Stay Together

Stay Together

Our streets are less trafficked these days. Places of business have fewer customers. Many are closed. These are strange times in which we’re living. Most countries have policies in place for the protection of citizens from COVID-19, the coronavirus that is making its way through our populations. Unfortunately, these policies separate us from one another. We may avoid the disease of COVID-19 only to suffer from isolation and, in some cases, loneliness.

I’m reminded of a funny story about a tour group whose bus let them off across the street from a famous basilica surrounded by several lanes of relentless traffic. They spread out along the curb to try to cross the street when there was a break in the traffic. Some were darting out when they spotted their opportunity.

“Stay together!” the frantic tour guide shouted. “Stay together! "You cross one by one, they hit you one by one. But if you cross together, they think you will hurt the car!"

I think that is good advice in these unusual times. The best thing we can do is to stay together. It means helping out somebody who is out of work. It means sharing with someone who needs what you have - food, supplies or even some of your time. Stay together. 

We work so hard to keep ourselves safe. Staying away from others. Washing our hands. It’s easy to forget that the most important thing we humans can ever do is to reach out to each other. Just a phone call that says, “I’m thinking about you. How can I help?” Stay together.

I love bouquets of roses. But the reality is that they won’t last long without roots. Cut flowers die. And when I’m cut off from others, I die a little on the inside every day. So we need to stay connected.. Especially at this time - stay together.

Who needs you today?

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Brian Evans

Somebody’s Got Your Back

Author Jack Canfield said, “Human beings are not designed to go through life alone. No one has to bear the burden of tough times all by themselves.”

A television nature program captured an image of this idea well. It was an episode about a baby bear.

The cub was one of two babies born to a mother black bear, but his sibling died in childbirth. Not too long afterward, Mama Bear also died. The little cub was left alone to fend in the world.

But he was fortunate. He soon came across a huge male black bear who took a liking to the little guy. By the end of the day the adoption papers were signed and the little cub had a new friend and father. 

Papa Bear showed the cub how to forage for berries. He taught him which plants he could eat and which to leave alone. He showed him how to fish. Papa Bear taught the cub all the things a bear needs to know to get along in the world.

The two were inseparable...until the day they separated. The little cub found himself all alone when a hungry mountain lion crept up. The two locked eyes and terror ran through the bear’s heart. So he did the only he knew to do, the thing Papa Bear had taught...he rose up on his hind legs, showed teeth and claws, looked his enemy right in the eye and roared a fierce roar. Well, it wasn’t really a roar at all, but a tiny squeak. 

The camera panned back to the mountain lion who must have been amused at the little guy, and was surely preparing to enjoy a tasty lunch. The audience expected the lion to pounce any second. But something strange happened. A look of fear crossed the cougar’s face, he slowly backed off a few steps and then turned and bounded away.

The camera panned back to the frightened cub and now the audience could see what the little bear could not. Behind the cub, but not too far back, stood Papa Bear - up on his hind legs, all teeth and claws, with a deadly gleam in his eye. He didn’t growl, but then he didn’t have to. The lion got the message.

I love the image of the powerful black bear, ready to go to battle for a vulnerable cub. And that is an image I always want to keep in mind. No matter how helpless, frightened or vulnerable we feel, there is a strong and mighty force just behind us. That force is made up of people who watch out for us. Family and friends, children and colleagues and even strangers. There are more people behind you and me, ready to step in when needed, than we may ever know. 

We don’t have to go through this world all alone. And sometimes we will need extra help. We may need people to pull us through, to watch our backs or just to stand by.

Who’s got your back? Will you let them help?

-- Steve Goodier 

Image: FreeImages.com/Paul Flores

You Are One of Us

Salt Lake City, Utah, is a worldwide center for genealogical research. Even the big department stores sell genealogy supplies.

One newcomer to Salt Lake City, and a non-researcher, got a job as a clerk at one of those big department stores. She received her introduction to genealogy one day when a customer came into the store and asked, “Where do I find the family group sheets?”

The new clerk, with a shocked look on her face, answered, “Family group sheets? All we carry are the king, queen, double and twin-size sheets.”

I suppose family-sized bedding is taking closeness a bit far. But having family or close friends is one of the essential needs of all people. We long for emotional support and intimacy.

