“If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.” – Leonard Cohen

Quieting Waves

He, Isaiah Cowherd, had been watching his friend from a distance for quite some time. He’d sensed a change in her, but couldn’t put his finger on what that change was. Then, one day he thought he saw her, one gas-pump aisle away.

He felt awkward for sure, so he found himself shifting his gaze. Soon, his fluctuating look became an almost constant stare. So, he reprimanded himself.

“I’m being creepy!” 

That’s when the woman he was staring at waved at him. She had recognized him and he felt relieved, as he walked over to say hello and apologize for staring.

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” he started.

He looked into her eyes earnestly as he spoke, so she’d know he was speaking from his heart. And, that’s when he recognized the difference in her! She had lost her smile.

“You’ve lost your smile,” he said. “Is everything alright?”

A wispy emotion flittered across her face as she replied.

“I’ll be okay,” she said unconvincingly, as if a shallow response would disguise the tsunami surely lurking below that artificially surfaced affirmation.

He knew there was something much bigger, too much to be held, in the small vessel to which she had assigned it. So, over the coming days and weeks he stood as if in a ship’s crow’s nest, on watch. 

A crow's nest is a structure in the upper part of the main mast of a ship, used as a lookout. Its position ensures the widest field of view, for lookouts, to spot approaching hazards. Using this metaphorical approach, Isaiah could continue to watch over his friend from a distance. Then, he watched, pondered and hoped to discover a way to help his friend find personal confidence and happiness again.

As he implemented this oceanic-based strategy, he remembered a particularly poignant line from Leonard Cohen’s poem, “Good Advice From Someone Like Me.” 

“If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.” 

This one line of inspiration, from Leonard Cohen’s artistic prose, allowed him to identify and chart a course he knew would lead him toward effectively helping his friend. 

Isaiah’s personal take on this mind-expanding stanza?

“If you expand and become a large enough container, the little ripples that are so easy to complain about, that affect you, won’t bother you anymore,”

From that point on, he worked to put himself in his friend’s shoes. He did the mental and emotional work to begin to see the world, as if through her eyes. To see his friend’s challenges and absorb them. Later, he would say that this practice turned out to be a “personal exercise of expansion,” increasing the size of his own ocean, until it was large enough to soften the waves decomposing the periphery of a good friend’s self-assurance. 

“Because,” he explained, “If I focus on my troubles alone, I’m living alone. But, if I’m helping with hers, we’re succeeding together.”

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"I'm a firm believer that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so I surrounded myself with people who are goal-oriented, who are always doing more." – Archie Swensen

Average of The Five

My daughter Annie and her husband Hector were visiting us for the Christmas and New Year’s holiday. They had driven from their home in Columbus, Ohio. It’s a long drive and they were tired when they arrived.

“We saw a fox down the street,” They said excitedly. “It was just lying, relaxing, on the grass, on the front lawn in one of your neighbor’s yards.”

Now, I had never seen such a thing in my own neighborhood. So, I was skeptical to say the least. Okay, I was more than skeptical. I thought they were suffering from the results of a long trip.

“They’re just tired,” I thought to myself. “It’s more likely a dog they mistook for a fox. After all, our own Harry Pupper, the cute little devil, minus the tie, could be easily mistaken for a fox under the right circumstances.”

So, I brushed off their claim as “highly unlikely.”

Now, since the beginning of dead-on-winter, I’ve been proven to be foolish for such a ridiculous assumption. Because, the same Annie and Hector announced fox has indeed become a recognized citizen of our neighborhood. I see him participating in neighborhood life often.

I saw him lounging on a neighbor’s front grass just the other day. He was soaking in the sun, looking very comfortable indeed. A couple of days later I saw him watching a group of teenagers play basketball together. The fox enjoyed the game, while relaxing on the grass, courtside. I even saw him walking down the middle of the road, aside a neighbor’s slowly-paced car, communing together in a friendly, neighborly way.

That fox is our neighbor! He seems to have settled in and has been accepted as a resident of spectacle and beauty. And, like all neighbors, I’m sure he has his detractors. Never-the-less, he is comfortable in the neighborhood and seems to be living, well, a rather un-foxlike life.

I’ve been noodling this seemingly un-foxlike-neighbor for a while now and made, perhaps, an interesting observation, based on a comment from recent summiteer of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, East Africa, after an eight-day climbing journey, Archie Swensen.

"I'm a firm believer that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so I surrounded myself with people who are goal-oriented, who are always doing more."

Has neighborhood fox become the average of the five neighbors he spends his time with? A relaxed yard lounger. A lover of friendly basketball play. A chatter with neighbors on the street. I can’t wait to discover his other two favored pursuits.

