Category Archives: Perseverance

Show Me What You Wrote

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“The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.”

— David Hare (b. 1947.) British playwright and screenwriter, whose works probe truth, belief, and the human condition.

Sometimes in the hush of evening, when the lamp spills its amber light and the world grows gentle, I watch. His head tilts slightly, caught by the glow, and suddenly, the years loosen their grip. The lines that life has written across his face soften; the jaw loosens, light as breath; the mouth, so often set in quiet thought, curves with the ease of youth. His eyes, clear and steady, seem to brighten from within, carrying a spark that belonged first to a boy and then to a young man. Slowly, the present thins. I see him slipping into his past. Fifty. Thirty. Twenty. And then, for the briefest moment, the man beside me becomes the eighteen-year-old he once was—time erasing each layer, revealing what was always there: the young man, quietly returning.

As I glance elsewhere in the room, I see an artifact from his past—one that has crossed time and threshold to find its place in ours: the grand piano. Massive and unyielding, it took four men to wrestle it off the truck and ease it through the doorway. Yet here it rests, polished wood catching the lamplight, waiting.

At this moment, I still hear the sound as his hands moved across the piano earlier in the day—measured, assured, easy. And I heard “For All We Know” rise into the room, each note carrying a hush that reached backward in time. The melody was not just music; it was memory, and it wrapped itself around him, around me, around the room itself. Ruby retreated to the bed, but not fully at rest. She leaned forward, her body stretched long, her head angled as far as she dared—as though even she knew the swell of sound carried us into places layered and deep. She held herself at the edge, cautious not to tumble into the wandering past, into the chasms of memory, beckoning us toward knowing and truth.

Elsewhere in the room, near the piano, another layer from the past peels back. Hanging on the wall is a sepia-toned etching—Salena Gazebo, number 8 of only 200, signed by the artist Carl Johnson. The lines are delicate, deliberate: the curving path, the quiet trees, the pavilion standing open like an invitation. It feels less like a structure than a memory, as if the paper itself breathed it into being. When I look at it, I sense not just the gazebo, but the moments once lived beneath it—the warmth of gatherings, the hush of twilight, the whispered vows of past lovers who lingered there. Dream and truth blur, as though the etching had captured not a place at all but a pulse of longing and a flicker of knowledge, carrying us softly toward knowing and truth.

In another room, on top of the chest of drawers, rest family photographs. Portraits, a chorus of faces gathered through years, smiling, standing, caught in stillness. They look out across the room with a quiet weight, less about who they are than the collective feel they give: belonging, continuity, the insistence that life moves forward even as it circles back. They do not need names to speak; their presence alone is enough.

Nearby, on a table, sits something smaller, more ordinary yet no less enduring: an iron toast holder. His grandmother’s. On his mother’s side? Or, maybe, his father’s? The lineage matters less than the fact that he kept it, carried it through moves and years, never discarding, never forgetting. The metal holds more than memories of bread he may never have seen toasted. It holds a thread of persistence, a reason to keep even the smallest objects close.

In the dining room, on a side table, another artifact gleams in silver relief: The Last Supper, framed, gifted to his maternal grandparents on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Sacred and commemorative at once, it shimmers with devotion, not only to faith but also to family. The silver has traveled down through generations, carried into his keeping, held as though letting go would diminish more than memory. It is a marker of continuity, of reverence, of love that lasted long enough to be honored.

And then there is the little boy riding a dog—a keepsake that belonged first to his father when his father was a child, before his life was cut tragically short. A small porcelain figure, a child astride a loyal companion, frozen in time. Yet in that figure is more than innocence; it is a bridge across absence, a way of knowing a father he never met. It survived when the man did not, passed on to him as both wound and inheritance, loss and gift. That little boy on the dog rides still through the years, carrying ache and legacy.

Through these artifacts, I glimpse the man I already know and love, his story unfolding in fragments that matter. In the little boy riding the dog, I see both wound and inheritance, a bridge across absence. In the Last Supper, I see reverence, devotion, love honored and passed along. In the iron toast holder, I see endurance, the instinct to keep and carry even what is small. In the family photographs, I see continuity, lives pressed together across generations. In the drawing of the gazebo, I see invitation and hush—the twilight blur where dreams fade into memory and truth. And in the grand piano, I hear the melody that threads them all together—still rising, still echoing, ever playing in the quiet of his soul.

These artifacts matter to him and, now, to me. I could point to others. But I won’t. Yet one more remains, quiet and insistent, the truest of them all—not carved in silver or pressed into porcelain, but carried in ink and idea. His 1965 high-school graduation essay. He was co-valedictorian. He was eighteen.

It rests inside his high-school yearbook, the Bluejay, its cover deep blue and gilt, its pages a mosaic of faces, cheers, and world events already turning into history. And there, slipped carefully between those pages, lies his speech—typed, carried through six decades of moves and seasons. The paper holds its shape, and the words stand sure, preserved as though waiting for their moment to be read again. In its keeping, I see more than memory; I see devotion—the instinct to preserve not only what he did but who he was becoming. It is an artifact, yes, but it is also a testament, held safe in the place that marked his youth and carried forward into the man he is now.

