“These also were godly men, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.”

• Ecclesiasticus 44:10 

It has become my annual custom that when I arise on Halloween morning one of the first things I do is send Susie an electronic message wishing her happy birthday.  While I may be forgetful about a lot of things, I just do not ever forget Susie’s birthday.  It is Halloween after all.  But there is more to it than that.  I’ve known her my whole life, having been born and raised in the same small community, our families attended church together, and though we are several years apart in age, we went to school together, she and her sister Connie, both of whom I love dearly.  But there is more to it than that.

My dad also happened to be born on Halloween Day – 1915 – and perhaps that helps me remember Susie’s birthday.  But there is more to it than that.  I learned from Susie, which was unknown to me before, that she and my dad had developed a special bond because of their common birthday and would exchange birthday cards with each other, going back to when she was still a little girl.  So, in a way I guess I remember Susie’s birthday as a way of perpetuating that tradition.  But there is even more to it than that.

Susie and Connie are special people from a special family.  Their parents, Press and Betty, were as salt-of-the-earth as you can get.  Betty became a nurse and Press, a skilled auto-mechanic, eventually became a successful small business owner, down-to-earth hardworking people, not the type to ever make headlines or be known much beyond the small community where they spent their whole lives.  They were role models, though, in the way they loved each other, loved and cared for their family, looked after neighbors, and supported their community.  But there is more to it than that.  To me they were saints, in the truest sense, the type of saints whose goodness passes down to the generations, to their daughters and grandchildren, touching the lives of many – even me.

An old hymn verse describes it best: “The world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will.  You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea, for the saints of God are just folk like me,” ending with the words that inspire me most, “and I mean to be one too.”  For, “These also were godly [people], whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.”  To the saints in our lives!

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

• Ecclesiastes 3:1 

I was so ready for a change, and it finally happened.  When I opened a brand-new tube of toothpaste recently, I rejoiced.  The night before my increasingly arthritic fingers painfully squeezed the last little bit I could manage to get out of the old tube.  Even if there was enough left for one more brushing, I had had enough.  I was ready for a change, a fresh start, and when it finally arrived it lifted my spirits, it brightened my day.

Ordinarily I would not be so philosophical about such a simple matter as a tube of toothpaste, except this just happened to coincide with the long-awaited arrival of cooler weather and some welcome rainfall that finally broke the extreme summer heat and drought we had endured for weeks on end.  We were ready for a change, it finally happened – and we rejoiced.

Life is like a box of chocolates, as Forrest Gump famously described.  But to me life can sometimes be like a toothpaste tube which starts out full and fresh, until we use it down to the last squeeze.  And just as the early signs of autumn have refreshed our spirits, I can see it coming already, sometime just beyond Thanksgiving I will become so weary from raking and bagging leaves from beneath our giant beautiful oak trees that I can hardly wait for those cold winter days when I can relax beside the fireplace.  And of course, winter will eventually wear out its welcome too as we long for the first signs of spring.

Other seasons, besides the annual ones, also come and go.  I recall those seasons when the family would slowly begin to shrink.  One grandparent would pass, then another, then our parents, diminishing the size of our family gatherings.  Then, almost without realizing it our children grew up, got married, and began having children of their own.  Suddenly the dining room table was crowded again with the noise of new little voices, chatter, and laughter.  It was time for a change, it finally happened – and we rejoiced.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”  So, the seasons of life, like those of nature, are gifts from God that define the work we have each been given to do, until like a tube of toothpaste it is time for a change – and we rejoice.

 “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 

Mike and his sidekick Kent were two high school boys I used to hire occasionally to do odd jobs on the small ranch we once owned.  Mike, a big bruiser of a guy, was definitely the alpha of the pair and always the spokesman.  I loved his attitude because every time I asked them to do something he would always answer, “Yeah, we can to that.”  I never heard him express any doubt about any task I ever asked them to do.  In his mind, I do believe, they could do anything.  Of course, most of the chores I had for them were of the manual labor variety and those guys were plenty stout.

