What if we are born to be bad?

 I enjoy reading the plethora of articles in Smithsonian Institute's monthly magazine. One of those issues had on its front cover a sitting toddler in a diaper holding a red pitch fork, with two devil's horns on its' head. The youngster appears to be laughing. Etched beside this cherub are the words: Born to Be Bad? The article, written by Abigail Tucker, chronicles the depth of extensive studies trying to understand  human conditions.

What if we are born bad? I've never thought about myself that way. Given the 30 civil wars in 200 countries around our globe, oppressive dictators and the extraordinary number of offenders in jails and prisons across our country; maybe this is a worthy ethical question to consider. What's it mean to be bad?

Years back our 14 year old golden retriever, Rimsky (named for the famous Russian classical composer) passed away. It was a wrenching experience for my wife and I. All three of our children grew into budding adulthood with this pooch by their side. If you have been a pet owner you will understand our grief. We adopted him into our family when we lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our eldest son was starting his last year at Queen Elizabeth High School. We figured that if we were ever going to have a dog, it was  now or never for our two teenage sons and 5th grade daughter. Golden retriever puppies are so much fun - just like any other squirming breed. But goldens grow up. They get bigger. Little legs that could not hop out of a cardboard box eventually can, if so motivated, retrieve elements from the kitchen counter. After one particular incident, where a complete block of butter went missing, the culprit was obvious. In response to Rimsky's behavior, I remember we said, "bad, bad dog" multiple times. When this happens most retrievers and labradors put on the most guilty demeanor - making you feel like a heel for harshly correcting them.

When we use that word, its connotation suggests that whether it be a pet or a person, that behavior is outside acceptable boundaries and can be most offensive. What are acceptable boundaries in our culture? How have they been identified and established? We call them laws. If you watch on your television the local news you will hear and see a variety of unacceptable behaviors attesting to murders and arrests, with their subsequent penalties in the breaking of local laws.

I was flipping through my bible the other day and I ran across this interesting statement. "The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself. If we keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other (Galations 5:14-15)." Depending on how we satisfy our own desires and needs, can lead us down a slippery slope. Are we born bad? No, but we've been endowed with a free will and depending on the temptations before us, that free will can really mess us up, if we are not careful. 'Better to love your neighbor within safe boundaries.

Be Well.

What If Simone Biles hadn't experienced the twisties?

 "The best thing Simone Biles did on her way to her ninth U.S. title won't show up in the score sheet".

So this story needs to be repeated from the Tuesday, June 4, 2024 issue of USA Today written by Nancy Armour! "...At 27, Biles has a perspective she wouldn't have - couldn't have - as a younger gymnast. So when she noticed Suni Lee, whose career was nearly derailed in 2023 by a kidney ailment, have a scary turn on vault, Biles did something not often seen in the sport. Biles went on to find Lee, who had gone backstage to try to compose herself, and ask if she was OK.  She asked if Lee had gotten lost in the air, as Biles had at the Tokyo Olympics. When Lee said no, Biles told her to take a deep breath and trust in her gymnastics. Everything, Biles said, was going to be alright." Lee is currently the reigning Olympic all-round gymnastics champion.

    "She just helped boost me up and get my confidence back up, because at that point, I was kind                 of thinking that this was over," Lee said. "It was really nice having her in my corner. It just felt               so good because I knew I was having a hard time, and she was just there."

Though Biles' World Champions Centre teammates were beginning their rotation on floor exercise, Biles stayed with Lee, offering her more words of encouragement before she went up on the bars. As Lee climbed up on the podium, still looking apprehensive, Biles stayed close by, cheering her from the floor. Her shouts of "C'mon! C'mon!" could be heard as Lee did her routine - a near-flawless one, mind you - and she clapped enthusiastically when Lee landed her dismount." "...Jess Graba, Lee's long-time coach, reached out to give the four time Olympic champion a pat of gratitude on the back. That's what a good leader does," Graba said. "She saw what  was going on. First event, that can throw you off. (She said), 'Just stay in your game.'"

Not staying in the game can be the beginning of an end - be it big or small, important or not, Lee's kidney ailment cut short her final season at Auburn, with months in-between filled with darkness and doubts whether she'd be able to return to her love of gymnastics.

"I just knew that she needed some encouragement and somebody to trust her gymnastics for her and to believe in her. So that's exactly what I did," Biles said. "I've been in her shoes, "Biles said, alluding to her experience in 2021 in Tokyo, where mental health issues and the isolation of COVID restrictions resulted in a case of the 'twisties' causing her to lose her sense of where she was in the air."