I smiled and whispered:

“Show me what you wrote.”

He lifted the page, holding it in his hands, just as he held it onstage sixty years ago. Soft at first, his voice grew firmer as he returned to the beliefs that had steadied him even then: that learning gives life its shape, that responsibility gives it weight, that hope gives it breath, and that perseverance gives it endurance. Sixty years have passed, yet as he read, I heard not only the boy addressing his classmates but the man beside me—the same convictions intact, the same spirit enduring.

In those moments, as his voice stretched back and returned to me across the decades, I realized that of all his artifacts, this was the richest. My partner, Gary T. Knutson, wrote those words in youth. They carried him into a future he could not yet imagine. And they anchor him still—steadying him in the present, guiding him toward tomorrow. The piano may sing, the photographs may remember, the silver may gleam, the porcelain boy may still ride—but they can only point, only hint. His own words, fragile on paper yet alive in spirit, opened the door wider. They revealed not just what he kept but who he was becoming, and who he still is.

That is the power of words—not just Gary’s words, but all our words. They outlast objects, outshine heirlooms, outlive even memory. In them can be found who we are when all else has been stripped away—values, beliefs, longings, the essence of self, laid bare. And more than that, words do not simply keep; they move. They persuade and console, ignite and endure. They reveal who we were, and they shape who we might yet become. That is their gift, and their power—becoming, in a way, stronger than stone.

Show me what you wrote, and I’ll see who you are—then, now, and still becoming. For words outlast memory and outshine the heirlooms we keep. They carry the essence. They carry the longing. And they proclaim the truths we’ve always held.

The Demons We All Wrestle

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“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”

— Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013)
British Prime Minister, nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her fierce persistence.

Swearing is not my thing. But right now—for once, maybe even on a stack of Bibles (to my Mother’s eternal horror)—I’m going to do it anyway. I swear that my daily demons line themselves up every night when I go to bed, watching as I lie there all peaceful like, orchestrating my next-day goals.

I see them out of the corner of my eye, leaning in, peering, looking carefully as I tap, tap my list on my phone.

And you know what? I swear, they’re waiting for me the next morning.

More often than not, they show up as soon as I start my biking, maybe because that’s how I start my day, right after coffee. I know that if I don’t bike then, I won’t bike at all. The first demon arrives before I even lace my shoes. It whispers:

“Why so early? You’ve got other things you need to do first. You can bike later.”

Nice try. But I’m on to that trick. I know that when it comes to biking, later never comes.

Another one comes at me from a different angle.

“Today? You’ve been doing this every day. You need a break. Take the day off.”

“Get behind me, Satan! I’m biking as usual.”

But get this. By mile three, another demon shows up:

“You’ll never finish.”

I keep pedaling, but the demons keep coming. By mile seven, I’m hearing:

“Yeah. Your butt sure is sore. If you keep going, it’s going to be sore as hell tomorrow.”

I keep on going. And so it goes, on and on through all the miles—10, 15, 20—riding against a whole Satanic chorus, chasing me faster and faster and faster.

Fiercely determined. Fiercely persistent. Fiercely anchored. That’s how I win the biking battle. Usually.

The next demon that hounds me is procrastination. Don’t get me wrong—I know better. I know the wisdom about “breaking things down,” about taking the first step, about Ben Franklin’s truth that “little strokes fell great oaks.” But when I’m staring at the big picture, the demon of procrastination is quick to pounce.

It starts yammering:

“It’s too much. You don’t even know where to start. Better put it off until tomorrow. You’ll see it clearer then, rested and fresh.”

And the sly part is—it sounds almost reasonable. That’s how this demon works. It pretends it’s looking out for me. But I know the truth: once I give in, tomorrow becomes the next day, and the next day, and soon the oak is still standing, unscarred.

So I fight. I start small. One tap of the keys, one page, one email sent. A single stroke against the oak.

Fiercely determined. Fiercely persistent. Fiercely anchored. That’s how I win the procrastination battle. Usually.

I have other demons, of course. But they’re far too personal to divulge for all the world to know. I’m not about to share them.

Like the demon that tells me that my writing will never be good enough to be discovered by a magazine or a newspaper syndicate.

Or the demon that mocks long-range planning at my age, reminding me that there’s far more behind me than there will ever be ahead.

And I’m certainly not going to tell you about the demon that wonders what waits on the other side of the great divide—the same divide every one of us will cross, where all have gone before to face the mysteries of beyond forever.

Like I said, they’re way too personal. So I’ll keep them to myself.

But I’ve gotten to the point in my life that my demons don’t embarrass me anymore because I know that to be human is to battle the demons that strive to undo us.

And besides, we all have our demons. You do, too. Some of them may be the same as mine.

Or maybe you have the demon of worry, who shows up right on schedule, carrying a suitcase that never unpacks. The demon of regret, who loves to remind us of choices we can’t un-choose, words we can’t un-say. The demon of loneliness, who doesn’t bother knocking—just slips in and makes himself at home.

