A Cup of Conversation – October 2015

Number 30 of the 33 notable things observed over the past twenty-five years of living and doing business in a small town says,

“Understand the inherent moral contract of employing young people. With the right guidance and encouragement, any one of them just may change the world for the better.”

We’ve employed hundreds of young people in the last quarter-century. It is our legacy. We didn’t know this starting out but now clearly understand the truth and purpose why we were placed here. The tyranny of the urgent ruled the early years blinding me to the truly important. I think Mary intuitively knew the value she poured into these kids early on although neither of us could have known the greater import over time. We recently had to let one of our own go. It doesn’t happen very often but it happens. The kid didn’t get a fair shake but in the end made it impossible for us to make it right. I was not paying close enough attention and the opportunity expired.

As the sun begins to set on our small town life, I’m haunted by the dead sea of lost opportunity. What may have been and what was but didn’t have to be gives me great pause. It’s a cause and effect world we inhabit. There is a cost for every decision we make. That is very sobering, especially in the context of influencing young lives. The young have the innate capacity to receive. The not so young tend to merely take. Why is that? Receiving is an investment to pay out compounding dividends over time; taking is simply consumption without return. We’ve been entrusted with the power to shape not just young lives but the exponential connections made over a lifetime and generationally. It is a staggering thought. Teachers, counselors, mentors and leaders are instinctually governed by this principle and those who are not should occupy a lesser space.

For all of us there is a final day. No man knows the hour but as years pass by that day looms ever closer. Everything inanimate and animate in the known universe is meticulously measured. To believe sentient, mature life with millions of human connections affecting generations will not be subject to some metric of accountability is a little naïve. It’s a reasonable wager (an appropriate word here) the final metric will have something to do with what‘s been invested in other lives, the good and not so much. In a consumption society, life is quantified by perception of happiness, how much we possess and subjugate the world around us. A pond that shallow can’t feed many fish. Interestingly, the same pond looks deceivingly deeper from afar. Shallow ponds have not springs of living water so foul easily and often dry up in a single generation.

As I write this column, we are celebrating our 25th anniversaries (marriage and livelihood) at the Tu Tu’ Tun Lodge on the mighty Rogue about six miles upriver from Gold Beach. It’s a spectacular setting too exquisite for words although Mary calls it a thumbprint of God. That’s remarkably accurate. It is raining so we’re lounging by the fire overlooking the beautiful expanse of moving water and the surrounding abundant life it nourishes. Rivers are symbolic of life because they are dynamic; ever in motion to serve everything living they touch.

The flames in our cozy fire have settled down but the ember’s red glow deepens with my contemplation. I’m afraid that more grace and goodness have poured into our clay vessels than we’ve poured back into others so I am accountable for and sincerely regret every precious, wasted drop.

Be good not bitter.