The World of Grandpa Don  

St John Climacus lived from 525 - 606. As we can see from the above quote, life then was not much different than life now. It may be that greed breeds envy. We want! When we see others who have the things we want, instead of being glad that they have obtained it, we wish we could have gotten it instead of them. It is of course the old "me first" principal. Ambition is good. It is the motivator for progress. But it should be progress for us all not just for me ... and everyone else be damned. If that is my attitude I'm afraid it is me who is ultimately damned. Tuesday evening our president, the one I didn't vote for, spoke of working together to solve the nation's problems. He is right in that respect. When we work together for a solution we make progress. When I try to obstruct a solution just because it is not my solution we get nowhere. The solution must be the one that benefits us all in the long run or it will fail. If I have no job and my neighbor finds work it is tough not to be envious but I must resist the emotion and be happy for him because the fact that he is working gives me hope and will in itself create more jobs because of what he can now spend and in doing so create more jobs, one of which may be mine. We should be happy in the good fortune of others because it is a sign of hope. If they can do it, so can we and we can do it without depriving others of their opportunities. Yes, there is competition, but it is a competition we win by being our best and not by manipulating the system to beat someone else out. We do not loose when someone else wins. We only loose if we either quit or surrender our integrity.

When I went for the mandatory counseling prior to applying for the reverse mortgage, the financial councilor calculated my net worth. It was higher than I anticipated ... in dollars ... but mostly tied up in assets and not in ready cash. But I I think we put too much stock in our net worth measured by monetary standards. What was the net worth of St. Francis of Assisi or Mother Theresa? I would rather that my net worth be measured in terms of my worth to my family and friends or to my church or the community as a whole. What have I contributed to the richness of life in terms of integrity and value added in kindness and sharing? And, by sharing, I mean sharing myself ... time, talents and abilities. I was once very stingy in that area and have a lot to do to compensate for past omissions. Or, maybe it was not so much that I was a slacker then but just wasn't ready. I had not yet reached my potential and had not been called to service.

So many of us, as far as service to our church is concerned, rationalize that we are "doing our share" by carefully calculating what needs to be done and dividing by the number of members. We apply that method to monetary donations as well as our time and talents. The problem with that is that the math is based on a false premise. Not everyone is able to participate and especially the unique way we are. Not everyone is in the same place in their growth of faith. Some are members in name only and it is completely unrealistic to count them as "active " members. My "share" is not dependant on anyone else but me and my ability and desire to share.

The same concept applies to life itself. I do what I can do. You do what you can do. Everyone has their own talents and abilities. Working together, and only by working together can we make this world livable and indeed prosperous. We must not only do our part, measured only by our abilities, but we must enable, in whatever way we can, others to do theirs. When they succeed and we succeed, we all succeed. And that, my friend, brings us to Confucius ...

On Wednesday afternoon I devoted about and hour to a visit from Jeni, the bank's Signing Agent, and signed a stack of papers for my Reverse Mortgage. It wouldn't have taken that long but she was very interested in my display of Keaton prints and that led to talk about family, hers and mine, and then to the story of my adoption and subsequent finding of more family. Of course I am always eager to tell that story to any audience. She left with my web site address and said she was very happy to have been here. I am always glad if I have been able to brighten a person's day and make their job more pleasant. It was a successful afternoon in many respects.

There was an automated phone call from Comcast, my provider for cable TV, phone and internet service. I was informed that they were working on an upgrade to their systems and that Thursday morning between midnight and 6 AM there would be an outage of about an hour to 90 minutes on my phone and internet service. Then, sometime in the next few weeks my internet speed would be doubled at no additional cost to me. How good can it get? It was nice of them to warn in advance even though I am normally fast asleep during those hours.

Bob Lewis sent an email with the story of a remarkable dog with an inspirational story complete with photos. The bad news is that like most of this kind of email from my friend, the photos come as a bunch of attachments and the text is interspersed with a series of blank boxes where the pictures should be. The good news is that I was able to google the first line of the story and found the web site which was the origin of the story. Not only that but it included a video which told and illustrated the story. It is definitely worth sharing and so I invite you to Faith. OK, here is More of the Story.  If you haven't seen enough, Check this out. "Faith the Dog on the Montel Show"

Yes, every life is important. A family, one which had troubles of its own, had faith that a deformed puppy could survive. It did and it thrived. In return the dog taught them that with faith the family could survive and it did. We can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I am amazed at how this dog can balance himself in order to walk but even more, how it can rise up from a laying position and how it can bend down to eat and drink without falling over. Mind over matter? Sheer willpower? Faith? And the greatest lesson here ... Where there is life, there is hope. Take away a life and all hope is lost. Of course, faith alone doesn't do the job all by itself. Someone has to act on it and do something. It takes effort. But without faith effort won't get started. Sure, there are times when what we think should happen, doesn't. But sometimes we put our faith in what we think should be and that is not the same as having faith in what God wants. We must put our faith in the right thing and keep trying until something good happens. In the case of the little dog, the people thought he could learn to hop and instead, he learned to walk. Sometimes what we think should happen just isn't what in meant to be and we need to take a different direction.