Or the demon of disappointment who lingers when the prize you’ve chased turns out to be a shadow.

Or what about weariness, when the weight of the day presses like red Virginia clay, and every step feels heavier than the last.

And then there’s doubt—the slyest demon of them all—always ready with the same question:

“Are you sure you’re enough?”

These aren’t strangers to you or to me or to any of us. They’re regulars. They know the way in. They don’t need an invitation.

I’m fairly certain that I heard someone somewhere right now screaming in disbelief:

“Get real. Those don’t count as demons at all compared to the ones that I’m battling.”

I hear you. I understand. I’ve been blessed because I’ve never had to deal with the demons of addiction—alcohol, drugs, gambling. Or the demons of abuse—physical, emotional, sexual—the kind that scar the body and the soul.

I’ve never faced the demon of homelessness, not knowing where I’d sleep. Or the demon of hunger, not knowing where my next meal would come from.

I’ve been spared the demon of crushing poverty, the one that never lets you breathe free. And I’ve never lived under the demon of war, with its bombs and sirens and losses that can’t be counted.

But it seems to me—and yes, I know my limited experience might make this sound overly simplistic—whatever demon we face, we have to be fiercely determined. We have to be fiercely persistent. We have to be fiercely anchored. That’s how we win our daily battles with whatever demons come after us.

But let me emphasize here one key word that I emphasized earlier. Usually.

Being fiercely determined, being fiercely persistent, and being fiercely anchored enables us to win our battles daily. Usually.

But as we all know, some days we lose the battle. We all do. And when we lose, it stings. The demons strut, they jeer, they claim the day as theirs. They would have us believe that losing once means losing for good.

But they’re wrong.

Because a lost battle is not a lost war. It’s a stumble, not a surrender. And tomorrow—always tomorrow—the fight begins again.

The demons will be there, lined up and waiting, whispering their same old lies. And we’ll be there, too. Fiercely determined. Fiercely persistent. Fiercely anchored. Ready to face them.

We may not win every day. Sometimes, we do. Sometimes, we don’t. But we show up anyway. Because being human has never been about living without demons. It’s about never letting them have the last word.

And in case you’re wondering, let me assure you. They’ll be back. But guess what? We’ll be back—bruised, stubborn, laughing, and still ready to wrestle.

Digging Deeper: A Gardening Lesson Applied to Life

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“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

–Albert Einstein (1879-1955; KNOWN FOR HIS MONUMENTAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHYSICS AND OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE WITH HIS THEORY OF RELATIVITY, E=MC².)

Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” a shocking celebration of sensuality and self, is one of my favorite literary works. I especially celebrate the spirit of the poem’s ending:

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.”

I can relate. Under your boot-soles is exactly where you’ll find me after my time has come and my ashes are scattered.

Until then–hopefully far, far into the future–if you’re looking for me, you can find me outdoors, more likely than not weed whacking or working in one of my specimen garden beds.

Looking back, it seems to me that since early boyhood, I’ve been a wild child, outdoors communing with nature, usually in the garden, so much so that my family always knew where to find me. Even on the rare occasion when someone bruised my young, fragile feelings, I retreated quietly and without fail to the garden. My youngest sister’s high-pitched taunt still echoes in my ears as I recall stumbling over my lower lip while heading out the door:

“Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, going to the garden to eat worms.”

At that tender age, I learned that being outdoors comforted and healed. It is one of my most important lessons, ever. Emerson expresses with eloquence the truth that dwelt within my young boy’s soul:

“In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me” (“Nature,” 1836).

Down through the years, I’ve learned many other life-lessons in the garden, and from time to time, I’ve shared those lessons with you here.

I’m thinking especially of posts like “From Stars to Soil: Embracing My Family’s Gardening Tradition” (celebrating the interconnectedness of all life, a steadfast belief in the power of hope and renewal, and a deep-seated reverence for the sacredness of the natural world); “A War on Weeds: What the Heart of the Garden Said to the Gardener” (reminding us that the love of gardening never dies); and “The Joy of Weeding” (discovering what my late partner Allen experienced when he weeded).

Other posts about gardening can be found, too. If you unearth them, you will see that they all sprang up from the same celebratory soil. As we garden, we cultivate not just plants, but also the very qualities that enrich our lives: resilience, interconnectedness, patience, and mindfulness, reminding us to tend to our own growth and flourish in harmony with the world around us.

On the surface, it seems that I have nothing more to learn from gardening. However, as a lifelong learner, I know better. This spring, for example, I had a new epiphany while gardening. It wasn’t anything monumental upon which cults and sects are built. But it was significant enough that I want to share it with you.

I was working in an east-facing garden bed, running the full length of my home from the kitchen door, past the guest bedroom, the master bath, and the master bedroom.

The garden is 70 feet or so long and 30 feet or so wide. It begins with a small patio beside a waterfall cascading into the Koi Pond, and it ends with a towering granite Pagoda. Half-mooning its way between these two focal points is a flagstone walkway. On the narrow upper side is a bog garden, originally showcasing Pitcher Plants, Sundews, Bog Rosemary, Cardinal Flower, and Pond Sedge. On the wider side next to the house is a specimen garden with Clumping Bamboo across from the Koi Pond, a tall Hinoki Cypress, a Flowering Crabapple, a disappearing polished-stone fountain, an Alaskan Cypress, and a columnar White Pine.

