Stick a Needle in my Eye

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” – Edmund Burke

Stick a Needle in my Eye

“It looks as if I’ve arrived with perfect timing!”  Phil said as a greeting, when he walked through the restaurant door.

He’d been with his aged mother at an appointment with her doctor for most of the afternoon and had just dropped her at home before coming.  It was now evening and he needed a little food and rest because of his busy day.

“My mother has lost most of the sight in one of her eyes now.”  He said with a concerned look on his face.  “I was with her, in her doctor’s office, so she could get an injection in her eyeball.  We’re hoping it will stimulate improved vision in that eye.”

It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to lose vision in one or both eyes for most people.  And, it sends a shutter down one’s spine to think about having a needle stuck into one of their eyes.  And, Phil’s story brought to mind that one childhood rhyme, about sticking a needle in an eye. You know the one!  Many of us have used it as a way of offering increased assurance to another.

“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”

At this thought, that rhyme seemed to become a virtual haloed-ticker-tape, rotating round and around Phil Grimm’s head as he recounted his afternoon of offered reassurance to his mother.  It wasn’t the same kind of assurance as the now haloing-rhyme though.  His is a more simple, practical, loving and effort-based assurance.  

While speaking of the importance of effort, Edmund Burke once offered this assurance, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

And here was Phil, sitting at the table, still wearing his virtual halo, and down-playing the difference his small effort was making.

“It’s no big deal!” He said. “All I did was drive her there and then sit with her a while.  It was a lot more effort for her than it was for me.”

It would be a mistake, I thought, for him to do nothing because he viewed it as, so little.  What is a little thing to one, is often a big thing for another.

“It looks as if I’m finishing my dinner with perfect timing!”  Phil said as he pushed his plate away with a satisfied look on his face.

He was now getting ready to go to his aged mother’s home again, so he could help her get ready for bed. It was now late evening and she needed a little more reassurance, so she could rest.

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”  I thought to myself, while saying goodnight to the man who thought he was doing very little.  Something small.

Because, he could do a little, something small, it was a lot to She who received it!  Rest assured.

Fence Building

“I honestly don’t know how to keep living with this!” – Glenn

Fence Building

Tears were streaming from his eyes.  His voice was cracking from strong emotion as he spoke.

“I honestly don’t know how to keep living with this!  I don’t know how you continue to do what you’re doing.” Glenn said as he spoke, to another, of his experience of rescuing others from extreme danger, people who would surely perish without receiving aid from others.

She listened to him with compassion and responded with, “It fuels me to work harder to provide relief to others.  But, yes. It’s hard every day.”

It was a discussion that seems to be more and more common these days, I thought.  One could characterize such as conversations about fence building.  At least, those were my thoughts while driving, just two days ago, when one particular fence caught my eye.

It was a yard, perimeter cedar privacy fence.  You know the kind; about six feet tall, weathered, painted-red and surrounding the back yard of someone’s house.  I wouldn’t have noticed it at all had it not been on an expansive corner lot as I turned from the road in front of the house to drive south to go to another meeting.  It was the fence’s worn red color that caught my attention first.  But, it was the sign posted on that fence, it’s contrast, that caused me to drive on a little further, to a point where I could safely turn around and go back.  Go back to that contrast and observe it more carefully so as to absorb its message.

It’s a distinctive message painted on a piece of standard plywood, about four feet long and perhaps two and a half feet wide.  The printed words are stenciled in paint, including those on the black mail box perched on the bottom right-hand corner of the contrasting white sign.

The printed-upon-mail-box lid reads, “Prayers Here” with an arrow pointing down, toward an opening.  The front of the rectangular box reads, “Thank God for his love.”  And all of the lettering on this black box is a stark white. While all of the lettering on the white sign is a midnight black.

The words stenciled on that white sign read, “PRAYERS WORK!  Place your written prayer request in the box.  Someone will pray for you. Or take a request and pray. Requests kept confidential and anonymous.”

So, I pulled out the pen, which is almost always tucked into the front seam of my shirt, just above a button to help hold it in place.  I scribbled a note on a scrap of paper; a receipt from a purchase a day or two before.  Then, I opened my car door, stepped onto the paved road, lifted my right foot onto the curb, walked across the sidewalk, opened the box and dropped my note into the box.