Makes me wonder who I’m becoming as a result of my own surrounding five.

Sorry for doubting you Annie and Hector!

“We all endure hard things.” – Steve Nolte

Enduring Hard Things

“We all endure hard things,” Steve said as he looked earnestly across the table. “It means you’re heading toward something better.” 

Steve calls this process of enduring hard things, “Purposeful Sacrifice.”

“There is purpose in sacrifice,” Steve explains. “It is a refinement process.”

It’s likely that no one understanding the refining process better than Steve Nolte.

Steve is an imaginative knife maker who is driven by an incredible passion for self-expression through his work. His creations are often noted for their unique style, elegance, and technique. As a result, his pieces often sell for thousands of dollars. He has developed a beautiful style that blends steel, stone, bone and wood into one-of-a-kind creations. His use of vibrant colors and strong lines make his work stand out among other knife makers, due to his innovative handle designs. He spends hours and hours refining the steel that he’s molding to become a knife blade under his editing, skilled eye.

Yet, the interesting thing about Steve, as an artist, is that his experience in life has been the gateway to his impressive refinement skills. He applies those honed skills beyond his art of knife crafting, because he first developed such skills to build his own character.

“We endure hard things; accidents, illness, all kinds of suffering. The key to maintaining happiness through it all is to recognize hard things as a refinement process,” Steve clarifies.

When we adopt this point of view, when this happens, we have the internal strength, steel, to continue on. Once a person knows that all crushing suffering or darkness endured is part of a birthing process, they begin to understand refinement. It’s all part of a natural process of becoming better, something more than we otherwise would be.

Steve is an all or nothing guy, so his passion for knife making puts him in his shop anytime he can get there. And, after a year or so of working entirely on his own he met RW Wilson, an old-time, more experienced knife maker. Steve credits RW with really teaching him about the most powerful aspects of the refinement process, related to knife making. 

“RW has been my mentor and has helped me more than I can thank him for. I also have had opportunities to work with other knife makers that have had a great impact on me. Brad Vice from Alabama Damascus continues to give me pointers and furnishes me with steel.”

These craftsmen, and his own life experience, have taught Steve that irritation often precedes instruction. And, it was this recognition that resonated with Steve as he developed his master skills as a knife maker.

“It’s true for crafting steel and it is also true for crafting individual character.” Steve instils.

Enduring hard things will allow us to become something of beauty and strength if we’ll allow it to. It is one of the most powerful aspects of refining character.

“We all endure hard things,” Steve teaches, as a master craftsman of knives and life. “It means you’re heading toward something better.”

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“Something prompted me to take the time to get to know this woman, a stranger.”

A Knife’s Edge

“We were volunteering in another country and were getting ready to come home,” Jason said. “It was our last day there and I was thinking of all the work we had accomplished over the last week. That was the moment a profound thought came to me.”

That was the moment of a life changing message, “There is a lot of work to do where we live!” That prompting changed Jason’s, and his family’s, life forever. And, it has transformed the lives of thousands more over the last three years.

“We came home. My wife and I sat down together. And, we looked at our grocery budget. It was $800 per month at the time.” He said. 

They decided to take a “knife” to their grocery budget right then, while sitting in their kitchen. They made changes as to what they were purchasing, so they could also feed people in need, where they lived. The Maxwell family decided to eat differently so they could donate their grocery savings to others in need. And, it also made a difference in what they were eating.

They made the choice to focus on eating fresh produce, nutritious food at home. And, it really made a dent in the cost of their food. They knew it would make a difference to the people in their community, if they donated the same, high quality, healthy food to those in need. It was a personal choice and they followed it up with more impactful action.

They invited others in their circle to so the same. Now there are several families partnering with them to make a difference. And, what a difference it is. They’re donating between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds of fresh produce to 1084 families, 3067 individuals, from their pantry truck every Thursday. 

“One Thursday I handed a food package to a woman, who stepped had up to me. Something prompted me to take the time to get to know this woman, a stranger.” Jason said as tears welled up in his eyes. So, he pulled the woman aside to hear her story.

She told him that she’d been awakened in the middle of the night, not many days prior, to find her boyfriend, of five-years, abusing her daughter. She gathered her children, at that very moment, and left in her car. They’re still living in that same car.

Jason filled her car with gas and food.

“She taught me about courage, strength and resolve,” Jason said. “Her actions showed me what it means to have bravery enough to give up everything in order to protect the most vulnerable. I understand the definition of resolve now, even if it means living life as if on the edge of a knife!”

Jason and his friends are a sheath on such a knife, a barrier between it and those who need help. They are the feet and hands of those amongst us who need sanctuary and food.

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