It’s all that anyone would ever want a small garden to be.

But here’s the thing. When Allen and I put in the plants, we had no idea that the Pond Sedge, over time, would not only take over the bog garden but would also pop up in the specimen garden on the other side of the walkway. To make matters worse, we had no idea that the Clumping Bamboo would run wild all over the wide part of the garden.

It took many years before these two plants started popping up here, there, and everywhere. In fact, it wasn’t until this year that I had to own up to the harsh reality: the Pond Sedge and the Clumping Bamboo had invaded the garden so extensively that they threatened the well-being of the other specimen plants.

I bolted into action by mustering up my resolve to cut back all of the Pond Sedge and all of the Clumping Bamboo that had sprung up everywhere.

“There,“ I thought. “Not so bad after all.”

Wrong! It was worse than bad. Two weeks later, everything that I had cut back had popped up all over again, seemingly even stronger.

“Fine. I’ll cut it back again.”

In my mind, I thought that if I continually cut off the tops of the invasive plants, they would die because they would no longer have the source of their food supply.

Guess what? I was wrong once again. It’s now August, and I’m still cutting away the tops.

I’ve got options, of course, other than spectracides, which I loathe because of environmental impacts. I can put down barrier plastic, top it with mulch, and, eventually, the roots will die. Candidly, I don’t like that choice because I will be mindful that the roots are still there, lurking beneath the surface. That leaves me with one course of action: go ahead and do the back-breaking needful and dig up the roots now.

It’s sad, but it’s very true. I can cut back the tops over and over again, but the roots will still be there, not only spreading and intertwining but also running deeper and deeper.

As I tackled my gardening problem, I had a realization. To get rid of my invasive Clumping Bamboo and my invasive Pond Sedge, I have to get to the source of the problem. I have to find and remove the roots.

I chuckled–perhaps you will too–because I had not actually had a realization at all. I had simply had a gardening reminder of a concept that I learned decades ago.

You’re probably aware of it, too. But in case not, brace yourself. I’m not making this up. It’s a concept called Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

It’s not a new concept, either. Identifying underlying causes–root causes–dates back to ancient Greece, with philosophers like Aristotle who discussed the idea that fixing a problem requires identifying the fundamental causes.

Today, RCA is widely used across industries to find and resolve the underlying causes of problems, errors, and incidents, rather than just treating the symptoms. For instance, in healthcare, it’s used to analyze medical errors and improve patient safety by identifying systemic issues. In manufacturing, it helps pinpoint the causes of defects in production lines to enhance quality control. Similarly, in information technology, it’s employed to troubleshoot recurring system failures, ensuring long-term solutions rather than quick fixes.

If it works in industries, then it seems to me that it can have powerful applications in our personal lives as well. Actually, it seems to me that it can be applied to every area of life. It’s about digging deeper to uncover the true sources of our challenges rather than just addressing superficial symptoms. When we understand the root cause, we can make real, lasting changes.

Take health and well-being, for instance. When we feel run-down or stressed, it’s tempting to just blame it on a busy schedule. But what if there are deeper issues at play? Maybe it’s a lack of balance between work and rest, or perhaps unresolved emotional stress. By identifying the root causes of our health concerns, we can make more informed choices—whether that’s changing our lifestyle or seeking support—and improve our overall well-being.

Or what about our relationships with others? When tensions rise or communication breaks down, it’s often because we’re reacting to surface-level problems without understanding the deeper issues. Maybe there’s an unspoken fear or past hurt that’s influencing our actions. By addressing these underlying issues, we can build stronger, more authentic connections with those we care about.

We can even apply the concept to our professional lives to help understand why we’re not feeling fulfilled or why a project isn’t succeeding. Are we in the wrong role, or is there a lack of support in the workplace? Understanding the root causes of our career challenges allows us to take steps toward greater satisfaction and success.

On a broader scale, what about using the concept to tackle societal and environmental issues. Complex problems like poverty or climate change can’t be solved with quick fixes. They compel us to look at the underlying causes—like systemic inequality or unsustainable practices—and tackle them head-on. It’s only by understanding these root issues that we can create meaningful change.

Even in our spiritual lives, the concept can help us understand why we feel disconnected or adrift in our beliefs. Are there doubts or unresolved questions that need exploration? By examining the root of our spiritual struggles, we can embark on a journey toward deeper understanding and connection with our faith or spiritual practices.

These are just a few ways my gardening lesson of getting to the root of the problem can be a powerful tool for uncovering the truth behind life’s challenges. Whatever you are facing–and, at any given time, I’m confident that each of us is facing something that we want to fix or improve–I urge you to be determined enough and bold enough to go beyond the surface. But be forewarned. When we go beneath the surface into nooks and crannies where we’ve never gone, we find darkness darker than any we’ve ever experienced. But confronting the darkness in life is the only way that we can shine light on solutions that are not only effective but also lasting. Whether it’s our health, relationships, career, societal issues, or spirituality, dealing with the roots of our challenges allows us to live more intentional and fulfilling lives. Cheers to the hard work of digging deeper and making changes that truly matter in our lives.

