A Life Well-Lived

My mom is a special and rare person. Her life has been a life of struggling against the odds, suffering setbacks, and rising with determination to make things better for herself and others.

Mom was raised in a religious family. Her dad was a pastor. After her dad (my grandfather) was killed by a drunk driver, my mom dropped out of school after only the sixth grade to get a job and help her mother. The second-oldest among 5 other siblings, she began to take on the cares of the family as her mother began to grow ill. At the age of 23, her mother died and mom was left to raise her younger siblings. Mom began to suffer grand mal seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Once her sister and brothers had graduated from high school, my mother eventually married a good-looking man who had been hitchhiking and was picked up by one of her brothers. This "man of the world" had charm, experience, good looks, and really knocked my mom off her feet. They married in the mid-60s and soon she had a son (my older brother). She soon was pregnant with another son (me), and during this pregnancy, she was abandoned by this "man of the world". I was born into a broken home to a mom with a broken heart.

Heartbroken and angry, Mom moved from her hometown in South Texas to a land far, far away (Washington State). She started over, carrying in tow her two sons and a niece that she would end up adopting and raising as her daughter. Thank God for welfare and government aid in America. Mom lived in government housing, ate government cheese, and slowly began to gain a direction for her life. With the help of government grants, Mom enrolled in Central Washington University.

Mom knew very little English at this point and only had a sixth-grade education. College was hard. English was hard. Life was hard. She got a tutor to help her understand the college-level English. She learned to take notes and get organized. She was going to school, working, raising kids and going to church. We shopped at St. Vincent DePaul stores (something like Goodwill today). Mom slept 3 or 4 hours a night and usually went the whole day without eating. Her health deteriorated. She graduated from the University in the mid-70s and got a job teaching in public schools on an Indian Reservation in central Washington.

Mom was on her way. Her English was good. Her Spanish was good. Her job, although not paying much, was steady and allowed her to be on vacation when her children were also on vacation. Sweet deal. Mom raised us with the Christian values she had known all her life. Her prayers and faith carried her through hardships, sickness, loneliness, heartbreak and poverty.

Today, Mom is 72 years old. She is hospitalized several times a year, every year, due to some complication with heart disease, strokes, epilepsy, or something else. She walks short distances with a walker and long distances in a wheelchair. She is still happy, positive, and full of faith. She is generous. She is compassionate...she feels for those who suffer. She is misunderstood by most people.

Her body shows the marks of a life of hardship, but the wrinkles on her face show the marks of a person who has learned how to smile through sadness. She has been the matriarch of our extended family ever since she began raising her siblings many years ago. She continues to influence her grandchildren and now great-grandchildren with faith, hope, and love. She prays for the entire family and views her own life as a life of blessing and success.

Through the years she has touched countless souls with charity, hospitality, generosity, and counsel. She has encouraged nurses while she is in the hospital, transformed marriages, fed the homeless, taken in strangers and nursed them to health, given away food, clothes, money, vehicles and even the tires off her own car to others in need. I have seen her convert vagabonds to faith in Jesus and cause backslidden preachers to return to the pulpit.

Time does not allow me to give justice to her life and story. The reach of Mom's legacy will only be fully known in Heaven, where angels will likely applaud her when she enters those pearly gates one day. She will receive her full reward for a life well-lived.

The Learning Process

I always taught my two growing boys that there are three ways that people learn about life:

• Learning From History

We are all humans and have some very basic instincts, drives, desires, and attitudes that are shared by all humans (past, present, and future). We as individuals would do well to read history books, autobiographies of great men/women from the past, and wisdom literature (The Holy Bible, for example). History gives us the benefit of evaluating the actions of others in relation to the outcome (fruit) that came from those actions. If we apply the life-lessons of history to our own life situations (marriage, family, possessions, etc), our lives would be greatly benefitted.


