Inspired by Humility

Walter was among a group of poor young men from North Carolina who would take their Job Corps breaks and ride the bus to San Antonio, Texas. Our church was near the bus depot which made it a natural first stop for those guys. Seemingly at random, they would show up at our church, and our tiny congregation would take them in.

My family “adopted” Walter. I don't think anyone decided, it just happened. Consequently, on those weekends he would come to our house and blend right into our family activities. We never knew in advance when Walter was going to show up, but we always looked forward to it.

They say luck favors the prepared, but Walter's early life did not set him up for any of those favors. With a second-rate education, a severe speech impediment, and black skin, Walter's future did not exactly look like the American Dream. Walter, however, was humble and very lovable and, though he was our senior by a decade, my brother and I thought the world of him.

My family moved to northern Minnesota in 1975 and some years passed. In 1979 Walter made the trip to visit us up north. At that point my brother and I were in our late teens and we did everything we could to impress Walter.

One very fateful morning while “enjoying” my mom's infamous pancakes, my brother and I regaled Walter with all of our elaborate schemes to become excessively wealthy. Walter, who was by that time locked into a life of low-paying menial labor, patiently took it all in until we were finished. When we finally shut up, Walter simply said, “I'm laying up my treasures in heaven.”

Wow! Talk about cutting me off at the knees. You could say he took me down a few pegs, but really he took me up. Walter was, of course, referring to the teaching of Jesus that concluded with, “You cannot serve God and money.”

I was deeply inspired by Walter's humility and his steadfast refusal to covet what he could not have. He was free from the bondage of pursuing happiness in a place it could not be found. That event took place over thirty-five years ago, and I am still inspired. I know and have known many wealthy people in my life. I have even met a few billionaires. My observation is that Walter had more satisfaction in his life than any of those wealthy people could imagine.

I once saw a sign that read: Before you try to get where someone else is, check to see if they are happy there.

Socrates, the Lovable Buffoon

He was not much of a dog. I called him Socrates because he had such a pensive look. I assumed that look meant he was deeply philosophical at heart. I was wrong; that was simply a blank stare. The dog was kind of a buffoon.

He was half St. Bernard, half Collie, and who knows what the other half was. He had the noble character of a mouse, and at the first sign of danger Socrates would hide behind me. If there was any further indication of trouble, he would head for the house like he was being teleported.

He was lovable, however. At just over one hundred pounds, Socrates understood his job was to keep people's laps warm. The secret signal, that would get him into someone's lap, was a glance in his direction. That dog knew an invitation when he saw one, and he would RSVP instantly, and in person. At least he would reward his host with lots of long hair on their clothing.

Socrates was not overly active. In fact, he would eat lying down. When a car came down the driveway, he would bark lying down. When wild critters got too close to the house, he would make his threats lying down. Most of his aerobic exercises were accomplished lying down, unless he thought there was danger to someone, then he would hide.

One cold winter day, in northern Minnesota, I decided Socrates and I were going to do some dog sledding. I harnessed Socrates as he writhed about on the floor, calling me Benedict Arnold. I hitched up the dog sled, which heretofore had only been pushed or pulled by myself or my brother. And I rounded up my youngest sister who, fully bundled for the outdoors, weighed in at probably thirty-five pounds. It was all a simple process that took no more than two hours.

Our road was extremely rural. The road and the township were so rural, neither had a name. When we heard a car, everyone stared to see who was driving down the road. It was also a nicely snowpacked surface with a gentle hill. It was the perfect starter path for training Socrates how to pull the sled.

It would be an overstatement to call that singular attempt at dog-sledding a fiasco. It was more like a fizzle. No one got hurt. There was no runaway sled. My sister was not scarred for life. She may not even remember the event. It was simple, Socrates plopped down and looked at me like, “What? What do you want? Can't you see I'm, doing my only job? Lying down.”

Socrates as a puppy, leaning against me. sitting up was such effort.

I tried to inspire, cajole, even pull the dog, to no avail. The best I could do was push the sled down the hill and Socrates would leap aboard when the sled passed him. My sister would squeal with delight and the dog would smile in that deeply philosophical way of his.