“For Glenn and all others like him, who are building fences!  Not to divide or keep others away, but to protect others, the down-trodden, those needing shelter.”

I paused, pulling the lid of the mail box down, giving it a little pat, while sweeping my lingering fingers along its smooth surface.  Then, I turned back toward my car, walked a similar path back, slid into its cocoon and sat for a moment. Pondering.

That’s when I rehearsed the words spoken by my friend David about one week ago.

“There are days when I just want to stay in bed and pull the covers up over my head.”  He said.  “People are so mean these days!”

So, of course, I added another request to that little black box, hanging on that fence.  That’s when it dawned on me that this painted-red cedar fence was originally built to separate, to divide.  Yet now, the same fence is purposed to build protection for others, offer hope to the down-trodden and provide respite to those needing it.

I thought of the tears streaming from my friend Glenn’s eyes again.  His voice was cracking from strong emotion as he spoke.  I remembered him and David.  This painted-red cedar fence had reminded me that we’re all fence builders, every one of us!  

“What kind of fences am I building?”  I asked myself as I began to drive ahead again, vowing to generate more purposefully created fences of hope, respite and kindness that very day.

Old Kia Kima

“I don’t know what it is about this place.  The people involved in its reclamation have become very successful over the years.” – Boyd Billingsley

Old Kia Kima

“This place was an old Boy Scout Camp.”  Boyd explained as he spoke of the camp on the south fork of the Spring River, in the Ozark Mountains.  “A developer purchased the property from the Boy Scouts of America with hopes of building vacation homes there.  But, the soil was so rocky it couldn’t pass the necessary percolation testing for septic tank installation.”

So, the old camp sat there, unused for a few years until it became a dumping ground.  People had begun to use the site to dump old refrigerators and other kinds of trash.  The roofs of the sixteen old stone cabins had also collapsed by the time Boyd Billingsley and his group of friends came back to visit the forty-acre old camp, now called “Old Kia Kima.”  When they saw their beloved camp and its one and one quarter mile of river frontage in such neglect, it broke their hearts. So, they devised a plan to reclaim it.

“I don’t know what it is about this place.  The people involved in its reclamation have become very successful over the years.” Boyd says.

Their plan was to purchase their treasured memory.  The spot that had changed their lives as children.  But, that wasn’t their whole plan.  They also determined to restore the camp, allow groups focused on children to use it at no cost and then to establish an endowment fund to keep it running well past the end of their humanity.

“It cost us about eight thousand dollars per cabin to complete the restoration.”  Boyd said with tears in his eyes.  “We went to the old scouts and their troop masters who had loved it to ask for help in obtaining funds.  We didn’t have any trouble raising the money to complete the restoration because neither their memories, nor their love for the place had waned over the years.”

The groups using the camp today are generally about sixty-four people in size.  These contemporary campers simply pay a deposit of one-hundred-fifty dollars and that’s it!  The historic camp is available for use by youth service organizations at no charge.  If they leave the camp in the shape in which they found it they get the deposit back.  Most groups simply donate the deposit so it can be added to the mushrooming endowment fund as a way of giving back.  And, giving back is the continuing theme of the camp.

“I invited a friend to come and be a ranger at the camp with me for a few days.  I told him all we’d need to do is sit on the side of the river and enjoy the scenery.”  Boyd said as his voice cracked with emotion.  “We had an orphanage using the camp during that week and we were so affected by the ‘rag-tag’ group of kids, we wanted to be more involved with them during their stay.”

Boyd and his friend got more engaged by helping a trio of sisters get into a canoe so they could experience the river first-hand.  The girls were having a great time right up until they hit a rapids section of the river.  As they were passing through the rough water their canoe overturned and the girls were bobbing in the water with their safety vests floating them along.  The two rangers jumped into the water and pulled the girls to safety while making sure the three sisters were well.

“One of the girls cried and cried!  We couldn’t figure out what the issue was until we looked down and saw that she had lost one of her sandals.  We told her it would be alright, but she sobbed, ‘these are the only shoes I have!’”   Boyd continued.

After diving in the river to find the missing shoe, the two men jumped into their car and drove to the nearby town to purchase the fraught girl an additional, new pair of shoes.   They also purchased tee-shirts for the entire group of orphan-campers.  Of course, they couldn’t leave the store without stocking up on all kinds of healthy food and treats for the kids to enjoy during their stay at Old Kia Kima.