Winning from Within: A Message for Graduates

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“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

—Carl Jung (1875-1961; a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology; explored the human psyche, emphasizing the importance of integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of the self.)

The air is sweet with success all around the world as another academic year draws to a close. A rightful sense of accomplishment and pride abounds as graduates, their families and friends, educators who guided them, and communities that supported them come together to celebrate this momentous occasion. It’s a milestone that marks the culmination of years of hard work, dedication, and perseverance, as graduates have demonstrated their commitment to excellence in various forms.

As I reflect on my own academic celebrations down through the years as an educator and as a student, one stands taller than the rest: Alderson-Broaddus University’s Honors Convocation on April 5, 1997. Held in Wilcox Chapel, it was the university’s forty-fourth annual convocation, and I was the speaker. I can’t begin to express how honored I was to be returning to my alma mater to speak on such an important occasion. What made it even more special was the fact that the invitation came from a former classmate, Dr. Kenneth Yount. Ken and I were both 1969 A-B grads, and as seniors, he was President of Student Government, and I was Vice-President. Ken went on to become A-B’s Provost/Vice-President for Academic Affairs, and, when he invited me to come back home to our mountaintop campus, I was serving as the Training Coordinator, United States Copyright Office, the Library of Congress.

In delivering my remarks, I had one goal: ignite a spark of introspection and perseverance among those being honored and those in attendance. I believe that my remarks achieved that goal, and I believe that what I had to say then is equally relevant to graduates today whenever they might be on their journey to tomorrow.

I am honored to share my remarks today with readers all around the world.

“Winning from Within”

Dr. Yount, President Markwood, Faculty, Honored Students, Parents, Guests: thank you for such a warm welcome.

When Dr. Yount invited me here today, he asked that I do three things.  First, he asked me to sprinkle my remarks with humor. Second, he asked that I speak from the heart about what Alderson-Broaddus has meant to me. Third, he asked that I talk about academic excellence. As an aside, he noted that I had to do all this–make you laugh, make you cry, and make you think–in no more than 15 minutes. What a challenge. In fact, I confess that it makes me feel rather like a mosquito in a nudist colony. I know exactly what I’m supposed to do. I just don’t know quite where to begin. 

Thank you for your laughter. You prove that I can be humorous. Believing brevity to be the soul of wit, now let me speak from the heart, from the heart about my experience here at A-B, from the heart about excellence, and from the heart about winning from within. 

I do so willingly. I spent four wonderful years on this mountaintop. They were so good, in fact, that I would live them again, and never once say, “If I knew then what I know now.” That’s no small concession, considering that I will turn fifty later this year. But I would live those four years again, because I am able to say–and do say, day after day–that A-B touched my life in ways that made lasting differences.

Let me explain. I grew up in a small town, the sixth child of a West Virginia coal miner. My mom and dad always provided well for us, but in reality, they lived rather anxiously from coal-strike to coal-strike, from pay-check to pay-check. But they rose above those financial challenges and instilled in my brothers and sisters and me a work ethic, the likes of which I have never seen. They made us know that there is nobility in work, that there is honor in work, that there is dignity in work, and that there is love in work. My dad labored for fifty years in the coal mines, but neither he nor my mother ever said to me, “You can’t grow up to be a coal miner.” Instead, they taught me this, and it stands as my earliest lesson, my greatest tribute to them: 

If a job is once begun,
Never leave until it’s done.
Be its labor great or small,
Do it well, or not at all.

That quote has governed my life–shaped my life–in ways that probably only a psychiatrist could unravel. But at least one part of it is woven in a continuous thread that requires no untwisting. As early as the fourth grade, I fell in love with words and how words relate to one another and how they serve as building blocks for ideas. I fell in love with the eight parts of speech. I fell in love with diagraming sentences. I took my parents’ guidance at face value and applied it to my love of English.

My classmates, of course, had no idea of how possessed I was by my love of the language. They had an even more feeble understanding of how driven I was by the work ethic that my parents had instilled in me. But I was possessed by my love of words. And I was driven by my work of putting words together. And if my classmates did not quite understand it then, they soon came to realize that they had better step out of my way whenever it came to moving to the front of the class in spelling bees, in parsing, in diagraming sentences, in writing assignments, and in essay competitions. Those honors and all those related to English were mine exclusively. I had claimed them. I knew the subject. I loved the subject. And I had no fear of hard work.