Maybe, maybe he wasn't such a fool after all. Maybe he had that all planned out, to spend the afternoon getting sled rides down the hill. Come to think of it, when I finally put everything away and dragged my exhausted self into the house, Socrates was lying by the wood stove.

Well, at least I got a good midwinter workout out of the deal.

We fell for it!

Raising Rabbits for Fun and Profit, the booklet title read. My brother and I fell hard for that one. We read the book. We did the math. We got excited. We managed to negotiate a trade of I-don't-remember-what to get a rabbit hutch with eight or so compartments and a white rabbit in each. We must have talked our parents into footing the bill for the feed. And just like that, we were in business!

Multiplying rabbits turned out to be really easy. All the math and care instructed in the book was really unnecessary. We just dropped the buck into a female's cage for a five minute visit and in a few weeks, we were rich in baby rabbits.

I know you get the biology part, it's the profit part that you want to know about. Well, it so happens, we want to know about that part too.

Our expectations of prosperity did not exactly go as planned. It turned out finding a market for a gazillion rabbits in rural northern Minnesota in the 1970's was, let's just say, challenging. It was farm and hunting country, for crying out loud. There were wild rabbits in abundance everywhere. And everyone we knew lived on a farm … where they raised their own livestock, including rabbits if they so desired. Okay, it was not challenging, it was ludicrous.

In a few short months we had more rabbits than we could imagine how to get rid of. Our dream of affluence had become our bane. So, we made the only wise move left to us. We released the rabbits.

I wish I could say that was the end of the fiasco, but it was actually just the beginning. Rabbits have two annoying hobbies. You already know about the multiplying one. The other is, they burrow into anything soft. Not that anything soft in Minnesota was important, like insulation.

At this point I just heave a deep sigh as I recall the relentless rabbit “witch hunts” we conducted. If only we had eaten those first eight rabbits, I might still enjoy a meal of rabbit now.

The last vestige of the rabbit plague was routed on Christmas day. The well house was their final stronghold. And yes, it froze up and we lost water.

I'm not sure it's fair to blame the well house fire on the rabbits, since technically they were gone. We were just thawing the pipes out with what we called a torpedo heater. It was a long day by the time we got the well house rebuilt.

Every once in a while someone will offer me free rabbits. I just smile and walk away.

I am a Time Traveler!

I have mastered the physics! So far I can travel forward in time at 60 seconds/minute! I have worked out the illusion of faster, and slower, forward time travel as well. But I'm still stumped on going back in time. I know that's where the big money will be waiting.

Conventional wisdom claims that time is money. Jim Croce sang about time in a bottle. And if I believe the Rolling Stones, time is on my side. In my experience, however, time is not money, you can't get time in a bottle, and time is not on my side! In fact, it seems to be working against me more each day.

I am, by nature, an extremely goal-oriented person. This characteristic sets me up to routinely miss the journey, as it is said, on the way to the destination. Being goal oriented is of itself not evil. However, in my case, it is undoubtedly unbalanced. It is a continuous struggle to keep my “to-do” list from ruling my life. I suspect others have the same difficulty.

So, what is the point of my little ramble here? Maybe it is to remind myself of the permanence of past time and the uncertainty of future time. Ultimately, for every minute that ticks by, we get to choose how to spend it. Actually, we have to choose how to spend it. There is no such thing as saving time. Unfortunately, there is a lot of “everything else” that simply takes up our time.

I want to encourage everyone to intentionally spend their time on things that will have a lasting value. Choose wisely. Don't waste time trying to go back in time, but intentionally value the time of now.

With that resolved, where would you want to go if you could get a free time machine ticket into the past?

Gepetka, Prince of Gypsies

B-O-O-M!

The sound of the battering ram reverberated deep into the chest of the sleeping Gypsy. He sat bolt upright in a cold sweat with breath coming in short gasps and heart pounding in his chest. Gepetka's mind raced as he anticipated the second hit. It never came.

---

There have always been those whose sense of home is not rooted to a particular place, people whose allegiance is not devoted to a banner. They are their own community, with a sense of purpose that is not fettered to the expectations of their neighbors.

They are true sojourners in life.

They are completely unpredictable.

They are Gypsies … and they are full of surprises.

Gepetka, Prince of Gypsies - the third book in the Kingdom of the Falcon series.

Coming: May 2015