“How then can we live?”  – Ezekiel 33:10 

Not long after being diagnosed with cancer my late office partner and beloved friend Jim Webb was informed by his doctors that his life expectancy was at most a year.  The following day Jim came and sat down in my office to share this news with me.  But unlike most people who had just received a death sentence, Jim instead looked up at me with that trademark smile of his.  “You know,” he said, “a person can do a lot of good in a year.”

“How then can we live?”  It is an age-old question, as mankind from the very beginning of creation was granted free will; thus, giving us the freedom to decide the answer for ourselves.  And while it is true that people experience different conditions not necessarily of their choosing, from slavery to privilege, from poverty to wealth, from illness to health, even within the most extreme of these conditions, humans still have the ability to choose how to live.  This is the core message expressed in Dr. Viktor Frankl’s classic book Man’s Search for Meaning, which is a reflection on his years imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.  That is where Dr. Frankl, considered the father of modern psychiatry, observed how his fellow victims would choose to live their lives even under the most horrific conditions ever imposed on human beings, when virtually all freedoms were taken away.  Yet even under those conditions there remained a certain freedom to choose.  While no one had a choice except to try to survive, many chose in addition to do all they could to help others as well.  Like my friend, they might have been thinking, “a person can do a lot of good in this place.” 

Due to the extreme aggressiveness of his disease, my dear friend was unable to achieve the year he had expected, nor the good deeds he had hoped to accomplish – at least not in the way he had imagined.  Although, the good he did is far more than he realized and is still being carried on.  So how did Jim answer that age-old question?  His older daughter, speaking on behalf of the family, expressed it so eloquently and succinctly.  “Dad’s mission in life,” she said, “was to bring God’s Kingdom to earth.”  The Prophet Micah said it this way: “He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8) 

“Let us not become weary in doing good . . .”  Galatians 6:9

I was having a delightful conversation with one of my former high school teachers at a recent school reunion when suddenly she caught me off guard.  “Dan,” she said, “I have to tell you, you and your group of classmates were some of the best kids I ever taught.  You were all just good kids.”  She must have noticed my astonishment, for she paused for a moment, smiled, then rephrased her compliment.  “Well, I should say if you did do things you shouldn’t have, I never knew it.”  “We did,” I admitted sort of sheepishly.

She obviously had never heard the story about our eighth-grade math class.  We had a teacher back then whose teaching style was to deliver a short lecture, then hand out a page of math problems for us to spend the remainder of class completing.  After handing it out he would then excuse himself to the teachers’ lounge, returning just before the end of class.  As you can imagine with a bunch of unsupervised middle-schoolers, by the time he did return the classroom had erupted into total chaos, for which the girls received extra homework to be turned in the next day, and the boys were summarily marched out into the hallway where each received a series of stinging licks on the behind with an oak paddle (this was back in the days of corporal punishment).  Every student in the classroom was punished, that is except one – me.  Why I don’t know, for I was as guilty as my classmates.  To this day they still hold a grudge and have never let me forget it.

Notwithstanding stories like this one, though, my former beloved high school teacher was right.  We really were good kids, certainly as measured in terms of making good grades, participating in the right kinds of activities, and demonstrating potential for a bright future.  In preparing ourselves for success, in other words, we were doing good. 

Doing good, however, means a great deal more than self-accomplishment.  If that’s all it means, then I suppose getting away with mischief in eighth-grade math class fits the criteria for doing good.  Rather, doing good occurs when our accomplishments become focused on the good of others and serving God.  Then and only then do we experience abundant life.  (It took me years to figure that out.)  So, as St. Paul reminds us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

“. . . the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . .”  Matthew 20:26-28 

Back during my corporate days, I once became infuriated when our company changed one of its internal policy.  I was deeply opposed to the change, convinced that it would severely inhibit our ability to transact business.  I was so upset in fact, that I was determined to prove the “powers that be” wrong and that I was right, when I should have instead been focusing on ways to operate within the new guidelines.  Before long, my obsession caused me to lose sight of my real purpose, that of serving the customers and employees who I was charged to serve.  Only when I realized that my bitterness was robbing me of that true purpose did things begin to improve.  As it turned out, the new policy, once I learned to abide by it, proved not to be nearly as devastating as I had predicted, the work environment became much more pleasant thanks to my changed attitude, and business got back on track and once again began to grow.

Someone once described glimpsing into hell, only to see its inhabitants gathered round a banquet table set with a scrumptious feast, not exactly what one would expect. Closer examination, however, revealed people in bitter agony; for in spite of the great feast before them, they were unable to bend their arms to feed themselves.  A glimpse of heaven revealed the exact same scene.  Except in heaven there was great joy and celebration; for the inhabitants there were using their stiffened arms to feed each other.