“My buddy told me this was the most fulfilling thing he had ever done in his life!”  Boyd said.

“This place was an old Boy Scout Camp.”  Boyd explained as he spoke of the now restored and functioning camp on the south fork of the Spring River, in the Ozark Mountains.  “A developer purchased the property with hopes of building vacation homes there.  But, the soil was so rocky it couldn’t pass the necessary percolation testing for septic tank installation.”

The founders of Old Kia Kima understand what it’s like to have a rocky start in life and this camp was the catalyst that changed the trajectory of lives many years ago.  So, they’ve dedicated themselves and their camp to removing as many rocks as possible in the lives of those who have followed them.  They’ve been at it for twenty-five years now and they’re gaining momentum as evidenced by the balance in their endowment fund.

“I think we’re almost there!”  Boyd said.  “It won’t be long until we have enough in the fund to keep our camp moving forward when we’re not able to be Old Kia Kima’s Steward-Rangers anymore.”

When Numbers Don't Add

“I have thought and thought about my own actions!” – Dawn Howe

When Numbers Don’t Add

“I have thought and thought about my own actions!”  Dawn Howe said while relating the pieces of a long drawn out story of consternation.

She didn’t know it at the time, but the beginning of this story began at her small Southern Utah, local airport when a private aircraft landed.  Dawn and others, who were meeting at the airport, watched the unknown plane taxi from the runway and park just outside the small terminal.  A few moments after the engine wound down a hatch on the side of the plane opened and the pilot climbed down the stairs.  It was someone she didn’t know, yet would have a huge impact on the long-standing personal relationships in her life.

“This guy talked big from the moment he walked off that plane!”  Dawn explained as she began to review her process of basic addition.

Dawn’s process of addition is simple math that everyone of us can use when faced with complex issues in dealing with others.  Dawn says she developed this approach because she “needed a way to reduce confusion” when interacting with others.  You see, the pilot of that airplane began a cascading process of dividing lifelong friends as soon as he came to town.

“He began to tell us all different stories!  We were trying to help him as much as possible because we wanted to believe he was a good person.  It wasn’t until my friends and I got together to compare notes that we began to discover discrepancies.”  Dawn said as she described the man’s use of long division.  “As my friends and I compared our experiences it became clear he was using the mathematical principle of long division to separate us!  That’s how I thought of using principles based on mathematical proofing to solve my own clarity issues.”

Dawn honed her own proofing process by using similar mathematical proofing theory to reach logical conclusions and calm her emotional turmoil.  Here’s how she describes her method of “proofing.”

First, I mentally reviewed every person in detail and said, “What’s their track record with me?  As soon as I had gone through this process I had a clear picture of everyone.  It was like taking a stack of personal head shots and laying them on the table next to each other.  That was like seeing the answer before even completing the math!”  Dawn said.

“Next, I asked myself, who have I known the longest?  I relied on my personal experience with more than one person, variable, in the equation and weighted each variable accordingly.  I sort of labeled everyone involved and identified them by the length of my interaction experience with them.”

Finally.  She asked, “What has been my experience in working with each person?  Then, I added up all the pieces and found only one variable that wasn’t compatible with all others.  That one variable didn’t add up!”  Dawn expressed with a clear sense of relief reverberating from her tone.

Her relief in finding a comforting solution is something each one of us can related to.  We’ve all faced complex personal relationship issues in life similar to the one Dawn has been going through.  

“It’s amazing how confusing life can become when we’re interfacing with others who aren’t acting with honor.  I like to operate on a basis of trust.  That approach has worked for me very well, until it didn’t!  Now I have one more tool that allows me to clear my head and see if things are adding up!”

“I have thought and thought about my own actions!”  Dawn Howe said while relating the pieces of a long drawn out story of consternation.  “I also found that I could add my own actions to the actions of others, based on historical evidence, to give myself a mathematical proof for mental and emotional clarity!”

What that means is, when you’re facing numbers that don’t add because someone, or something new flies into your life, go back to the arithmetic you learned as a child.  You remember it well.  Two plus two equals four!  

Even when others try to fly other numbers around in an effort to convince you it doesn’t.  Two plus two still equals four.