• Watching Others Make Mistakes

We all have relatives, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and acquaintances who are living testimonies. We see them argue, divorce, be selfish, be immoral. We see their lives become unfruitful and depressing. Yet, most of us live out the same soap-opera for ourselves. Why not take time to list the mistakes these folks are making along with their related outcomes? Then, survey your own life, and make sure you are not acting in the same harmful way.


• Making Mistakes Yourself

Yes, the old school of hard knocks. What a way to learn. Burn your finger, cry a bit, put ice on it, wrap it in a bandage, give it time to heal. If only a divorce could heal as quickly as a burned finger. What great pains we suffer as adults. Living like children, but demanding adult privileges. Most people learn almost exclusively using this method, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can learn from history and from others, and apply those lessons daily to our own experiences.

In truth, everybody in the civilized world with a minimal education will most like learn using each of these methods. In my opinion, the reason our society in America has so many social problems, crime, and general unhappiness is because most people are doing most of their learning by Making Mistakes Themselves! The school of hard knocks is a painful way to learn.

Aging

"You are as old as you feel". That's a nice saying and, to some extent, it is true. There is much value in having a positive, joyful outlook on life. Nothing brings on sickness like anger, impatience, constant anxiety, depression, sadness, etc.

With that said, it is an undeniable fact that we are all aging. We don't feel it until we hit our 30s. Then, age creeps up on us until the wrinkles and gray hair stare at us in the mirror. Then the symptoms of age begin to manifest: body aches, cracking sounds when we get out of bed, weakening arm strength, and a host of other ailments.

I just returned from Mexico where, among other activities, I sat with my wife's uncle Victor. He is 97 years old. A few months ago, he was still out-and-about, walking with a homemade cane, dressed in a suit and matching fedora. I expected him to live to be 100. I have memories of him only a few years ago, at weddings, dancing into the night with his "girlfriend". Each visit to Mexico gave me the opportunity to stop and greet him. He'd smile real big, always happy to see me, and he'd give me some words of wisdom.

I've always liked older folks. In my early 30s, a coworker once called me an old soul. This usually refers to a person who thinks deeper, older thoughts at a young age. Since I was a small boy, I have always found my place with friends quite a bit older than myself. At 11, I spent evenings visiting a 21-year-old who taught me to play guitar. At 14, my best friend was 30, and in my late 20s, my two closest friends were in their 50s. There was always something to learn from others with more "age".

As I sat with Tio Victor in his humble bedroom, I saw a man who had pushed the envelope of age to its breaking point. He could barely sit up. It took him a while to recognize me. He hadn't eaten solid food in days, and he lamented about pain in his eyes and jaw. A man who, in his younger days, had built all the houses in the neighborhood where he lives...now, he had no words of wisdom, no smile. Amazingly, his only illness is age.

As I looked at him, two words kept circling in my mind Life, death, life, death, life, death. Today someone is born...and today, someone is dying. It's not often that life allows you to watch someone whose life is ending. His life isn't being taken by sickness or murder or some tragic accident. His life is simply ending. My eyes filled with tears, and perhaps it was out of place, but I patted Tio Victor on the knee and said, “I will never forget you”. He chuckled and said, “Que asi sea, que no se olviden de mi” (translated: May it be so, that you do not forget me).

Palestian Democracy...

Well, we should be careful with what we ask for...we just might get it.

And so we have. Our government, along with others in the EU and United Nations, has been putting pressure on Israel to compromise with their Palestinian neighbors. Our desire for peace in the Middle East has driven our government to exalt democracy as the answer to the problem. The argument goes something like this:

"If democratic elections take place, the common people have the ability to elect their leaders and influence their country's destiny. They will elect leaders (government) who will rule fairly and embrace peace. Everybody wins."

Democratic elections lead to good government, and good government leads to peace.

Now that the Palestinians have expressed their social conscience by electing a Hamas-led government, the hard questions are being asked by reporters. Bush is asked, "Will you support a Hamas government that wants to destroy Israel?" His answers in a recent press conference were pitiful and way off the mark.

