As a boy my Father took me camping and hiking as often as he could. Because of my frequent exposure to the great outdoors I grew a deep connection with being on ‘the mountain’ as we tend to call it. Sometime around the age of14 or 15 my school activities and friends started consuming most of my weekends and the frequency of trips with my Father dropped of considerably. This morning we had a reunion of sorts as we hiked Mt. Baden-Powell just outside of Wrightwood. We hit the trail as early as I could muster the strength to arise, around 5:30am and caught a fantastic sunrise over Mt. San Antonio. The trail was a nice 4 mile ascent and I seem to be paying for my youthful strides. It was great to chat with my Dad as we climbed. I’ve missed hiking with my Pops.
We just finished watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and I must say I was surprisingly pleased. After seeing the previews I thought it might end up being another Meet Joe Black for Brad Pitt. The movie had a great story line that was able to keep a good pace despite the lack of action and adventure. The tempo of the movie seemed seemed to echo the fact that a story was being told and that a life was being reviewed. Some movies I will forget, this one will remain with me.
Here are some of the highlight quotes that made me:
Think about moving forward
Captain Mike: You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.
Laugh out loud
Dr. Rose: Where’d he come from?
Queenie: My sister’s child. From Lafayette. She had an unfortunate adventure. The poor child, he got the worst of it. Come out white.
Consider the opportunities
Benjamin Button: Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
Be grateful for the future
Benjamin Button: [Voice over; letter to his daughter] For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.
I’ve been told that I don’t watch movies the way that most people do. Generally when I’m watching a good film I am dissecting the psychological motives and emotional underpinnings of the characters. I get involved in the character development and the story line and connect emotionally with the way the events effect the characters. This movie provided a lot of fodder for a guy like me. There was a lot to consider. To avoid writing an exhaustive list I will simply say that I was moved by the main characters desire to experience life and care for those he loved. He seldom considered his financial stature, perhaps because he had a better understanding than most of us that when you’re old all that matters is the sum of the points of views you have gathered and the total of the experiences to which you’ve been privy.
Do you ever just flip open the scriptures and find, seemingly at random, a verse that conveys a message that is tailored to comfort, guide or otherwise assist you in your present circumstance?
That happened to me twice this week. First it was Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 on Monday, and then just now 2 Corinthians 4:17. That our light afflictions worketh in us for a more eternal glory I concur.
Which scripture verses have touched you recently.
For my birthday my parents got me a subscription to getAbstract.com I love reading business books, self help books, books on psychology, biographies and the like but struggle to make time to dive into 300 page book after 300 page book. I’m excited to be able to read the professional summaries via getAbstract. In school Cliffs Notes were the bane of teachers dashing their hopes that their students would partake of all that the curriculum really offered. It the real world life is a little more about using Cliffs Notes and group prjects. My good friend Phil shared the first four lines of this quote with me yesterday:
- “A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
- Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
- There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
- And drinking largely sobers us again.
- Fir’d at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
- In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,
- While from the bounded level of our mind
- Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
- But more advanc’d, behold with strange surprise
- New distant scenes of endless science rise!
- So pleas’d at first the towering Alps we try,
- Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
- Th’ eternal snows appear already past,
- And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
- But, those attain’d, we tremble to survey
- The growing labours of the lengthen’d way,
- Th’ increasing prospects tire our wand’ring eyes,
- Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!”
- -Alexander Pope
- Essay on Criticism
I loves learning and am drinking deep the knowledge that can come from challenging life experiences.
“I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.”
As the US stock market has seen a climb in the last month and rumors of the economy ‘bottoming out’ have spread I have begin to see a shift in the attitudes of the citizens of this great nation. You hear it on the news, see it in the papers and it gets talked about in coffee shops. “Things just might be looking up“, they say. “Maybe this is the beginning of a brighter day” is replies the other mocha latte cappuccino with whipped cream and cinnamon drinker.
I am reminded of a story, a parable of sorts, that I often shared with people I taught back when I lived in Africa.
A man is rafting down a river when he loses both of his oars. Drifting down the river he soon hears the rushing sounds of cascading water and the realization that he is heading towards the top of a very large waterfall forces his mind to search for a solution. Unable to swim and left without a means to paddle to the shore he begins to pray to the Almighty for assistance. Just before the man and his vessel tumble over the falls the man notices a tree branch hanging out over just far enough over the river that he can jump and grasp the limb. Leaping, quite literally for his life, he grabs hold of the branch and climbs his way to the safety of dry ground. Upon reaching safety he offers another prayer, “Nevermind the previous prayer God, I figured it out on my own”.
I worry that we are doing that now. We are starting to see a little bit of light at the end of what has been a long and dark tunnel and we think we can get the rest of the way on our own. Like Benjamin Franklin pleaded with the Continental Congress, I beg you (and me) to remember that this branch didn’t reach out to us on it’s own, but to jump high, grab hold and climb to safety while the opportunity is before us. If this really is the bottom of the dip then it is time that we follow Jefferson’s advice and “join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations.”
I often write of how I reflect with great admiration on the Founding Fathers of The United States of America. Today I was listening to a podcast that including a quote from Benjamin Franklin during the Continental Congress.
The Constitutional Convention had been meeting for five weeks, and had hit a perilous deadlock. The large states were insisting that congressional representation be based on population; the smaller states wanted a one-state-one-vote rule. The entire effort to create a stronger union was in jeopardy. Eighty-one-year-old Benjamin Franklin, quiet during most of the deliberations, then addressed the group. According to James Madison’s notes, here is what happened next.
Here is what was quoted in the podcast:
Mr. President
The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other-our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.
To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service-
Mr. SHARMAN seconded the motion.
Mr. HAMILTON & several others expressed their apprehensions that however proper such a resolution might have been at the beginning of the convention, it might at this late day, I. bring on it some disagreeable animadversions. & 2. lead the public to believe that the embarrassments and dissensions within the Convention, had suggested this measure. It was answered by Docr. F. Mr. SHERMAN & others, that the past omission of a duty could not justify a further omission-that the rejection of such a proposition would expose the Convention to more unpleasant animadversions than the adoption of it: and that the alarm out of doors that might be excited for the state of things within, would at least be as likely to do good as ill.
Mr. WILLIAMSON, observed that the true cause of the omission could not be mistaken. The Convention had no funds.
Mr. RANDOLPH proposed in order to give a favorable aspect to ye. measure, that a sermon be preached at the request of the convention on 4th of July, the anniversary of Independence; & thenceforward prayers be used in ye. Convention every morning. Dr. FRANKn. 2ded. this motion After several unsuccessful attempts for silently postponing the matter by adjourng. the adjournment was at length carried, without any vote on the motion.
(Bolding and Italics added)
– –
These Men were amazing examples of how to blend Faith with Knowledge. In searching for this quote I found many others that may turn in to future posts as well.
I am grateful to the Creator for allowing me to live in this great Nation and for the Men who lived worthy of their call to lay it’s foundation.
A while back my wife entered a drawing for a free photo shoot by Lydia Tolman of LOYA Photography and won. Today was the day of the shoot and like most Men I was not overly excited. Lydia Tolman was a true professional. She never once got flustered by our rambunctious kids and truly seemed to enjoy her job. Here are a few of her shots, but check out her blog for more.
