A Man Comes into a Canyon

A man comes into a canyon and makes it his own. With the cunning of his mind and the courage of his heart he makes it his own. With one leg of bone and one leg of wood he kills the mighty buffalo and he has what he needs for food and clothing and shelter. He keeps the canyon his own when he kills the evil one that would despoil it, the blood-drinking one of the mountains. It is his and he has made it so. But he has not done this alone.

… In his hand is a knife that was made far away by another man, a knife that was given to him by an old one, a great one. In his mind is the knowledge to make fire and weapons and clothing and to find food and to provide shelter, knowledge given to him by those who taught him when he was a boy and those who showed him by their own doing when he lived among them.

By himself he is nothing. Only the courage is his alone. All of those others are with him, even in his canyon, and he cannot ever be free of them, for what they have given is with him and is part of him, and without them he could not have made the canyon his own.

Jack Schaefer
The Canyon © 1953

I am self-driven, motivated by personnel excellence. I seek to learn, and do so. I work harder, longer, and sometimes smarter. And in its own way, my life is the American dream.

But in this dream,

(while I bring an essential ingredient to its progression)

a string of people and circumstances,

personal and abstract,

trivial and divine,

have allowed, helped, and lead me to where I am.

Focusing on my immediate vicinity, I see my elevated accomplishments. But in moments of rare consciousness (as when reading the above), I am reminded that the knife in my hand was made far away by others, that the knowledge I have was given to me, that I am surrounded by those who showed me how to live through their own lives.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

President Barak Obama
Roanoke, Virginia
July 13, 2012

Our President is a bit obtuse in making these declarations, reinforced through multiple speeches throughout his recent campaign. In one very real context, his statements were dangerous and forbidding, reminiscent of the most powerful speeches of a century past, speeches that led over half of the world’s land masses down a dark path of humanistic socialized self-annihilation. I doubt, however, he intended to portray said images. Likely, he recognizes, like me, that even the best of us are surrounded by a great cloud of encouragers, supporters, enablers. There are very few islands among us.

My knife is sharp, solid, and ready to work. As I go about my life, succeeding when I can, I will rely on those before and aside me, and commit to prove reliable to those aside and behind me.  

Secondary to Primary

Matthew 15

You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophecy of you, saying, 

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.

Isaiah 29

This people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip-service, but they remove their hearts far from me and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.

We generally blank the slate in our rebirth with God. Then we start to grow hedges, organic-like, as we embrace His teachings:
This is right                             This is wrong
This honors God                     This dishonors Him
This is the truth                      This is falsehood
The hedges grow, and we find comfort in their presence, for their perceived protection.
In our wisdom,
we dig up the organic hedges and replace with stone walls,
from farmers to masons,
trading nature for precision,
from working in the dirt to finishing concrete.
As God-followers, we would do well to be in the habit of purging the precepts we take comfort in and expose ourselves to the direct influence of God.

My Mentor

After an unreasonable battle with an unreasonable illness, my mentor left this earth a few days past. His mind was willing, body weak. Distinctly successful in the world's eyes, his influence spread throughout our town, this state, and in various corners of the world. 

We each have a number of qualities, talents and strengths afforded us, which with a certain combination of work ethic and favor propel us forward. His was a special mixture, and I am grateful for his influence on me. I do believe he was my favorite leader, one of the very few my independent self purposefully sought to emulate. While I have not worked directly with him for five years, I continue to hear his voice in my mind as I approach my professional life, just as I hear my high school coach push me each time I go for a run. "Work smart not hard", he would say, which of course meant "Work smart, and hard". We aspire to the character and actions of Jesus; but it is helpful to have folks on the ground we can look up to as well.

Faith is tangible here; it was for him, his family in mourning, and for me; he was humble in the midst of life's success, inviting God's activity in his life; this helped prepare him for life's inevitable end. I trust that he has been healed in the presence of God.

I attempt to balance my appreciation and honor of him with the God who molded him, taught, shaped and inspired him. It is appropriate to admire the creation as well as the Creator.

Guilty until proven Innocent

I sat next to a very nice and distinctly talkative lady on the flight down here. She was fulfilling her daily verbiage quota, and I was doing my best to be a gentleman. A Belizian expat returning home to visit family, she knew everyone in this small country, and dropped names and titles beyond my memory capacity.
"If you ever need anything, have any problems getting something done, you just give me a call and I will call my (insert name) , who is (insert title), and we'll get it cleared up." Then she gave me her card, which I directly put in my pocket.
I am now returning home; as I pack I find the card, a very dangerous card, which yields a corona of guilt around all who carry it, regardless of their intent. Scripture teaches that what comes out of a person determines their guilt, not what they carry with them. I do believe this card is an implied exception: "Julia Torres, Divorce Specialist"

Choosing between having a potential helper in our work here and having my wife find the card, I do what we learned in basic training: tore it into little pieces and sent it to separate trash bins in the four corners of the airport.

what we do verses what we need

People know where to mine silver and how to refine gold. They know where to dig iron from the earth and how to smelt copper from rock. They know how to shine light in the darkness and explore the farthest regions of the earth as they search in the dark for ore. They sink a mine shaft into the earth far from where anyone lives. They descend on ropes, swinging back and forth.

Food is grown on the earth above, but down below, the earth is melted as by fire. Here the rocks contain precious lapis lazuli, and the dust contains gold. These are treasures no bird of prey can see, no falcon’s eye observe. No wild animal has walked upon these treasures; no lion has ever set his paw there. People know how to tear apart flinty rocks and overturn the roots of mountains. They cut tunnels in the rocks and uncover precious stones. They dam up the trickling streams and bring to light the hidden treasures.

But do people know where to find wisdom? Where can they find understanding? No one knows where to find it, for it is not found among the living. ‘It is not here,’ says the ocean. ‘Nor is it here,’ says the sea. It cannot be bought with gold. It cannot be purchased with silver. It’s worth more than all the gold of Ophir, greater than precious onyx or lapis lazuli. Wisdom is more valuable than gold and crystal. It cannot be purchased with jewels mounted in fine gold. Coral and jasper are worthless in trying to get it. The price of wisdom is far above rubies. Precious peridot from Ethiopia cannot be exchanged for it. It’s worth more than the purest gold.

But do people know where to find wisdom? Where can they find understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all humanity. Even the sharp-eyed birds in the sky cannot discover it. Destruction and Death say, ‘We’ve heard only rumors of where wisdom can be found.

God alone understands the way to wisdom; he knows where it can be found, for he looks throughout the whole earth and sees everything under the heavens. He decided how hard the winds should blow and how much rain should fall. He made the laws for the rain and laid out a path for the lightning. Then he saw wisdom and evaluated it. He set it in place and examined it thoroughly. And this is what he says to all humanity:

'The fear of the Lord is true wisdom;
to forsake evil is real understanding.’

stuff on my mind

1. from Donnie Hoover, my college pastor:
• "A True Leader models before men that which they desire of them".
2. The things that break God's heart ought to break ours:
• a neighbor's loneliness;
• a child who doesn't know what it is like to be a child;
• bitterness;
3. We are not trustworthy; God is. We do not need to spend our efforts and concern our lives with whether or not the person we are dealing with is trustworthy... because they are not. Do not rely on their trustworthiness, but rather on God's. By faith (and not by sight), He takes care of us.
4. We know grace because we have received it. Grace does not originate within ourselves, but is a learned behavior. The presence of God is found in the extension of grace to others. Forgiveness is the calling card of Jehovah God, and the mark of His children.