Due to her desire not to risk her physical safety, Biles withdrew from four individual event finals before returning to win a bronze medal on the balance beam. It took many months before she was comfortable trusting her gymnastics again. "I knew how traumatizing it is, especially on a big stage like this, and I didn't want Suni to get it in her head," Biles said. "So we just went and talked about it while she was in the back and then, when she came out, I went to support her."   

What if Simone Biles had not experience the twisties? Imagine the loss, not just to Suni Lee, but the whole U.S. Gymnastics team and the pride of America. 

    "Biles did not have to show grace to a competitor who was struggling. That she did, speaks                     volumes about who she is in a way her many medals cannot. Biles could have left Lee to                         fend for herself and no one would have thought a thing of it." 

Simone's actions reminds me of a Bible verse from 2 Corinthians9:8, "And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance." Regardless of our choices in life, be they employed or not, retired, even disabled - Simone's example is one each of us can emulate, if we so choose.

Be Well,

What if Nobel had never existed?

    I grew up in New England. When-ever life leads me back there, I buy a copy of the daily Boston Globe newspaper. While back in my home town, the front cover of a Boston Globe caught my eye. There were five graphic headlines. One of the articles was entitled "Nobel Peace Prize Goes To: Banker to the Poor".
    What if Nobel had never existed? Our world might be a totally different place today. Do you know where the word Nobel comes from? Could it be a place, a person's name or a term for some kind of action? If the truth be told, this singular word is all three. The Nobel Peace Prize is named for Alfred Bernard Nobel, born 1933 in Stockholm, Sweden. A shy pacific introvert, Nobel was a chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer AND the inventor of dynamite. In 1888, a French newspaper erroneously published a premature obituary. That column stated, "The merchant of death is dead, Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday". Those shocking words goaded him to leave a better legacy to the world after his actual death. He endowed a $9,000,000 dollar fund in his will, giving the yearly interest as awards for individuals whose work benefited humanity. He wanted the profit from his invention to be used to honor human ingenuity. First awarded in 1901, five years after he passed away in Italy, the Nobel Peace Prize is still the most honored in the world.
    The Globe's article began with these words: "Bangladesh economist Muhammad Yanus and the Grameen Bank he created, received the Nobel Prize for leveraging small loans into major social change for impoverished families. The Grameen Bank's pioneering use of micro credit has been duplicated across the globe since Yunas, known as the 'banker of the poor', started the project in his home village four decades ago. Loans as low as $9 have helped beggars start small businesses and poor women buy cell phones and basket-weaving materials."
    My point? Good  realities can come out of bad ones. The Nobel Peace Prize is known the world over. But the reason it exists, is because of an ill-timed and vindictive obituary. It reminds me of a lesson from Genesis, the first book in the Bible. There was a fellow by the name of Joseph, whose brothers were jealous of him. So they conspired together, ganged up on him and sold him to and Egyptian slaver owner. Amazingly many years later, Joseph had become the Egyptian pharaoh's chief magistrate during a devastating famine, affecting much of the Middle East. His brothers came from afar, east of Egypt, to buy grain. They had to deal directly with Joseph, whom they did not recognize. But Joseph recognized them, and could barely keep his joy in check, while in the presence of family. Eventually he reveals his identity, reminding them of them selling him to an Egyptian years before. He says to them: "don't be angry with yourselves, that you did this to me - for God meant it for good." (Genesis 45:5)
    Your life's condition right now might not be very heathy. You may have made a number of blunders with money, your employer, your spouse, your children, or a sibling - like Joseph's brothers to him. But you need not wallow in water already over the dam and down the stream. You may view yourself as stuck in your ways, have broken bridges and created a general mess for yourself. God is ever available to receive you for the first or the umpteenth time - just as He eventually  reunited Joseph's whole family in Egypt, redeeming years of regret, separation, sorrow and loss. All you need do is ask for His help and follow what comes to you.

Be Well.

    

What if the vigilance for authenticity can make a significantly positive impact on our lives?

 What looks true - may not be! One of my weekly emails keeps me focused on being faithful to my call. Entitled Leadership Wired, it's free and you can sign up via www.injoy.com. This is a resource profiling the books and thoughts of Dr. John Maxwell, one of the world's leading motivational speakers, and primarily to corporate America.

A recent Leadership Wired talked about having a legitimate leadership legacy. Peter Drucker, himself a well known writer and speaker on motivation says, "There is no success without a successor". As a graduate student, a statement from one of my professors has stuck with me all these 48 years, was 'seek to work yourself out of a job'. There's only so much one person can do, no matter how proficient a multi tasker may view themselves. As we progress into 2024 we hear and see the pledges of this year's candidates for the U.S Presidency as promises to voters. Business 2.0 asked fifty business superstars how we can succeed. Despite the diversity of those corporate leaders interviewed, three themes echoed through-out the responses. Those themes were authenticity, trust and simplicity. Imagine the mess if authenticity could not be part of our moral compass? So, what would such a vigilance give us?