I can reflect smugly on my childhood accomplishments now. They were not easy accomplishments then. Every trip to the front of the class was characterized by no small degree of fear and trepidation. After all, I was only nine years old. But I believed my parents and never once questioned their guidance. I studied hard, worked hard, and played hard at what I loved to do. I knew from the start that my life’s labor would center around English, teaching English, whatever that might have meant to a fourth grader. I thought then that it meant, somehow, making the world a better place by helping others understand the parts of speech and helping them diagram sentences so that they could express their ideas clearly and, obviously, in a grammatically correct manner. Much later in school, I learned what the study of the English language really entailed, but in my nine-year-old world, it was quite sufficient for me to believe that studying English was a great labor, to know that my accomplishments in the field outdistanced my classmates. and to know that I would not leave my pursuit until it was done. 

Looking back, I am not too surprised by this turn of events in my life. Remember. I grew up in a small coal mining town. We had no library. Now let me tell you this. We had only two books in our house: the King James version of the Bible and Webster’s dictionary.  My mother dog-eared the pages of the Bible and preached and prayed it to the rest of us. Though always mindful of–and let me add influenced by–her spiritual travels, I dog-eared Webster and pursued my own adventures with the English language.

Imagine my parents’ surprise when I declared, again, as a fourth grader, that I was not only going to college but also that I was going to complete a doctoral degree in English. I had not the foggiest idea of how I, in a coal-strike to coal- strike, pay-check to pay-check household, would ever get there. But I believed fully that if I followed by parents’ guidance, stuck with what I loved, worked hard at it, somehow, the door would be opened. I went forward with blind faith, declaring finally in my senior year that I was going to West Virginia University or to the University of Richmond. I applied to both. Then I met Tom Bee, the Admissions Counselor here at A-B, when he visited my high school. I had no idea that his visit would redefine my life. But it did. He encouraged me to apply to A-B. I did and was accepted here as well as at my other two choices.

Thank God, Alderson-Broaddus saw my needs. It saw my needs financially. Remember my dad, the coal miner. It saw my needs spiritually. Remember my mother, the prayer warrior. It saw my needs intellectually. Remember my dream of becoming an English teacher.

How well I remember the summer of 1965 when I visited this campus for the first time. I had no decision to make. I knew from the start, in the inner recesses of my soul, that I was home, not in the Robert Frost sense that “Home is the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in” but rather in his sense of the word that “Home is something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” I am not certain I deserved the home that Alderson-Broaddus made for me when it took me in, in 1965.  And I am even less certain that I deserve to be invited back on an occasion of this importance. But it’s good to be home again, and I thank you heartily. 

I use as the springboard for my remarks today an oft-told story about an event that took place in Thailand. The year, 1957. The city, Bangkok. The players, a group of monks and a group of construction workers. The situation, a new highway that was to run smack dab in the middle of the temple. The monks had to move a 10 ½ foot tall clay Buddha from their temple to make room for progress. When the crane began to lift the giant idol, the weight of it was so tremendous that it began to crack. The head monk–the abbot–aside from being concerned about the immediate damage, became even more alarmed as rain began to fall. He ordered that the statue be lowered to the ground and that it be covered with a large canvas tarp to protect it from the rain.

Later that night, the abbot went to check on the Buddha. He shined his flashlight under the tarp to see if it was staying dry. As the light reached the crack, he noticed a gleam shining back. He looked closer at the gleam of light, believing that there was something underneath the clay. He fetched a hammer and chisel and began to chip away at the clay. As he knocked off shards of clay, the gleam grew brighter and brighter, and by morning, the abbot stood face to face with an extraordinary solid gold Buddha, weighing more than 5 tons.

Historians believe that several hundred years earlier, monks had covered the Buddha with an outer covering of clay to keep their treasure from being looted by an invading Burmese army. Unfortunately, they slaughtered all the monks, and their golden Buddha remained a secret until that fateful date in 1957 when the abbot recognized the gleam beneath the surface and dared to chip away at the clay, to find the real gold within. 

What a splendid discovery. Finding real gold, solid gold, within. In many ways, we are all like that Buddha, pure gold inside but covered with a hard outer shell that hides our “golden essence,” “our inner self,” “our real self.” Much like the abbot with the hammer and chisel, our challenge is to break through the surface to find our true essence, to find our pure gold, to win from within. 

Today’s Honors Convocation confirms that you have been hard at work with your own hammers and chisels. You have chipped away across academic classes and across academic disciplines. I am more than gratified to see that excellence in writing is being recognized in several fields. I am heartened to see an emphasis on Greek academic excellence. I am encouraged and touched and saddened–all at the same time–by the growing number of memorial awards. At the risk of singling out any, lest they be given a prominence equally deserved by all the others, I cannot help but note the awards being given in memory of Dr. Ruth Shearer and Dr. Louise Callison, two of my own English professors.

I salute you. You have broken through your own hard outer shell. Your own true excellence shows. Your own true gold shines. I salute Alderson- Broaddus as well, for its role in guiding you throughout this time of personal discovery and growth. Today is a shared celebration. As an institution and as individuals, you should feel rightfully proud of your accomplishments.

As I stand here, though, I cannot help but ask myself, “Why aren’t all your classmates being honored?” Wouldn’t that be wonderful? To have so many students recognized today that Wilcox Chapel would be filled in a celebration of collective institutional excellence.