Most of us are familiar with studies that have shown that people suffering from cancer or vascular problems have a higher survival rate when they enjoy a strong support system of family and friends. People need people.

Moreover, a supportive wider community can also be important. I remember reading about scores of people who gathered on a California beach one evening, lighting candles and lifting voices in song. Mostly strangers to one another, they came there to grieve the loss of 88 persons who died when a jetliner crashed into the ocean off their coast. They were not even family and friends of the victims − simply concerned residents who cared.

“Your joy, your pain, your loss, your gain − are ours...for you are one of us.” That is the powerful message of community, of family. At its best, even an Internet family can help fill our need for closeness. Your joy, your pain, your loss, your gain − can be shared. You belong. And together, we’ll celebrate what we can. And we’ll get through the rest by hanging on to each other.

Welcome to the family.

-- Steve Goodier

There’s Power in Together

The poet Rupert Brooke set out to travel by boat from England to America. Everyone on deck had someone there to see him or her off – everyone except him. Rupert Brooke felt lonely, terribly lonely. Watching the hugging and kissing and good-byes, he wished he had someone to miss him.

The poet saw a youngster and asked his name. “William,” the boy answered.

“William,” he asked, “would you like to earn a few shillings?”

“Sure I would! What do I have to do?”

“Just wave to me as I leave,” the lonely man instructed.

It is said that money can’t buy love, but for six shillings young William waved to Rupert Brooke as the boat pulled out. The poet writes, “Some people smiled and some cried, some waved white handkerchiefs and some waved straw hats. And I? I had William, who waved at me with his red bandana for six shillings and kept me from feeling completely alone.”

We are all lonely at times. But here was a man who was strong enough to admit his loneliness. One psychotherapist says that a necessary first step toward coping with loneliness is for people to feel free simply admitting they are lonely. For once we recognize it, then we can do something about it.

What can we do? Reach out to friends and family. Too many people are lonely because they have been building walls instead of bridges.

We can also find others who may be lonely and help fill their emptiness. The world is full of them. Mother Teresa used to describe loneliness as “the biggest disease” of our time. And the loneliest do not all reside in nursing homes, nor do they all live by themselves.

Finally, we can recognize that, spiritually, we are not alone. This is a time for us to dig deep into our spiritual being.

Lily Tomlin quipped, “We’re all in this alone.” But, of course, that isn’t true. And great joy comes from discovering the power in the word “together.”

--Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/ClaraDon

How Do You Know the Night Has Passed?

Many years ago Bertrand Russell, the English philosopher and mathematician, was imprisoned for opposing World War I. "When I reported to the warder," Russell said, "he asked me the customary questions - name, age, place of residence. Then he inquired, 'Religious affiliation?'”

Russell replied, "Agnostic."

The poor man looked up. "How do you spell that?"

He spelled it for him. The warder wrote the word carefully on the admission form, then sighed, "Oh, well; there are a great many sects, but I suppose they all worship the same God."

I'm sure Russell could not help but chuckle.

It is true, however, that there exist many spiritual paths. The world has always teemed with a wide variety of spiritual thought and many differing journeys of the heart. But too often the world has used these differences as a weapon. How much agony has been wrought by what should be a thing of beauty - religious passion?

I appreciate an old Jewish story that tells of a rabbi who asked his disciples, "How do you know when the night is giving way and the morning is coming?"

One of the followers stood and said, "Teacher, won't you know that night is fading when, through the dim light, you can see an animal and recognize whether it is a sheep or a dog?"

The rabbi answered, "No."

"Rabbi," asked another, "won't you know that the dawn is coming when you can see clearly enough to distinguish whether a tree is a fig or an olive?"

"No," responded the teacher. "You'll know that the night has passed when you can look at any man and any woman and discern that you are looking at a brother or a sister. Until you can see with that clarity, the night will always be with us."

