Why Is It So Hard?

Dear Boo and Bubble,

We have just returned from a wonderful few days in Santa Fe, NM, with our dear friends Tom and Susan Heyward.  It is a beautiful part of the country…so very different geologically from where we live on the east coast…and its history has such a unique foundation in the Native American culture, which sadly seems to be all but invisible in that of the USA.

After spending time at such places as Bandelier National Monument…where we climbed the ladders to enter ancient shelters carved out of the cliffs hundreds of years ago…and visiting museums that capture the intricate details of how American Indians lived and thrived, I am nothing short of awestruck at the innate abilities and wisdom of these original inhabitants of our country. They professed and exhibited a far greater understanding of all things natural than most of us ever glean in our lifetimes. Perhaps, it's not our fault. The necessity to rely on wit for our very existence has lessened with every generation due to the advancements in society and technology. What is the point in toiling with the soil to produce your own food when you can more easily get it at the grocery store? Why look to the sky to determine your direction when the GPS does it for you? Why send smoke signals when a cell tower can reach halfway across the country? Why try to figure things out for yourself when Siri is at your fingertips? 

However, there is one area in our lives where science doesn't seem to be able to nudge us beyond the intuitive knowledge exhibited by our Native American ancestors...and that is regarding  human nature.

I purchased a small book at the gift shop while visiting the Native American Museum in Santa Fe. It is titled "The Soul Would Have no Rainbow if the Eyes Had no Tears." As I perused it this morning, I couldn't help but be struck by some of the proverbs that rose from the pages. One of them particularly caught my attention...especially in light of the horrific murder of eleven Jewish congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh just two days ago.  It is attributed to the Shawnee tribe and goes like this.

"Trouble no man about his religion--respect him and his views and demand that he respect yours."

Why is it so hard for us to do this?  Why is claiming to have the “inside track” to God so important?  I may have told you this before, but between Sugar Mountain and Elizabethton, TN, (a distance of 30 miles), there are 50 Christian churches.  That’s more than one every half mile.  Apparently, Christians can’t even agree on Christ.  The antagonism that is created by slicing and dicing His teachings to suit one’s fancy makes a mockery of them, in my opinion.  How many ways can you interpret “Love thy neighbor as thyself?”

And…all of this is only compounded when the battle expands to multiple religions.  Is it all really a competition to see whose heaven is real?  That there’s only one escalator and, by Jove, if you’re not on mine, you won’t get there?

I remember when your cousin Erika decided to marry her husband Evan.  It meant converting to Judaism from Christianity, a decision she did not take lightly.  One of her main concerns was how her father, your great uncle Bryant, would respond.  As I’ve shared with you before, he had a Divinity degree from Duke University and was an ordained Baptist minister.  His personal and professional faith was Christian.  When Erika approached him on the subject, his response was simply this—no dramatic reaction,, shock, horror or condemnation.

“As long as you have a pathway to God.  That is the only thing that matters.”

And I would add to that…recognition of your own path to God should never be diminished by the fact that someone else has chosen another.  Conversely, you should never diminish someone else’s path because of the one you’ve chosen.

Or…to reiterate the words of the Shawnee— 

"Trouble no man about his religion--respect him and his views and demand that he respect yours."

(After I wrote this, I had a question cross my mind..."How do you demand that someone respect your religion?" Demand is an interesting word. It connotes vehemence or a power to command. But, I don't think that is what the Shawnee meant. How do we "demand" respect for anything we do or are? It is not by beating someone over the head...that is submission. It is by living our religion...acting it out in our daily lives...so that someone witnessing it will ask "what makes him/her that way?" Only by being true to our principles and our faith can we demand anything of anyone else.)

Whose Mistake Is It?

Dear Boo (and Bubble),

I am remembering what fun we had weekend before last in West Virginia camping at the Watoga State Park.  We surely don’t need any specific reason to get together, but this trip was precipitated by your request to find a place to do some fishing.  You wanted to test out your birthday presents from Captain, Meemaw, Aunt Bee and Uncle Drew—a rod, reel and assorted gems of irresistible attraction stashed in your double-drawer tackle box.

Regardless of the fact that you successfully tied your very first hook onto the line…and mastered the mechanics of casting…and snapped a nightcrawler in half for the first time…and figured out how to cut an incessant tangle free by using car keys…it was a somewhat frustrating time for you.  I can’t blame that on the fact that you only caught two fish.  Simply put, you had too many “advisors”—that would be me, Captain and your mom. Sunday morning, as you made your way out onto the rocks at the edge of the lake spillway, you could hardly do anything for the chorus of opinions coming from us, sitting on the bank telling you to—cast to a different spot; use some other casting technique; try another kind of bait; be patient.  

Finally, it got to the point where you felt compelled to yell, not just at us, but to the entire universe: “Is it okay if I make a mistake?”