In case I have not made my point clearly enough already, let me hammer it home one more time: we are all solid gold. We are all capable of achieving excellence. Just as I have never met an ugly person–and I have not–so have I never had a student who is not gold, not capable of excellence. Never forget that point for one moment. If you do forget it, now or later on in your life, your competition will do you in. Ounce for ounce, your classmates in the world are just as much solid gold as you and just as capable of distinguishing themselves as you. They, too, can achieve excellence. And to varying degrees, they are.  Like you, they have begun chipping away at their outer clay. But unlike you, they haven’t broken fully through the surface, yet, to see what’s inside. That’s what an undergraduate education is all about: taking the time to look within, to do self-exploration, to bring out self-awareness, and to find out who you are.  At no time in your life, even when you pursue graduate studies–and I hope that many of you will–at no time in your life will you ever again have the luxury of focusing, twenty four hours a day, on winning from within–on finding yourself–and of being sheltered all the while from the cares of a 9 to 5 work-a-day world by an institution like Alderson-Broaddus, of being nurtured by such caring and dedicated and learned faculty as are assembled with us today.  But I believe that you, unlike your classmates, have chipped away more broadly and more deeply. You have taken your pursuit of excellence to a deeper level. You have engaged yourselves in a more spiritual kind of search, a more personal search that has helped you become knowledge navigators in the academic fields you love best.    

But, looking ahead, what do you do?  It’s simple. 

● It has but three words. Stick with it. 

● It has but two words. Chip away. 

● It has but one word. Persevere. 

If you don’t stick with it, chip away, and persevere, your honor today will be short-lived. Here’s why. If you don’t continue to remain engaged in a spiritual search to find more and more of your real gold, more and more of your inner essence, if you don’t continue to develop your talents to the fullest, you will soon get side-tracked. You will soon start looking for self-love in all the wrong places, and you will ignore your own deep-rooted needs.  You will get caught up in the busy-ness of life, of trying to demonstrate your self-worth through external sources, through achieving a material worth that will be obvious to others–that they will notice, that they will validate, and that they will appreciate. That approach may well bring you pleasure, accomplishments, a coveted job, big bucks, status, and even success. Just keep in mind, though, that the world is filled with people who have spent their entire lives validating themselves through external sources. All too often, their stories end on the sad note of personal regret and profound unhappiness.   

Don’t wait for others to approve you. Respect who you are. Accept yourself. Approve yourself. Continue to tend to your soul, to develop the real you that lies beneath the surface, and to go for your own gold. Doing what you love should govern not just how you spend your time now, not just how you pursue college, but how you pursue your life. 

Find what you love. Then do it with dedication, with determination, with daring, with ceaseless work, and with dogged perseverance. If you do, just as you have distinguished yourselves today, so too will you lead lives of distinction that will bring honor to you, to your families, and to Alderson-Broaddus.

Again, I salute all of you on your accomplishments, and, again, I thank you for including me in your celebration.  

                 

More Mishaps & Memories

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“I’ve learned so much from my mistakes … I’m thinking of making some more.”

Cheryl Cole (b. 1983; English singer and television personality.)

Well, I don’t know about you, but this past week has been quite a week for me. I daresay that it would have been for you, too, if you had disclosed as much about yourself–for the whole world to see–as I did last week in my “M & M’s: Mishaps and Memories.”

I mean, it wasn’t too bad that I fessed up to not remembering the mishap that prompted the post in the first place, and it wasn’t too bad that I shared two foot-in-mouth mishaps. But what on earth possessed me–at the end of the post–to mention my IQ test.

Without a doubt, I did not need to bring up my IQ. Even now, after considerable reflection, I don’t know why I did. It’s not as if I don’t have an IQ. I do. But–brace yourself–I had to take my IQ test twice to find out my score.

Right now, the foot in my mouth is getting harder and harder to swallow, so I had just as well tell you all about my IQ test mishap so that I can gulp–and you can gasp–and we can all be done with it.

I was in the third grade. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to the test directions. I don’t remember. I just thought that it was one more fun thing to do on one more fun-filled school day. And everything was going along just fine until I got to the third test question. It was a math question, and it must have been a real challenge. I kept working away on it, and just when I figured out the answer, the exam time was up.

I flunked my IQ test.

“What do you mean? Of course, Brentford Lee has an IQ.”

“But it can’t be determined because he only answered three questions. He didn’t finish the test.”

“Well, give it to him again and make sure he knows that he has to answer all the questions.”

The whole mishap was more embarrassing for my parents than it was for me. It didn’t bother me too much because, in my mind, I blamed them. After all, they were the ones who had taught me:

If a job is once begun

Never leave until it’s done.

Be it’s labor great or small,

Do it well or not at all.

Naturally, when I was challenged by that math question, it became my job. I kept working on it all the way to the end of the exam time. In my mind, that question became my great labor. I was fiercely determined to figure it out. Until I did–and I did, eventually–I couldn’t begin to think about all those other questions. In my mind, they didn’t even exist.

Well, like I said, I had to take the test again to establish for someone’s benefit that I had an IQ. I guess I showed them a thing or two because I didn’t have to take it a third time.