The night has been long. Isn't it time for dawn to break? No matter who we are, no matter what religion we profess, isn't it time for us to see one another as the sisters and brothers we are? All of us? Only then will we know that night has passed and a new day has dawned.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages.com/Emin Ozkan 

How I'm Like a Pencil

It occurs to me that I have a lot in common with a pencil. That’s right – a simple and humble little pencil. Not the fancy mechanical kind. That’s too high-maintenance for me. And I’m not as showy as a plume pen or as smooth as a ball point. I don’t live in bold strokes like a heavy marker. But I’m a lot like a pencil. Here’s how:

1. Like a pencil, I have a built-in eraser. I can correct my mistakes. No, I can't change the past, but I can make it right again. And if I can't erase history (after all, what’s done is done) I can at least erase a great deal of guilt and anger with forgiveness.

2. Like a pencil, I do better if I’m sharpened once in a while. My mind and skills grow dull without occasional honing. Even my spirit and attitudes need refining if I’m to be at my best. And there is something else, too. I find that the difficulties of life wear away at me, and they can either grind me down or shape me into a person who is more capable and creative. The sharpening I get from living through tough times is often painful, but I know it can make me a better person.

3. Pencils work best in a skilled hand. And like a pencil, I can do some pretty terrific things with a little guidance. Other people bring out the best in me, and with the help of others, I can do far more than I ever can alone.

4. Like a pencil, I should leave my mark whenever possible. I too often underestimate my influence on another. I have daily opportunities to leave something good behind. That is what it means to leave my mark. It may be in small ways, it may be in the lives of people I love, people I have touched or nurtured, or even in incidental conversations struck with strangers. But, I have a mark to leave and should use every opportunity to leave something good behind.

5. Like a pencil, it is what is on the inside that matters. A pencil without lead is useless. And a yellow pencil will not do when a black or red pencil is called for. What is on the inside is all important. My outer appearance matters less than I probably think, while it’s the stuff on the inside that folks notice about me. Whether it is understanding or intolerance, love or bitterness, peace or unrest, kindness or self-centeredness, hope or despair, courage or fear, what is on the inside matters most.

6. A pencil works best on paper or canvass. It will never leave its mark on water and will wear itself down against a mirror. I do best knowing my strengths and limitations. I can’t do everything well and that is okay. There is still plenty of good to be done by doing what I do best.

7. And finally, like a pencil, the biggest part of my purpose in this life can be summed up in three words: to be useful. When I’m too broken to hold it together, when everything is ground away or worn down, when I no longer have anything to contribute, I know my life is coming to an end. But until then, my job is to be useful.

Like I said, I have a lot in common with a pencil.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages.com/John Williams

Growing Good Corn

Flickr.com/Don Graham

Have you noticed how all of life is connected? You probably know about the relationship between honey ants (farm ants) and aphids. The ants can’t seem to get enough of the tasty honey dew left behind by aphids, those tiny sap-sucking insects probably living in your garden. These two insects have a fascinating relationship. In exchange for all the sugary treats aphids deposit on leaves, the ants wage fierce battle against wasps, beetles and spiders that try to dine on aphids for lunch. As those aphids keep their ant friends happy, the ants keep their aphid buddies alive. Everyone wins, except the plants, of course.

The ants do better because of the aphids. The aphids do better because of the ants. It’s a relationship called mutualism, and the rest of us could probably take a lesson. People, too, succeed best when they help others out.

James Bender, in his book How to Talk Well (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1994), illustrates how it benefits everyone when we mutually help each other. He relates a story of a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his best corn in the regional fair where it won a blue ribbon.

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him to learn about how he grew blue-ribbon corn year after year. The reporter discovered something interesting. He learned that the farmer actually shared his best seed corn with his neighbors.

“How can you afford to share your best seeds with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition against yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

It’s a simple and important principle. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor’s corn also improves. He cannot succeed simply by watching out for Number One. He succeeds best by helping his neighbors succeed. That’s mutualism.

And I am aware that it goes for me, too. Do I want to succeed? Then I must help others to succeed.

Do I want to live in peace and harmony? Then I need to help my neighbors also live in peace, and the very peace they experience will add to my own.

Do I want to live meaningfully and well? Then I should help to enrich the lives of others, for my own happiness and well-being is bound up in the lives I touch. 

In other words, if I want to grow good corn, I need to help my neighbors grow good corn. Call it mutualism. Call it a principle of success. Call it a law of life. I only know that none of us truly wins until we all win.