Although this fable may have been intended to create an image of the hereafter, it may be even more descriptive of the here-and-now.  How often do we become obsessed with surviving or thriving – or proving we are right like I did – when our purpose is to serve?  Surviving, thriving, and proving ourselves right is all about us, and focusing on “us” will ultimately lead to misery as demonstrated by the stiff-armed inhabitants of hell.  Serving, however, is about others, and serving others is what leads to joy like the inhabitants of heaven experienced.

This is the leadership model Jesus came to demonstrate; for “. . . the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . .”  Or as Dr. Albert Schweitzer once claimed, “the only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve.”

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.”  – Psalm 133:1 

“There’s something I’ve been saving I want you to have,” he said.  Knowing in advance it was something special, my dearest life-long friend, Steve, then handed me an old one-dollar bill with my grandfather’s signature scribbled across the front.  Found, he explained, while clearing out his parents’ safe deposit box after they had passed away, he felt I should have it.  There must have been some sort of bet, we both surmised, between Steve’s father, John Chenault, and my grandfather, Eunice Wilson.  My grandfather obviously lost the bet and probably signed his name on the dollar bill to ensure receiving credit for paying his debt.

John and my grandfather had a special bond.  Though they seldom saw each other, for my grandfather lived in another town, they never missed an opportunity to visit – or more accurately, to bicker.  Both being crusty, opinionated and argumentative – one a staunch Republican, the other never voted for anyone but a Democrat – their conversations were mostly battles of debate and wit.  Yet, each one held the other in the highest regard, plus both men at that point in time served as the patriarchs of their respective families.

Though we lived across the street, our relationship with the Chenault family was much deeper than that of ordinary neighbors.  Steve and his sisters, Carol and Nona, were like brother and sisters to me – and remain so today.  The two families shared, cared, nurtured, and supported each other through the most joyful as well as the most painful experiences and emotions of life, and our parents served as intimate confidants, confessors, and counselors to each other.

So, it wasn’t so strange, really, that in the safekeeping of a bank vault among the most sacred family documents that John had placed a dollar bill bearing my grandfather’s signature.  For just as currency by definition is a covenant between the issuer and the bearer, so that dollar bill exchanged between two great patriarchs represented a sacred covenant between our families – one that has endured for decades.  Framed and prominently displayed in my home, that dollar bill is ever a reminder of that bond.  “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!”  Such has been the deep, binding, enduring, and committed relationship between our two families.

“Now go out and encourage your men.”  – 2 Samuel 19:7 

What motivates you more, the demands of others or desire for achievement?  My own response to the question goes back to my experience working for Bobby Fuller, the supervisor where I was employed part time during my last two years of college.  The job itself was sort of an assembly line operation that required only a moderate amount of skill, all of which was learned on the job.  It was Bobby who taught me everything, how to operate all the machines in the plant and how to perform every job function, so that in a short time I became proficient at most of them.  It was, however, boring work, not exactly what I wanted to do the rest of my life.  Yet, I can’t remember a single day I did not look forward to going to work.  Bobby was the kind of guy who just made you feel appreciated, and I worked hard for him.  Everybody did.

At the same time, I was working part time for Bobby I was spending the rest of my days across town on the campus of The University of Texas in Austin completing my degree in business and finance.   And it was, coincidentally, during those same years when Theory X and Theory Y management styles happened to be getting a lot of attention in business academia and corporate circles.  They were fairly new concepts back then (by that name at least) having been developed by Douglas McGregor of MIT’s Sloan School of Management in the 1960’s.  Essentially what the two theories suggest is this:  Theory X, which assumes people are inherently lazy and hate work, requires that managers must rely heavily on threat and coercion in order to motivate employees.  Theory Y, on the other hand, assumes people are naturally ambitious and actually enjoy work, thus respond well to positive motivation.  Using the metaphor of the carrot or the stick, in other words, Theory Y represents the carrot and Theory X the stick.

I’m pretty sure Bobby Fuller never heard of Theories X and Y, maybe not even in the context of the carrot-or-the-stick.  What he did seem to instinctively understand, though, was the power of positive motivation, through which he became quite effective in raising the level of productivity even in that rather mundane assembly line operation.  I loved working for Bobby Fuller.  Everyone did.  He instilled in all of us a desire for achievement, which would one day influence my own management style.  Every day a little voice in his head must have reminded him, “Now go out and encourage your men.”