When was the last time you were challenged to do something really... well... great?
President Abraham Lincoln helped me to understand that there is a bit of greatness within all of us. It is said that he often slipped out of the White House on Wednesday evenings to listen to the sermons of Dr. Phineas Gurley at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.
He generally preferred to come and go unnoticed, so when Dr. Gurley knew the president was coming, he left his study door open. On one of those occasions, the president quietly entered through a side door of the church, took his seat in the minister’s study, located just off the sanctuary, and propped the door open just wide enough to hear the preacher.
During the walk home one Wednesday evening, an aide asked Mr. Lincoln his appraisal of the sermon. The president thoughtfully replied, “The content was excellent... he delivered with eloquence... he had put work into the message….”
“Then you thought it was an excellent sermon?” questioned the aide.
“No,” Lincoln answered.
“But you said that the content was excellent, it was delivered with eloquence and it showed much work,” the aide pressed.
“That’s true,” Lincoln said. “But Dr. Gurley forgot the most important ingredient. He forgot to ask us to do something great.”
There is nothing wrong with average lives and average accomplishments. Most of the good of the world is built on the accumulated efforts of everyday people. But, as Lincoln seemed to know, a life should strive for some greatness.
Are you part of a relationship that, if given more effort, could be outstanding? Or do you volunteer for an organization which is truly doing something excellent? Have you joined a cause that is attempting something great? Or have you ever said to yourself concerning a beautiful dream, “I could never do that,” while knowing that if you were to attempt it and succeed, you just might accomplish something significant?
If Abraham Lincoln is right, then every life should strive to reach a little further today than it did yesterday, for there is some greatness in each of us.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: Flickr.com/Gage Skidmore
A school music teacher received this essay from an eight-year-old student concerning Johann Sebastian Bach: "He was a GREAT composer. He had 20 children and had an old spinster in the attic to practice on."
Actually, I don't know the exact number of children he had, but it seems to be quite a few. And I don't know what he kept in the attic...or what he practiced on. But the student was absolutely right about one thing: Bach was a great composer.
Not all of us can be great at what we do. I try to do some things the very best I can. But that means I cannot give much attention to some of the less important tasks.
But what about just being good at WHO WE ARE? Good human beings? Even being GREAT at who we are?
Author James Michener learned something about greatness on a stormy night in the South Pacific. His plane was trying desperately to land on the Tontouta airstrip but could not do so. After several attempts in the dark of night, his knuckles were white with fear. When they finally landed safely, Michener went out and walked the length of the airstrip, looking at the dim outlines of the mountains they had so narrowly missed. He wrote this:
"And as I stood there in the darkness I caught a glimpse of the remaining years of my life and I swore an oath when peace came, if I survived, I would live the rest of my years as if I were a great man. I did not presume to think that I would be a great man. I have never thought in those terms, but I could conduct myself as if I were. I would adhere to my basic principles. I would bear public testimony to what I believed. I would be a better man. I would help others. I would truly believe and act as if all men were my brothers. And I would strive to make whatever world in which I found myself a better place. In the darkness a magnificent peace settled over me, for I saw that I could actually attain each of those objectives, and I never looked back."
Michener says that the very next day he started to draft the book Tales of the South Pacific.* And if it can ever be said that he became a great man, I suspect it was only because he decided to be a better man than he was before.
Greatness may not be your goal. But you and I can be a little better today than we were yesterday. We can help others a bit more today than yesterday. We can act more deliberately -- as if all people are our sisters and brothers. We can leave the world a better place tomorrow than we found it today.
And if that is the way to greatness, then we all can head that direction. One step at a time…beginning today.
-- Steve Goodier
* Michener’s quote comes from Out of the Blue: Delight Comes Into Our Lives, by Mark Victor Hansen & Barbara Nichols with Patty Hansen (HarperCollins, 1996).
Image: flickr.com/José María Pérez Nuñez
Greatness is too often defined by an unusual act of courage or a life of extraordinary merit or virtue. But glimpses of greatness can be seen all around us, and especially in those who genuinely care for others.
Father Albert Braun was such a man. After his ordination, he requested to live amongst some of the poorest of the world’s poor. He was sent to the Mescalero Apache reservation in south central New Mexico (USA). Father Braun learned to love the Apache. And as he lived with them, he learned from them and they learned from him. They became family.
He stayed many years on the reservation but left it twice to serve as a chaplain during both World Wars. He almost died in World War II when his Allied forces tried to defend the Philippine Islands from attack. Many of his comrades died during the fighting and Father Braun risked his own life to comfort the wounded and give the dying Last Rites. He was forced to march with no food and little water. Along the way, many more of the men died. And in the prisoner of war camps, more lives yet were lost to disease, cruel physical treatment and malnutrition.
Father Braun had learned much from the Apache about surviving off the land. When he went out on work detail, he found fruit and edible vegetables that he smuggled back into the camp to help supplement the men’s diets. Once he acquired the vaccine for diphtheria that he also secreted into camp, but it wasn’t enough. They drew lots to determine who would get the medicine. Though afflicted himself, he gave his portion to a young soldier. Before long, he suffered simultaneously from diphtheria, malaria, dysentery and beriberi.
He barely survived the war. Later, he asked to be returned to New Mexico to live once again with the Apache. When he knew that his own death was near, Father Braun requested to be buried on the reservation, surrounded by his Apache “family.”
Today, at the church of St. Joseph, one can see portraits of the Apache’s greatest chiefs and warriors. There is a portrait of Geronimo, one of Cochise, a picture of Victorio and a portrait of Father Albert Braun, who came to live among them as a true friend.
Father Braun showed a certain greatness, not by any one heroic deed, but by the sum total of a life of caring. I believe we can catch glimpses of greatness in the lives of anybody who genuinely cares.
-- Steve Goodier
Image by Jorge Elías