Rachel Ray, one of America's cooking gurus on television and author of best-selling cook books says, "You can't be all things to all people. Whatever it is that you are successful at, that has to be your number one goal. In my case, it's accessibility. So all of my products have to be usable, accessible and affordable. Decide what it is that you are and then stay true to that thing. My brand is based very much on how I live my day-to-day life".  Former chairman and chief executive officer of Hasbro Toys, Alan Hassenfeld said, "Every product and every brand has a core essence. Don't sacrifice that core essence as you update your product".

Authenticity is all about truth. So where does truth come from? Ultimately it cannot be us - for we're created. We learn from others and follow their example - sometimes with disastrous results. But we can choose to be authentic and when motivated to be otherwise. I really appreciate these words from Philippians 4:8, a New Testament book. "Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about things." As one thinks, so he/she is. Thank goodness vigilant authenticity is an available clear choice for each of us.

Be Well.

What if we can smell the fragrance of God?

 It was a cold March wind dancing around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room for Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery. Her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24 weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver the couple's first daughter; Dana Lu Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing one pound nine ounces, the surgeon's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it. There's only a 10% chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one." Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation.

Diana and David, with their five year old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away. But, against all odds, Dana lived through the night and days hence. But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for these parents. Because Dana's undeveloped nervous system was essentially raw, the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort. So her mom and dad couldn't even cuddle their tiny baby girl in offering the strength of their love. As Dana struggled alone beneath the ultra-violet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, he parents prayed that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There never was a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as weeks went by, slowly she put on weight.

When Dana turned two months old, Diana and David were able to hold her in their arms for the first time. And two months, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of survival, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero; Dana went home from the hospital. Five years later Dana was a petite and feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and a unquenchable zest for life. She showed no signs what-so-ever of any mental or physical impairment.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Dana was sitting in her mother's lap at a local ball park. As always, Dana was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting close by, when she suddenly fell quiet. Hugging her arms around her chest, little Dana asked, "do you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied to her daughter's question, "Yes, it smells like rain." Dana closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?". Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, we're about to get wet." Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands, and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and her extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of Dana's first two months of life, when her nerves were too sensitive for her parents to touch her; God was holding Dana and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

Makes you wonder - doesn't it? "God tends His flock like a shepherd (Psalm 23). He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart" (Isaiah 40:11). If you have the kind of fear Dana's parents had, you have everything to gain by asking Jesus Christ to personally take care of what you fear losing. The beauty of God's love is that He has no bounds - He reaches out to all of us because He chooses to, inviting us to reach out to Him.

Be well.

What if Sterling School in Vermont Never Existed?

Back in 1967 I graduated from a high school with 25 other students. We attended a most unique institution in Craftsbury Common, VT. This place is within what is popularly known as the Northeast Kingdom. Cabot Cheese comes from that area, approximately 25 miles south of Canada. Some of us were in the precarious position for not being accepted to high school because of extraordinarily poor grades, complete boredom with the typical classroom experience or unacceptable rebellious behaviors. What if Sterling School, now Sterling College, in Vermont never existed?

Fifty seven years ago, Sterling began a unique yearly event, and it was a life changer for me. This was the Bounder experience, from Outward Bound USA survival training. I have five impressionable memories since 1965 which characterize Sterling's ability to successfully experiment with learning situations outside the norm. When I attended my first Sterling School reunion in 2008,1 it reinforced for me the school's continuing vision to challenge its own to excel in reaching their personal potentials and learn to thrive regardless of circumstances. Sterling's plan reinforces this line. "Count it all joy,... when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance." (James 1:2-3)

My five Sterling experiences, all borrowed from Outward Bound established us to be beneficiaries for surviving well. I remember Euell Gibbons, author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus, with his grizzled face, leaning down in a wet bog showing us plants side by side, safe and unsafe to eat. We all had to learn how to carry out an injured person in a heavy forest. I held one corner of a stretcher, struggling to walk over dead tree trunks without losing balance and dumping the student volunteer. Like the US Army's boot camp, we had to learn to scale a wooden wall 15+ feet high and get over it as a team. The fall portion of the Bounder experience culminated in a three-day December trek, not far from the Canadian border for 100 students and 15 teaching staff, bussed into a desolate region. My memories and Sterling yearbook photos chronicle the rigors we endured. I did three years of slogging through one to two feet of snow for hours each day, enduring uncomfortable basic backpacks, making camp for two really cold nights with no tents, just self-made lean-tos, sleeping bagged and fully dressed on hard packed snow. In the late spring of the new year, every senior had to experience a three-day solo bivouac in order to graduate. Each of us were dropped off a mile apart, left with little: a six foot square plastic sheet, six feet of heavy-duty string, six matches, sharp jack knife, sleeping bag - all in one of  the winter's backpacks with extra dry clothes. As soon-to-be graduating seniors, most of us didn't eat anything as it snowed that first night, kindling was wet and campfires were next to impossible.

