Debi Simons 
photo credit: Pixabay.com
What a weekend! On Friday night I got to be a part of a jaw-droppingly beautiful wedding and make my famous cheesecake cupcakes. Then, Sunday afternoon, our church hosted a 90th-birthday party for one of our members, and I was reminded of something that I’d heard at that funeral I attended earlier this summer and which gave me so much to ponder:
“He was all about learning new things.”
Usually I post about one media item per week, almost always a book but once in awhile a film. I think the last film I wrote about was Poverty, Inc. And I’ve already done a book post this week. But I’ve been going around with a line from this film echoing in my head:
All’s Fair: Love, War, and Running for President by Mary Matalin and James Carville, with Peter Knobler (why these two very articulate people needed a ghostwriter I don’t understand, but maybe they were busy), Random House, 1994.
Love & War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home by Mary Matalin and James Carville, Penguin Books, 2013.
What could be more appropriate reading during this deeply divisive campaign than the story of a married couple with profoundly different political views who have managed nonetheless to stay married and passionately connected for over 20 years?
So, now that I have captured your attention with this picture (since the title may not have done so), let me tell you three stories about this type of behavior:
1. In Washington D. C. a group of friends is sitting in the back yard having a party. Suddenly the barrel of a gun appears between two of the women. The gunman points it at the head of one woman and then the other. “Give me your money!” he yells. “Give me your money or I’ll kill you!” The group is frozen. They can’t do what he wants because none of them has any money. Someone tries to reason with the guy: “Wouldn’t your mother be ashamed of you if she knew what you were doing?” “I don’t have a mother!” he screams. “Give me your money before I shoot!”
Then one of the women who’s had the gun pointed at her head speaks up: “Would you like a glass of wine?” The man is completely taken aback. He lowers the gun. “Yes, I would,” he says. He takes the glass, then eats some cheese. In the end, he says, “I think I came to the wrong place” and leaves, carefully
photo credit: Wikipedia
Pollyanna is known for playing the “Glad Game” (not the “Gland Game,” as I originally typed it), taught to her by her father, in which she tries to find something to be glad about in every situation. The original inspiration comes when Pollyanna expects to get a doll from the “missionary barrel” but finds only a pair of crutches. Her father tells her to look on the bright side: She can be glad that she doesn’t need them!
Photo credit: Charles Steinbrunner/Dayton Newspapers, IncYou may remember that I was reminded of a short story by Eudora Welty while on a hike during Jim’s and my trip to Ouray CO last month. This is the type of thing that happens to me as a person who has spent her whole life reading: at any time some snatch of words, some character, some situation, will come floating into my mind and I’ll have a hard time not tracking it down. Now that everything is digitized, I always think that I should be able to find the source with a click of the mouse. (I also get obsessed and sidetracked by snippets of other types of material, mostly music and movies. It’s a wonder I ever get anything practical done! It’s fair to say that I’ve wasted hours of my life on such pursuits.)
photo credit: Wikipedia
The photograph, taken in 1967, is of McCain being pulled from Truc Bach Lake in Vietnam after his plane was hit by a missile, the start of his 5 1/2 years as a POW. What I find so interesting, and so helpful, in this story is that McCain didn’t act perfectly in this situation, and he admits that he didn’t. It would be foolish of him, and of us who read about him, to condemn him because he didn’t meet an impossibly ideal standard.
“Never let a day go by without learning something new.””No experience is a failure if you learn from it.”
“What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.”
I don’t think I can add much to these statements. That last one, in particular, is a real shove in the right direction. May I add a quotation from my own book on this subject?
“Time is even more unforgiving than money, because sometimes you can get your money back after you spend it, but that never, ever happens with time.”
How People Change by Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Trip, New Growth Press, 2006, available in multiple formats.
Another one of those books that’s been sitting on our shelves for years. At some point Jim was in a group that studied it, and he felt that the discussions were very worthwhile. So when I was casting around for a good Christian book to read in my early-morning study time I settled on this one. We had had some excellent teaching at our church lately about how God brings about fruit in our lives, and one of the big takeaways for me was that fruit, growth, and change all happen slowly and organically. Our senior pastor has said before, “You don’t make an apple tree productive by stapling fruit to the branches.” That’s such a funny illustration that it sticks in the mind. Can’t you just see the guy with the stapler and the bag of apples, reaching up to grab a twig and use his trusty Swingline?
photo credit pixabay.com