There is sort of a legendary story about those two and their can-do spirit, as I later learned, that occurred before I had gotten to know them.  Seems that a couple of years prior when they were barely old enough to drive, someone offered them an old upright piano if they would be willing to haul it away. Those boys, hard-working entrepreneurs that they were, saw opportunity in the proposition, figuring they could spiff it up a bit and sell it for a tidy sum.  So, after heaving the piano onto the back of a flatbed trailer hitched behind a pickup truck borrowed from one of their dads, off they drove with dollar signs in their eyes and Mike at the wheel – that is until Mike rounded a curve a little too fast slinging the piano off the trailer into the middle of the highway where it smashed into a million pieces.  Poor Kent!  He just stood there in the road, distraught and shaking his head.  But not can-do Mike, who put his arm around his friend’s shoulders and in a cheerful tone said, “Don’t worry, buddy, we can fix it!”  Of course, they had about as much chance putting Humpty-Dumpty back together as that old smashed up piano.

I have long since lost touch with those two young lads, who by now are no doubt out in the adult world somewhere, probably with families of their own and established careers.  Whatever they are doing I have no doubt they are successful.  Who wouldn’t be with their work ethic, enthusiasm, and entrepreneurial spirit.  But they also had something that some never learn, they knew the value of teamwork – having buddies, partners, friends alongside.  “Two are better than one,” the wise teacher in Ecclesiastes explains, “If one falls down, his friend can help him up.”  And what an example those two guys were.  “But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.”

“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  Genesis 1:27

We’re all capable of much more than we think we are.

When I was in high school we had a track coach who tried to convince us that there is no limit how fast a person can run.  We thought he was out of his mind.  Who, for example, could ever imagine someone running a hundred-yard dash in, say, three seconds?  Truth is, though, the coach was not out of his mind, he was simply challenging the limitations we held in our own minds.  Plus, there was validation for his theory – an event that occurred on May 6, 1954 in Oxford, England when Roger Bannister became the first runner in recorded history to run a mile in less than four minutes.  Prior to that there had been a universal belief that it was physically impossible for a human being to run a mile that fast. . . But we’re all capable of much more than we think we are.

Who will ever forget, even if only from history, President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961.  “I believe,” he said, “that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”  Was he out of his mind, many thought at the time?  No, like my old coach he was simply challenging the limitations we held in our own minds.  And we all know the rest of the story.  On July 20, 1969, before the end of the decade, Apollo 11 landed the first humans on the moon before returning safely to earth on July 24. . . We’re all capable of much more than we think we are.

What parent has not recognized more potential in their children than their children were able to see in themselves?  And if that’s true about parents and children, imagine the potential God must see in each one of us.  For, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”  Therefore, doesn’t it stand to reason that if we are made in the image of the Omnipotent God, that we’re capable of much more than we think we are?  I think that is what the coach in his great wisdom was trying to teach us boys on the track team, if not about running then certainly about what is imbedded within the human spirit, a message I have never forgotten.  And it’s what gives me hope today in these challenging times we live in – wisdom from a small town high school track coach.

“You have stayed long enough at this mountain.”  – Deuteronomy 1:6 

Sometimes I still miss those high-level corporate meetings I used to attend several times a year at the company headquarters in New York.  I always came back full of new ideas and enthusiasm, renewed and refreshed from all I learned, and from hanging out with my colleagues.   It was like a mountaintop experience, and I could hardly wait to get back and share it all with my team.

Except inevitably my presentations would fall flat and I was quickly brought back down to earth.  To be fair, I had experienced the mountaintop and they had not, so understandably they did not share my zeal.  So, instead of buy-in their initial response was often pushback, partly from a stubborn resistance to change, but more practically from procedural details that were lacking.  And that is what always brought me back to the real world, leaving me with two major challenges.   One was trying to convince my team to embrace the new idea, the other to communicate back up the food chain those details that must be ironed out before that grand plan of theirs could be implemented..

It is an ancient leadership predicament, as Moses faced a similar issue, who following his mountaintop experience being inspired by a burning bush, descended the mountain to lead the Israelites out of bondage into the Promised Land.  But the Israelites pushed back, both from lack of faith, as well as a very practical matter of lack of food and water.  This left Moses with two difficult challenges; one, to convince and encourage the Israelites to persevere toward their destiny, and to remind God that his chosen people were hungry and thirsty.

Birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, retreats, and high-level corporate meetings, even quiet solitary times with a cup of coffee, all mountaintop moments providing much needed renewal, refreshment, and inspiration, not to mention pleasure.  Yet, as much as we sometimes wish those moments would never end, we must be careful not to linger too long.  As Moses reminds us, “You have stayed long enough at the mountain.”  We are still needed down the mountain, to convince and encourage, and to tend to those everyday practical details.  While those mountaintop corporate meetings inspired great ideas, it was back home with my team where they got executed.  That’s where life happens.