But don’t ask me to tell you my IQ score. I can no more remember it than I can remember my Myers-Briggs personality type. I always have to have Jenni remind me. (Dear Readers, you do remember Jenni, right? She’s my dear colleague, who set me up for this mishaps-and-memories nonsense in the first place.) Anyway, I’m 75% certain that I’m an ENFJ. It’s the 25% J part that always causes me to ask Jenny. Unlike me, she remembers everything.

Here. I’ll prove it. I just sent her a text message:

What is my Myers Briggs type?

If I recall correctly, aren’t you ENFP?

P?

I know the E and P for sure. The other two I think are right…

See. I told you. Jenni remembered. I am ENFP, and I’m sticking with it for now.

Wow! I’m glad that I told you all about my IQ mishap.

Now I can move on.

I mentioned last week that the mishap that sparked last week’s post might have had something to do with cooking or baking.

Now, however, I don’t think that it had anything to do with baking. I have shared my one memorable baking mishap already in my “Baking Up My Past.” Remember? In my first childhood baking adventure, I measured the baking powder incorrectly. Neither I nor my mother knew until batter oozed out the door of our South Bend, woodburning-cookstove, onto the kitchen floor.

Obviously, I have had other baking mishaps down through the years. But I have my reputation to protect–in my own mind, at least, even if nowhere else–so I’ll keep those to myself.

As for cooking mishaps, I do have one that always makes me laugh. It proves, once again, how naive and innocent and unschooled I am in the ways of the world.

I’m not certain, however, that it can be considered cooking. Is popping popcorn cooking? And it involves a microwave. I’m fairly certain that preparing anything in a microwave can not be considered cooking.

Nonetheless, here’s the laughable mishap that might have been related to cooking, depending on your culinary views.

For years, I would have nothing to do with microwaves. But the time came when my oldest sister Audrey talked me into letting her gift me with a microwave. As near as I can remember, it would have been around 1994 when my now full-time home in the Shenandoah Valley was then just a weekend getaway. She thought that I could use the microwave, if for nothing else, for popping popcorn. I mean, who doesn’t like popcorn? So I accepted her gift, not realizing how big the microwave was nor how much it weighed. It was, after all, 1994, and by then microwaves had advanced a lot, and they were much smaller than the commercial refrigerator-sized RadarRanges that Raytheon brought out in the 1940s. I assumed that my gift would be modern and small, too.

Small? Not. It was huge. It took up nearly all of the island counter space in what was then my super-small, weekend kitchen.

But, hey. I’m always up for a popping good time. So I bought a box of Jolly Time popcorn packets.

I put a pack in my clunker microwave and stood there in full anticipation.

Nothing. No popping sounds. No popcorn aromas.

Nothing.

I tried again. Nothing. As my IQ test mishap demonstrates, I don’t give up. I went through the entire damn box and my entire damn evening. Nothing.

The next day, I took the box and all of the unpopped packets back to the store.

“I want to get my Jolly Time money back. This popcorn must be old. None of it would pop.”

I walked away with a refund.

A few weeks later, my sister called to see how I was enjoying the microwave.

I told her about my disappointing popcorn experience.

“What cooking mode did you have it on?”

“Say whaat? Cooking mode?”

She explained the controls and the various options.

“Run into the kitchen and check. I’ll stay on the line.”

I was back in a sec.

“It’s on … Defrost.”

Dang. Defrost. Needless to say, I felt like an idiot. For some reason, I never did like that microwave after that memorable mishap.

At last, I remember the mishap that started all of these confessions. It was decidedly a technological mishap, even more embarrassing than the microwave one.

This mishap happened in the late 1980s or early 1990s when Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone introduced Caller ID to its subscribers in Washington, DC. I had just launched my own side gig–Potomac Research Organization (PRO)–and I felt a compelling need to monitor my incoming calls.

Instanter I went downtown and bought myself new phones so that I would know who was calling me.

As soon as I installed them, I called my sister in Richmond:

“Hey. I just bought these new Caller ID phones. Call me so I can see who’s calling.”

She did. Her name and number did not show up on my phone.

I did the same thing with my oldest sister in West Virginia.

She called me. Again, her name and number did not show up on my phone.

I unplugged my phones, boxed them up, and on Monday, I marched in the store, asking that my defective phones be replaced.

What do you mean by defective?

I explained in detail my two “test” experiments with my two sisters.

The salesperson looked at me with a smirky smile that still makes me cringe:

“Have you enrolled in Caller ID with Chesapeake and Potomac?”

“Say whaaaaat? Do you mean to tell me that I have to buy new phones AND enroll in Caller ID? Well, I have never.”

I got my money back, and I was perfectly happy living my life exactly as I had been living it: answering my phone without knowing who was calling. Or not answering it at all.

Yes, indeed! Caller ID was the mishap that sparked the idea for last week’s post and for this one, too.

I wish that I could say that I have learned a lot from my mishaps. I haven’t. And I wish that I could say that I won’t have any more mishaps. But I will. And I will keep right on laughing through all the memories.