There's one ingredient that is missing in the "democracy" equation: Morality

History has taught us that a moral people want a moral government, and an immoral people want an immoral government. In these days of political correctness, the subject of morality is thrown aside and people look to governments for answers. What happens when immoral people express their desires in a democratic election and blazenly elect terrorists to rule over them?

It seems our government has forgotten history and ignored even the words of our own founding fathers. Our nation was founded by men and women who held to a moral and ethical standard that came from the writings of the Holy Bible. Whether they lived according to those standards in their personal lives is not the point...society held to a principal that was/is altogether good and they formed a Constitution whose principals came from that standard.

Does anyone know the teachings, foundation, principles and life of Mohammed (the founder of Islam)? Was he not himself a murderer, polygamist, and rapist? Look at history. Did he not call for the death of infidels? For your information, and "infidel" is one who does not accept Mohammed as the true prophet of Alah.

So, if you have a society whose social structure and morality are formed and influenced by the Qu'ran, what more can you expect? Electing a terrorism group (Hamas) as leaders is something to be expected.

Birth Order

Most people notice behavior patterns in others (family, friends, coworkers). It's even interesting to see repeated behavior patterns within families; like a pattern of divorce and single women raising kids, or girls marrying abusive men.

For years, though, I've noticed patterns in my family and in friends' families regarding personality. I notice that the youngest of the family is almost always an attention-getter, a jokester, and usually has a personality that jumps from wonderful to get-out-of-my-way in a matter of moments. Also, the oldest children have been the serious type, responsible, and not much of a sense of humor. And so it goes.

I thought this was interesting, but didn't follow up on my observations. I ran across a book called "The Birth Order Book" (Lehman). It's not a new book, been around for a while. While I really dislike Lehman's writing style and the fact that he goes into some long personal stories that I am completely uninterested in, the material regarding how birth order affects personality is just what I suspected.

Let me just say that if you're a man and going to marry someone, your best bet is to marry a middle-born child. Their personality is most suited to make a peaceful marriage...but expect jealousy and suspicion to be her weakness.

The Measure Of A Marriage

It's no secret that most marriages in America end in divorce. It's not just Hollywood movie stars and famous musicians that are unsuccessfully venturing into marriage. It makes me stop and wonder, "why is marriage so difficult for people?".

If we walked into a fifth grade classroom and were told that 60% of the kids in that class failed a third grade math test, we would be surprised. At the very least, we would ask some basic questions. Why are so many kids failing this test when they should already be masters of the subject matter? Who is responsible for this mass failure? Where did things go wrong?

So it is with the divorce rate in America. Why so much unhappiness? Why the rampant divorce rate? How could adults be such failures at relationship when they've grown up with relationships (parents, siblings, teachers, friends, relatives)?

There are no shortcuts in real life. There's a price to be paid for any success that is achieved. Even a successful gangster has paid a price and been diligent to achieve his notorious success. In marriage, the shortcut is called "me". The real diligent path to take is called "you". Whenever a person takes the shortcut in marriage, a breach is created. At first, a small surface crack. As time passes and that married man or woman continues to take that shortcut, the crack becomes deeper, longer, wider; until there seems to be only one solution to endless distance and arguing between the couple....divorce. Irreconcileable differences.

The differences between a married couple can never be reconciled, there can never be closeness, or lasting peace when one or both persons are daily taking the shortcut called "me".

The successful path in marriage is the long road of happiness. It's called "you". When the man turns from the "me" shortcut and decides to live for "you", then the woman is so fulfilled, knowing that her husband is living for her. When the woman ignores the daily shortcut in her life (me) and faithfully strolls down the path called "you", the man feels respected and sees his wife as a valuable person that he needs and wants.

The measure of a marriage is called Selflessness. A marriage can only be successful to the degree that both partners are selfless. Selfishness (me) is a marriage-killer.

Ask and you shall receive

I will post regular thoughts on various subjects and invite you to participate in asking questions or sharing your views on the subject. There is just one rule, your goal must be wisdom for yourself regarding a situation.