WISDOM PEOPLE

Sitting on our front porch on an early Saturday evening, listening to James Taylor, enjoying a breeze pushing the heat out of the way, and for some reason, thinking about the wise people who have guided me throughout my life. My guess is that most of them never thought of themselves as wise--they just had some key insights at the right moments. 

I think of my father who several times said to me when I was facing some situation I was not that happy about (like the time I was drafted during the Vietnam War), "Son, you'll never regret the experience." As I was doing KP or in some kind of training maneuver in Basic Training, I thought of his words and in those particular moments, they didn't exactly ring true. But later, I got it.

Then there was a man I worked with in Johnson's Department Store in my hometown of Medford. He would give me a task, and me being me, I made it harder and longer than it should have been. And after he watched me for a while he would say, "Make your head save your heels." i.e.-Think! I suppose it's somewhat related to that saying from the world of carpentry: "Measure twice, cut once." 

Then there was the woman at St. Andrew's United Methodist Church in Cherry Hill where I was the youth minister for 4 years. She gave me some advice on my spiritual life. She introduced me to "picture praying," in which you develop a picture of something you want or need in your life; see yourself enjoying your life in whatever way that which you desire creates for you...a new job, a new place to live, a healthy body, or see yourself or a loved one in white light, etc; let that picture replay in your mind throughout your day and days. If nothing else it will bring you peace.

The wisdom people of my life have been children, adults, or elderly. They have been people I've known intimately or hardly at all. They have given me simple insights or major paradigm shifts. 

Their wisdom has come through words or by example or both, such as the time when my middle son who was about six years old and was sitting at the table in the kitchen eating his breakfast, and I was at the sink doing dishes. He had a favorite mug that actually was from a time way before he was born. It was one of those milk-glass-like mugs with a picture of Hopalong Cassidy on the side--a cowboy hero from my childhood. I used to tease him about trading mugs with him, which pleased him to no end that he had something that I wanted. 

Anyway, I was washing that mug and it slipped out of my hands into the sink and broke into a gazillion pieces. His eyes got big and he came over to the sink and looked down and saw the remains of his favorite mug. I said, "i'm so sorry, Pete!" He looked up at me and simply said in a very comforting tone, "That's all right, Daddy--you didn't mean to do that." 

That day I learned the way of gracious forgiveness from the words and example of a child. I wonder what else we could learn from one another if we got our egos out of the way and simply listened to one another with open hearts and minds?