am today if certain people had not been there to catch me before I fall, lift me up when I did, or offer me a chance or an opportunity I did not deserve.  Likewise, in those times when I am upright, am I aware enough and thoughtful enough to offer a helping hand to those who are stumbling, or face down in the dirt buried beneath a heavy burden?

We are cripples, all of us.  That is why “Two are better than one . . .  If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”  May we be there to help one another up; for “to lend each other a hand when we’re falling, perhaps that’s the only work that matters in the end.”  Just ask Simon.

“. . . take courage and do it.”  – Ezra 10:4 

Most of the regrets I have in my life have not been the result of mistakes or failures from something I attempted, but from failing to attempt something for fear of failure.  Likewise, most of the things I have done that turned out to be most rewarding – whether successes or failures – were the things where I gathered enough courage to attempt despite the possibility, even the likelihood, of failure.

One such incident occurred exactly fifty years ago this month.  A mutual friend had set Tee and I up on a blind date, about which we were both dubious because our previous experiences with blind dates had been failures.  Except, this one was not.  But it still took me two weeks to garner the courage to ask her out again because my skeptical mind kept asking, why would such a cute girl want to go out again with the likes of me?  Could it have been my fear of failure from rejection?  Yet here we are fifty years later making plans for our fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration later in the year.

Fear of failure seems to be a common malady in our society, some of which is simply human nature I suppose.  We do live in a culture, however, that demands from us a successful image, otherwise we are deemed losers, leaving little tolerance for failed attempts.  Nevertheless, most successes, as we must surely know, are preceded by multiple failed attempts.  As the great German physicist Max Planck once observed upon receiving the Nobel Prize for his discovery of quantum theory, “Looking back over the long and labyrinthine path which finally led to the discovery, I am vividly reminded of Goethe’s saying that men will always be making mistakes as long as they are striving after something.”  In our own day as we applaud the development of vaccines against the deadly Covid-19 virus, how many failures must have occurred in the research labs before discovering the successful vaccines that will save us from this dreaded disease?

To fail while attempting to succeed is not failure at all, it is learning.  To refuse to even attempt something for of fear of failure, that is real failure, which is to the detriment of personal growth as well as human progress, and often counted among our life’s regrets.  As someone once said, in order to succeed we must fail forward.  So, whatever it is you dream of pursuing, “take courage and do it.”

“. . . she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”  – Mark 12:44 

My uncle, Glenn Terrell, was my mother’s younger brother and the youngest of four children, thus the last to leave home.  He told me once that when he was leaving to go away to college in the late 1930’s or early ‘40’s his father, my maternal grandfather, took out his wallet and handed him twenty-five dollars.  It was, as my uncle described, all he had.  And knowing my grandparents and how they lived, I’m pretty sure that twenty-five dollars was not just his pocket change, it was literally everything he had.

Now I must confess to being a bit of a tight-wad, and Tee would be quick to admit the same about herself.  So, between the two of us we have always been pretty frugal about our finances.  That is not to say we have denied ourselves in terms of living a comfortable lifestyle, nor have we held back in providing for our children.  And in terms of philanthropy, we have mostly followed the principle of tithing, that is giving ten percent of our income.  That makes us generous, we would like to think.  Except, every time I get a little smug about that, my uncle’s story about my grandfather resurfaces, reminding me that there is a huge gap between giving ten percent and everything you have.

I love the story about Jesus sharing this fact with his disciples.  They are all hanging out together near the entrance to the temple watching people file in and drop their donations into the collection basket, and some of these folks have written some big checks.  About that time Jesus observes a poor widow waiting her turn to enter.  “Watch this,” I can imagine him whispering to his disciples, as she takes two tiny copper coins from her purse and deposits them in the treasury basket.  “I tell you the truth,” he explains, “this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.  They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.” 

There are probably a thousand lessons to be learned from this little incident, but one that jumps out at me is how it redefines generosity from the substance of the gift to love in the heart of the giver.  And I would like to think – although I have no way of knowing for sure – that my grandfather was demonstrating exactly that when he gave his last chick leaving the nest everything he had.  “For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” (Luke 12:34)

“. . .  first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  – Matthew 7:5 

It has been nearly forty years since this incident occurred, so I have long forgotten the details of the matter, but one day out of frustration I found myself confronting a couple of my colleagues who were doing, or not doing, something that was inhibiting my ability to do my job.  I recall, to my great surprise, how they listened patiently and promised to take care of the matter, which they did.  But just as I was about to walk away, they summoned me back.  While you’re here, they said, there is something we need to discuss with you, and they commenced to point out something I was doing, or failing to do, that was also impeding them from getting their work done.

It was one of those embarrassing moments I have never forgotten, for even though my complaint was legitimate, so was theirs.  Worse, though, was that I had failed to see – or more likely, refused the admit – that there was a plank in my own eye before pointing out the speck in theirs.  And while that was certainly not the first time I ever committed such a grievous sin, it may be one of the few times I had to face up to being caught in the act.

“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 challenged his listeners.  “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” 

It just makes sense, doesn’t it, that if my neighbor neglects to mow his lawn in the summer or rake his leaves in the fall, what credibility do I have to complain to him if my dog is keeping him awake barking all night, or if I have allowed my tree limbs to fall onto his rooftop?  Once I tend to my own mess, then perhaps we can discuss his.

Fortunately, my colleagues and I worked out our conflicts quickly and amicably, while still remaining good friends.  And while that was hardly the last time I have failed to take the plank out of my own eye before pointing out a speck of dust in someone else’s, it certainly raised my awareness of the value in doing so.

“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”  – Exodus 20:4 

When we were raising our kids back in the ’70’s and 80’s the parenting method de jour was centered around experiencing “natural consequences” which many child psychologists advocated as the best way for children learn the difference between good and bad behavior.  Put your hand on a hot stove, for example, and by getting burned you’ll remember not to ever do that again, that was the theory.  Made sense to us, so like many parents during that era we adopted the idea, or at least we included it in our arsenal of parenting methods, along with a mix of others including – heaven forbid!! – the occasional dose of corporal punishment.  Right or wrong, somehow by the grace of God our kids turned out all right anyway.

In the words of the late American writer and politician Harry Browne, “Everyone will experience consequences of his own acts.  If his acts are right, he’ll get good consequences; if they’re not, he’ll suffer for it.”  If he is correct, then understanding consequences is not only important for young children, but equally important for adults.  The decisions we make, the actions we take, how we respond, what we say and how we say it, everything we do creates consequences – good or bad, immediate or long term.  And consequences not only impact us, many times they also impact others around us.

In presenting the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai God included a warning about the depth of consequences that will occur for obedience versus disobedience.  The iniquities of the father, He explained, will be visited upon the children into the third and fourth generations, but those who are righteous will be blessed to a thousand generations (per my own interpretation and paraphrase of Exodus 20:4).  That may not mean that God is going to necessarily zap us for our disobedience, but one way or another we will likely suffer the “natural consequences” from it.

“Everyone will experience consequences of his own acts;” and those who have learned to pause and consider such consequences – good or bad, immediate or long term – before choosing to act, they are the ones on the cutting edge of wisdom.  We should pay attention to them.