Oh, my goodness!  What an important, soul-searching question--one that has been asked by every living human at some time or another.  Great writers, philosophers, theologians and scientists have addressed the issue in quote after quote.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
― Albert Einstein

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
― Mahatma Ghandi

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
— Elbert Hubbard

Even your great granddaddy Schaefer wrote about it in one of his editorials – “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t’ try.”

I must tell you, though, that your great, great, great, great Grandfather Joseph Benson Cottrell might just have hit the nail on the head by putting a slightly different spin on the situation.  In the late 1800’s, he wrote the following.   I think your “advisors” might want to take heed.

“I am not given to advising people, but I’d venture just this to any boy: Don’t be the first born, or the second.  You’ll be systemized—regulated—if you are.  The children that are your parents will make up on you for all the unwisdom of your grandparents.

System! Regularity! Uniformity! Oh, yes!  Nothing like strict discipline over a boy!  Will the world never rightly apprehend that the true philosophy of human government is to insure self-government. 

It is needful, therefore, rather to inspire a boy, and to appeal to that ultimate of character which may be termed honor, than to break in upon his own individual method and prescribe to him the details of his actions.

The qualification for thus inspiring is—ultimate, clean, benevolent disinterestedness on the part of the parent or guardian.

So…Boo…I want to apologize for my past transgressions of "breaking in upon your individual method."  I promise in the future to practice a little more "disinterestedness!"

The Marvel of the Written Word

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I’m upstairs in my cubbyhole of an office wrestling with the composition of my next novel.  Some days are easier than others with the flow of things.  Today seems to border on sludge—the ideas are fluid in my head, but it’s hard to convert them to paper (or computer screen in this case!). 

As with Last Laugh, two of my steady resources for this story—The Bible and The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran—always are close at hand.  I keep them on the left-hand corner of the desk for easy access.  Just a few minutes ago, I reached for one and noticed great Granddaddy Schaefer’s collection of editorials for The Greenville News sitting underneath. It happened to be open to page 19, on which is printed an article entitled Truisms, Adages, Maxims and Axioms Offered, dated Sunday, February 20, 1994.  Of course, I couldn’t resist reading it…hadn’t had a good visit with him in a while…and I was amused, but not surprised, at how apropos his topic was to my immediate dilemma—trying to find the right words.  

I thought it would be well worth taking a break to share his thoughts with you.  And I am ever grateful that, even with the passage of many years without his physical presence, he is still here with me offering encouragement and perspective.

Truisms, Adages, Maxims and Axioms Offered

By Schaefer Kendrick

If you are seeking fascination, contemplate the marvel of man and woman’s greatest achievement: the ability to communicate. Think about the written word of English.  Twenty-six symbols, only 26, which in seemingly infinite combinations, create hundreds of thousands of words; and new combinations are being ceaselessly devised to add to the number.

Think, also, how the arrangement of words can shape a meaning.  Two sentences can contain precisely the same words, but their arrangement produces totally different meanings, i.e., “A just war;” “Just a war.”  Take the syllable “up,” put it in front of another syllable to create a compound word, then put it behind the same syllable, and look what happens: upbeat – beat up; upstart – startup; upheld – held up; upend – end up; and upset – setup.

I do admire one who is clever with words, one who takes them places they have never been before; or one who juxtaposes them in a sentence, in unique sequences that end with a period and a chuckle.  A newspaper changes the features “Births,” “Marriages,” and “Obituaries” to “Hatched,” “Matched,” and “Snatched.”

The meaning of some words create a problem for me.  I have trouble, for example, with the word “pithy.”  When I run across that word, for reasons I am unable to explain, I think of something that is shallow, not essential or profound.  It comes from the word “pith,” which means the loose spongey tissue occupying the center of the stem, and actually “pithy” means having energy, forceful, tersely cogent — a “pithy” saying.

If you are puzzled where I am headed, let me explain.  I like to collect truisms, adages, maxims and axioms.  I find them in church bulletins, civic club publications, bumper stickers, T-shirts and other sources.  I hope you find these interesting.  (My notes fail to give the source, hence the last of attribution, except for the last.)

1.       A signature always reveals a man’s character—and sometimes even his name.

2.      Be like a postage stamp—stick to one thing until ya’ get there.

3.      Tact is rubbing out another’s mistake instead of rubbing it in.

4.      Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like to keep in touch.

5.      If God had really intended man to fly, he would have made it easier to get to the airport.

6.      The best safety device in a car is a rearview mirror with a police car in it.

7.      Native American thought:  We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors but have borrowed it from our children.

8.      You must be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.

9.      Chinese proverb: A peasant must stand a long time on a hillside with his mouth open before a roast duck flies in.

10.  A wise old guru was asked: “What is the deepest of the deep?” “The cellar of a lasting friendship.”

11.  Galileo: “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.”