-- Steve Goodier


Share this on FaceBook and Twitter / Read more /Post a comment 

Connected for Life

Do you find yourself pulling away from others, especially if you’ve experienced a crisis or deep disappointment? Maybe the most difficult thing we can do is to be with people when we don’t feel like being around anybody. We need other people and we’ll never thrive as human beings in isolation

One woman likes to say, “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends.” The presumption is that men are not empathetic, and there is probably some truth there.

But I meet with a small group of men that challenge that assertion. We meet for one reason only – to support each other in our life journeys. We ask embarrassing questions like, “How is it with your soul?” And, “How are you REALLY doing?” We try to answer honestly and to share what is good in our lives, but also relate what is not going well. Where possible, we try to admit our failings in a situation as well as what we think we may be doing right. We use each other for a reality check, for support and, of course, for friendship.

It’s the only group in my life where I can be totally honest and know that they will accept me anyway. We meet only to listen to each other, support one another and, if need be, to occasionally challenge one another. The point is – we need each other.

A man who lost his wife to cancer found himself wanting to be alone. In time he dropped out of his worshipping community and curtailed all of the activities he and his wife had shared for so many years. He increasingly kept to himself. He quit socializing at work and returned straight home to an empty house. He turned down invitations from friends and co-workers. His leisure time was now spent watching television or working in his shop in the basement.

His contact with people dwindled until friends became alarmed that he might live out his life as a recluse. One came by to visit and to invite him over for supper the next evening. The two old friends sat in comfortable chairs by a warm fireplace. The visitor extended the dinner invitation and encouraged him to come. “You may need to allow others to share your pain.”

The man responded that he figured he was better off without being around other people. After all, others only seemed to remind him of all he had lost. “And besides,” he said, “it’s just too difficult to get out anymore.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching the wood burn in the fireplace. Then the visitor did an unusual thing. He took tongs from a rack by the fireplace, reached into the fire, pulled out a flaming ember and laid it down by itself on the hearth. “That’s you,” he said.

The men sat in silence watching the red-hot ember. It slowly lost its glow. Neither man looked away as the once-hot coal gradually transformed into a crusty, black lump. After some moments, the widower turned to his companion and said, “I get the message, my friend. I’ll be over tomorrow evening.”

We cannot survive in any healthy way by ourselves. The leaf needs the branch. The branch needs the trunk. The trunk needs the roots. And the roots need the rest of the tree. We are connected. And in that connection we find life and vitality.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Kik

Who Is Packing Your Parachute?

A stone-age hunter tracked a set of paw prints through the grasslands. He eventually came upon the largest and most ferocious looking saber-toothed tiger he had ever seen. The animal was recently killed and a small man stood beside it.

Amazed, he asked: "Did you kill that?"

"Yes."

"How could a little guy like you put down a huge beast like that?"

"I killed it with my club," the man replied.

“Wow!” the astonished hunter exclaimed. "How big is your club?"

The man thought for a moment. "I guess there are about 30 of us."

We may not be hunting saber-toothed tiger, but we all need some help to get through this life. We need people who are ready to assist. People who will encourage, teach, challenge, support and watch out for us. One of the best metaphors I know for such people comes from Charlie Plumb, a public speaker and retired naval officer.

After Plumb graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, he flew jets in Vietnam. He was shot down by a surface-to-air missile after 75 combat missions. He ejected and parachuted into the jungle. The Vietcong captured him and held him prisoner for six years in North Vietnam. Today, Plumb lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

He likes to tell the story of a day when he and his wife were sitting in a restaurant and a man at another table approached them. “You’re Plumb!” the man said. “You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked the former pilot.

“I packed your parachute!” he said. Plumb gasped in surprise. The man pumped his hand and continued, “I guess it worked!”

Plumb assured him it did. “If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

The pilot couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about the stranger. He wondered how many times he might have seen him on the ship and not spoken because he was a fighter pilot and the man who packed his chute was “just a sailor.” He thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the carrier, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

When Plumb lectures, he often asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” He is asking: who is watching out for you? Can you identify the people who have packed your parachute over the years and those who are packing it today?