As I ponder the effect Sterling played in my development of becoming an engaged young adult, an empty plot of ground comes to mind. Our lives are like that. But what will you do with your life, that empty plot? Picture a fallow field and a tilled garden. The purpose for that plot, our lives, is of the utmost importance. Fallow fields do feed on a daily basis by the wild grasses’ endemic to them. But, if we want to feed for a lifetime, the field needs tilling for planting to harvest crops. To have a producing garden demands the care of purposeful intentions. Sterling's sowing of its good seed upon the field of  my learning capacity did that for me then, and Sterling does that now. Never would I have guessed the seeds sown by this unique school would flourish after I graduated. 

" A man took a mustard seed. It's the smallest of all the seeds, but when grown, it's taller than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and nest in its branches."

Be Well,

What if ...mental illness can be a plus?

 Do you struggle with mental and emotional disabilities? I do. As a 1st through 3rd grader I had my own boys club. I was a budding leader. Entering 4th grade, something really nasty took over my earlier persona. My mind became captured by the scourge of severe dyslexia. My 4th grade class of 31 kids had a high academic level. But I was rock bottom with my best friend Mike. Most days I stayed after school to catch up, what I could not absorb during class time.

I am going to share my life story with disabilities along with answering this question. What if mental illness can be a plus? I went from the 4th grade to the 5th to the 6th to the 7th on public trial. Without my teachers in each grade willing to leave for home far later, I would not have been able to stay on point with my class. I could have easily succumb to a life wasted by drug or alcohol addiction as a fruitless way out of my misery! I was beset by frightful dreams, all with the same result - failing to graduate from high school. But I did graduate from high school and then four years in a popular Michigan college graduating with 2 earned majors in American History and Philosophy This second major was petitioned for and accepted by the Academic Affairs Board in the fall of my senior year.  

Immediately after college, I was accepted to grad school in Massachusetts and graduated 3.5 years later in 1975 with a masters degree and married Nancy, a classmate and my best friend. I have enjoyed a 52 year career in a variety of social service fields. But in the Winter of 2002 I experienced career burn-out  and clinical depression. To heal, I worked in large Boston, MA city hospitals for two years. The emotional  long-term by-product of dyslexia led me in becoming a career co-dependent and in my psychiatrist's opinion in 2003, I was now in the grip of Bipolar 2. For those of you who cannot imagine what that word implies, it's one scary pit. It took me almost 20 years to admit this mental illness to myself. 

Mental illness creates all kinds of baggage. What are we to do in making sense of issues and actions that make no sense? Where is the plus in that? Yet, consider Howard Hughes who suffered from a lifetime of OCD while becoming America's first billionaire or Ted Turner, a life-long dyslexic who with that disability created and launched CNN, the first 24-hour television news channel. "How do you not let mental illness control you? "Be in touch with your emotions. Accept you are feeling a certain way, let yourself feel that way and then take action to diminish unhealthy feelings. You can't control that you have mental illness, but you can control how you respond to your symptoms." Feb. 1, 2019 - nami.org

Would I trade even one iota of my life for something safer, more predictable, less confrontive? Not on your life! Why? I can assure you for every negative loss, 3 to 5 pluses were born. Even though I still struggle with these mental illnesses, my life has been very rich. My career employment includes five states, and we've also lived in Singapore and the Philippines from 1979 to1980. My family of five, from 1993 to 2000, enjoyed living in the cosmopolitan city of Halifax, Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada. As a non-citizen I had to renew my yearly work permit with Revenue Canada and Immigration.

I've come to the conclusion, that God is a fan of the KISS principle, as well as being a phenomenal wordsmith. If your faith walk is Jewish, Christian or mainstream Islam, interaction with God's Word prior to the New Testament is probably familiar to you. Recorded in Psalm 73, verse 26 an individual named Asaph wrote "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the rock and strength of my heart and my portion forever". That is what I have faced, yet nourished by my walk with God and scriptures like this one. So, if you or a friend struggles with mental illness, try reaching out to God, for you need not allow the sum of your disabilities to define who you are.

All facts in this article have been researched through reputable resources, without plagiarism.

Be Well.