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“A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” 

– Proverbs 11:25 

Following the great London fire in 1666, the famed architect Christopher Wren was commissioned to rebuild the historic St. Paul’s Cathedral that had been destroyed by the fire.  One day Wren was walking around and noticed a couple of bricklayers high upon a scaffold.  “What are you doing up there?” he yelled. The first responded that he was laying bricks so he could feed his family.  But the other exclaimed, “I am a cathedral builder, and I am rebuilding this great cathedral to The Almighty.”

It occurred to me in revisiting this real-life parable that if this project was so important it could only be entrusted to one of the world’s greatest architects, it stands to reason that the work itself could only be entrusted to artisans and craftsmen who were tops in their field as well.  In other words, those two bricklayers were no common laborers, they were the best money could buy, men who graduated at the head of their class from the bricklayer academy.  If both were excellent at what they did, had the same skill level and produced the same high-quality results, and even earned the same pay, how is it one seemed to have a different purpose in his work than the other?  And did it even matter?

Having worked in a sales organization for many years, much like the famous architect, I often observed the same disparity among salespeople who had comparable education, knowledge, and ability.  Some worked only for the commissions they earned.  Others, though, worked to serve their clients. Why did one have a different purpose in work than the other, I often wondered?  And did it even matter?

The Proverb assures us that “A generous man will prosper,” and those who work to serve others are by nature generous people.  But let’s be honest.  We all know plenty of thoughtless, greedy, self-centered people who are prosperous.  Except the Proverb does not end there.  It goes on to explain that “he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”  So, I can’t help but believe the cathedral-builder-bricklayer, even though he earned the same paycheck, went home at night more fulfilled than the other guy.  Nor do I believe God created any of us to just be a bricklayer, or a salesperson, or an architect; rather each of us is called to a higher purpose in whatever our endeavors.

“All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” – Ecclesiastes 2:17 

Delton Bennett was my role model for the kind of professional I longed to become.  For years we worked as colleagues, except he belonged to an older generation and had years of experience under his belt which I did not.  Working along side him gave me access to his wisdom which I tried to absorb like a sponge.  Not only was he a man of deep experience and knowledge, with impeccable integrity, and a gentleman in every way, he was legendary among his fellow municipal bond professionals.  That’s what I wanted to be, a legend like him.  After all, shouldn’t we all strive to become the best we can be?

Delton eventually left the profession to enjoy his retirement years, until age and ill health finally took their toll.  At the reception following his funeral service I recall meeting three gentlemen who happened to be his golf buddies.  When they inquired about my association with Delton I explained that we had been work colleagues, and that he was one of the true legends of our profession.  The expression on all three of their faces revealed both surprise and curiosity, until one of them finally spoke up, “Funny, we never knew what Delton did professionally.  He never mentioned it.”

Just recently another old friend passed away, Jerry Pate Long, a contemporary with whom I had grown up in the same hometown.  His obituary spoke glowingly about him, his deep love for his family – children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren – his long love affair with Susie, the love of his life since high school, his passion for our hometown and high school football team, his outgoing personality, many friendships, and love for telling stories.  What was glaringly absent in the obituary, though, was there was no mention of what he did for a living.  But I happened to know he did make a living, a quite good one I think, because he always seemed to have enough and was a good provider.

Earning a living is of course essential for providing for ourselves and our families, and when our livelihoods contribute to the greater good of the larger community, how noble is that.  So why did Delton and Jerry Pate choose that their jobs and professions not be their legacies?  Perhaps it is because in the end, “All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”  Delton is still my role model, except not for the same reason I once thought.  Instead, I hope when the time comes my own obituary will read just like Jerry Pate’s.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

• Proverbs 11:2 

Sometimes I think back on those early years struggling to support a wife, two kids and a mortgage on not much income.  While we did usually manage to have one decent family car, about all I could afford to drive back then was an old junker.  Most memorable was an older model Volkswagen Square-Back, sort of like a Beetle with the engine in the back, except it was a station wagon.  I had purchased it from a work colleague for a mere five hundred dollars, but even at that I still had to borrow money and make payments to the bank.  The biggest problem with the car was that it had no first gear which required learning a delicate technique of manipulating the clutch in order to start off in second, a particular challenge when going uphill.  Yes, those were lean times.

Although it did break down occasionally, for the most part that old VW actually served me pretty well as far as getting to and from work every day.  The problem was not the functionality, rather it was the embarrassment of not appearing to be very prosperous – which, of course, I wasn’t.  But I wanted to look prosperous, you see, like a young executive on the move – which, in retrospect, I was except for the rather meager salary I was making.

Humbling as it was, driving those old clunkers sort of kept things in perspective for me.  I didn’t like it much at the time, but looking back I realize how important humility was in my development.  How desperately I longed for reasons to be cocky like some of my peers at the time, some of whom actually drove fancy new cars!  Humility, though, taught me many lessons such as empathy and patience toward others, things I may not have learned had I not been relegated to driving those old jalopies.

Fortunately, my living standards are a considerably higher now than they were then – including the cars in my garage – yet in some ways things haven’t changed all that much; for there always seems to be something humbling that occurs whenever I start to feel a little overly proud.  I still don’t like it very much, but then I realize that humility continues to play an important role in my ongoing development.  As the Proverb reminds us, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.”  1 Corinthians 10:24 

I was sitting in my ivory tower corner office on the forty-fourth floor of a downtown Dallas skyscraper where I served as manager of a regional bond trading operation for a major Wall Street investment firm when I first heard that a plane had hit one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.  How sad, I thought, imagining some small aircraft whose pilot had wandered off course, then accidentally clipped its wings against the building and crashed.  Moments later, though, I stepped out of my office onto the trading floor where I happened to glance up at the large screen TV mounted on the wall just as a second giant airliner intentionally slammed itself head-on into the second tower.

Like me, most everyone I suppose who was older than toddler age back on September 11, 2001 remembers in great detail exactly where they were and what they were doing when they learned – or perhaps witnessed – about the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.  Some have referred to that event as our generation’s Pearl Harbor and have compared the firemen and other heroic first responders to those brave souls who sacrificed their lives on the beaches of Normandy on D-day.

Those were for sure evil acts we had witnessed that day, visited upon thousands of innocent victims, our fellow citizens, in our own country, on our own soil, specifically New York and our nation’s capital. . . . Then, before we could even begin to process what we had just witnessed, the most amazing thing happened, again before our very eyes, as waves of courageous first responders as well as ordinary citizens who happened to be nearby instinctively began to lay their lives on the line to save others, many losing their lives in the process, evil being overcome by good.  “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others,” the Apostle Paul wrote.  Those words were written on the hearts of millions across our nation that day and continued to be for weeks and months to come.

I still have faith that in the long-run, goodness wins out over evil, that love wins out over hate.  We are God’s children after all, and because of that God works in all things for good.  Not that evil isn’t prevalent in a fallen world, but God is able to redeem every circumstance for our long-term good.  May we ever remember 9/11 as the sacred day that it is, when the goodness of God along with His faithful people prevailed over evil.

“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.