I think of a music teacher who taught me that it was not enough for me to learn the instrument. I must also have fun with it. Ever since, music has been a source of supreme joy for me.

I think of a school teacher who, after listening to a reading of a short story I performed before the class, described the impact of that story on him. That day I fell in love with storytelling and understood the important role stories can play in a person’s life.

I think of a young woman who believed in me and instilled within me a life-long belief in myself.

I can think of many people who have packed my parachute. In their own way, each helped me land a little more safely. Some have been true teachers for me, some have been compassionate healers, and some have put me in touch with deep, spiritual values. They influenced me more than they ever knew.

Who is packing your parachute? And just as important, whose parachutes are you packing? Who looks up to you? Who may depend on you for courage or encouragement? For understanding or guidance?

To those who have packed my parachute over the years, I am indebted.

For those who are packing it yet today, I give thanks.

And to those whose parachutes I am packing, I promise to do my best.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Marion Doss

We Need Each Other

Many living things need each other to survive. I have lived for most of my life near trees known as Colorado aspens. If you are familiar with this tree, you may have noticed that it does not grow alone. Aspens are found in clusters, or groves. We’re told that the reason for this is because aspens can multiply from the roots. They send up lots of new shoots every year. These become saplings that grow quickly and make new baby aspens of their own. In some groves, all of the trees may actually be connected by their roots. It is as if they are one tree.

Another tree, the giant California redwood, may tower 300 feet into the sky. We’ve seen pictures of tunnels carved into massive trunks wide enough to drive an automobile through. It seems they would require the deepest of roots to anchor them against strong winds. But instead their roots are actually shallow -- they spread out wide in search of surface water. And they reach in all directions, intertwining with roots of other redwoods. Locked together in this way, all the trees support each other in wind and storms.

Aspens and redwoods never stand alone. They need one another to survive.

People, too, are connected by a system of roots. We grow up in families that nurture and guide us. We learn early to make friends who support us in different ways. We are not meant to survive long without others. And like the giant redwoods, we do best when we hold onto one another and help each other to keep standing through life’s storms. We need others to hold us up, encourage us and to stand with us.

When I’m not doing well, it is often because I am going it alone. I don’t always let others in. I forget to ask for help; I keep my problems to myself. And though I may not see it, others around me might be doing the same thing.

It helps to remember how much like those trees we really are. It might be time to let someone else help hold you up for a while. Or perhaps someone needs to hang on to you.

-- Steve Goodier

Solving Our Greatest Problems

We have great problems. Insurmountable problems! But we can solve even our most difficult problems if we work together.

Some of the greatest problems we face today are concerned with the gradual destruction of our environment through over-use and abuse of our resources. Unsightly brown clouds; wildlife extinctions; water that can’t be consumed; the disappearance of ancient glaciers… these problems all seem so huge.

So my family does what we can. We take cloth bags to the grocery store instead of using paper or plastic grocery sacks. We buy organic foods when possible. We walk where we don’t have to drive. Our home, like many of yours, is filled with compact fluorescent bulbs and we use water saving faucets.

But does it do any good? When I am the only one in line at the grocery store with cloth bags, am I doing any good? Does my walking to the store or shivering under the drizzle of my anemic shower head make any real difference to the world?

I recently learned something about flamingos – which probably behave like many migrating birds. These exquisite birds flock in huge groups of a thousand or more. Every year, when the time comes for migration, a few flamingos start the process by taking off from the lake. But none of the others seem to notice, so the tiny group returns.

However, the next day they try again. This time a few more struggle along with them, but the vast majority still pay no attention, so these pioneers come back.

The trend continues for several more days. EvIery time a few more birds join in but, since the thousands of others still take no notice, the great migration plan is once more aborted.

Then one day something changes. The same small group of birds once again takes wing and a tiny number more join in, just as before. And this time their total number, though still quite small, is enough to tip the balance. As one, the whole flock takes flight and the migration begins. What a spectacular sight it must be – thousands of flamingos taking to the sky at once!

A few CAN make a difference. It’s true that all of the great problems of the world have been solved because of the persistent efforts of a few.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead put it like this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

If you believe in a cause, don’t give up! Others will someday take notice and together we will solve even our greatest problems.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages.com/cristina cascais