Teach Your Children Well - Part Two

Last week I wrote about how important it is to teach our children to do the right thing. But the real message I wanted to convey is that the best way to teach people is to model that behavior ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done… and I am guilty quite often myself. Let me give you an example.

The sign hanging at my daughter’s house that I mentioned in my last Monday Message had a dozen “Family Rules”. Two of them, however, are related. “Share” and “Think of Others Before Yourself”. Even as kindergarteners we are taught to share, but somehow, as go down life’s rocky roadway, it gets harder and harder to do that. I hate to admit it, but I have trouble sharing sometimes. And by that I mean giving things, like my money, time, possessions, etc.

Actually though, I’ve always considered myself a generous person. I mean… I do tip generously, I donate to charities, and I buy girl scout cookies… even though they’re not good for me. But at the same time I worry about money in the back of my mind when I do give to others, especially now that I am “semi-retired”, and I also I worry that my wife will have enough money if something ever happens to me.

So with that going on in the back of my mind, my wife started a new Charity this year. It’s a wonderful cause called, “My Own - A Case for Kids” and she is super excited about it. Her goal is to raise enough money, clothing, and essential items to be able to create 340 fully filled suitcases this year that are gender and age specific, to be given to Foster Kids in Orange County. In her first two months she already delivered 60 suitcases to the County of Orange Social Services Agency, and they were absolutely thrilled! But as with most new ventures, she needed seed money to get started, quite a lot of it. And that’s where I come in.

My wife is super hard working, and awesomely inspiring, so I definitely want to support her cause. But the fear of spending so much money on a new charity was stressful for me. But then two things happened on the same day. First, we received handwritten notes from several young children that received a “suitcase of their own”. What they wrote was both heartwarming and heart wrenching at the same time. My stress for myself went down as I thought about the stress those poor kids have to endure every day. The second thing that happened, was that when I did my daily Bible reading, I came across Psalm 112:4-5. When I read it, I was reminded that the more we give to others, the more we will receive in return. That’s when my stress stopped altogether. How can I stress when I know that my wife will be successful with her goal of helping others… and that God will always be successful in His goal of helping us!

myownstuffoc@gmail.com

Even in darkness, light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious 

and compassionate and righteous. For good will come to those who are generous.

Psalm 112:4-5

Teach Your Children Well

When I was growing up my Mom had a colorful sign hanging in our kitchen. It was all about the “Golden Rule” and doing right by others. She hung it in the kitchen because she was trying to teach my sister and I right from wrong so that we would grow up to be responsible adults. But I think it was more than that. I think my Mom was really wise and knew that by teaching us to have faith in God and encouraging us to be good to people, we would grow up to be happy. I’m pretty sure our happiness was her main goal in life and thankfully, she achieved it.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day at my daughter’s home helping my wife care for our baby granddaughter while my daughter and her husband went to Disneyland. I actually wasn’t much help, but at least I was there for moral support, and I also fixed a broken gate latch, so at least I added a little bit of value. But as I was walking through the kitchen I noticed a sign hanging up about “Family Rules”. It spoke of sharing, loving others, and doing your best. It reminded me of my Mom’s sign and brought back a flood of great memories, not the least of which was the smell of great homemade cooking floating throughout our home.

I read that sign over and over again and thought about how hard most parents work at instilling character and integrity in their children. It isn’t easy and most of the time it seems like the world is pulling at all of us to go in a different direction, the wrong direction. Why? Because it’s a whole lot easier to focus on ourselves than it is to focus on others. It’s easy to lie but often hard to tell the truth. And it takes hard work to make an honest dollar, despite all the legalized gambling and get rich quick schemes on TV and Social Media.

My mom passed away several years ago, but she is not forgotten. In fact, one of the best lessons she taught me should have been painted on a sign for all to read. “When you are trying to decide what to do, ask yourself to think about tomorrow and what you will wish tomorrow that you had done today.”

Character is doing the right thing even when it costs more than you want to pay. 

~ Michael Josephson

Time to Change

I had an appointment to meet with someone at 1:00pm on Sunday. As I approached, I checked my watch, and it read 5 minutes to 1:00pm. So I felt good that I was on time. But when I parked, I realized I had forgotten to change my watch for daylight savings time. So I was actually one hour late. I no longer felt good, I now felt really bad because I was late!

Forgetting about daylight savings time and forgetting to change my watch reminded me of two things. One, time is the most valuable asset there is, so we need to use it wisely. Two, things are always changing and they always will, so we need to be willing to accept change.

So why did we “change the time”, meaning go to Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the first place? DST was adopted during the summer months to take advantage of more daylight hours in the evening. The idea behind it was to save energy and promote outdoor activities during the evening. That way, we would drive to work in the dark, but we would have more time for our family and hobbies after work. Sounds like it was a good idea to make that change right… more time in the sunshine!

Well, apparently not all change is good. The “House Energy and Commerce Committee” has decided that the twice annual changing of clocks, which was originally adopted in 1918, is no longer a good idea. And part of the reason is that Frank Pallone, Chairman of the Committee says that “the change to DST can disrupt sleep patterns and cause confusion for our kids and pets”. Really? I’m not kidding… that’s exactly what Frank said!

Okay Frank, I guess any type of change can be confusing for people (and their pets). I mean I was definitely confused on Sunday, but that’s just because I was too friggin’ lazy to check the time on my phone. So here’s the deal. The change that we are going to make regarding time, is that we are not going to change it anymore. Anyone confused?

And there is nothing more surly 

Then a watchless man 

Who doesn’t know whether 

He is late or early.

~ Ogden Nash

No Bad Days

Things happen almost every day that can be very frustrating and annoying. In fact, there are days when it seems like everything I touch breaks and everything I do goes wrong!

I had one of those days last week wrapped around electronics. First, my printer stopped printing. Then my computer stopped computing. Then, when I got in my truck to go buy either a new computer, a new printer, or both… the electronic “sync” system in my Ford F150 started acting up. And just to totally annoy me to the max, when I tried to drive back home through the main gate at Coto de Caza, my electronic transponder wouldn’t work. The guard yelled out asking me my address and I answered with something fairly unpleasant, “F..ing Transponder blah blah”. But fortunately, he still let me in.

At that point, it would have been easy for me to say that I was having a bad day. And I did say that a lot, back in my younger days. But I can’t say that anymore. Or let me rephrase that, I never feel that way anymore.

Sure, there are bad moments in any given day. There are even extremely bad things that can happen at times. But as I’ve grown older and more patient, I’ve learned to broaden my focus and always try to envision the big picture. It isn’t easy, but if I start every day with a prayer of thanks, and list off each morning all the things that are good and right with my life, the big picture looks pretty great!

It might even be said… that when bad things happen to us, it’s simply a reminder to appreciate the good things in our lives, which in turn helps us to enjoy the “good things” that much more. Here’s another reminder… we are loved from above... so how bad can things really be!

Saddleback Snow

 

I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? 

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

~ Psalm 121:1-2

A Way Of Life

Sometimes I think God puts certain people in our lives for a very good reason. The older I get, the more I believe that, and on Saturday something happened that really “drove” that point home for me.

But let me start by saying that throughout most of my life, patience has not been one of my better traits. Seems like I’ve always been in a hurry, starting with being born at 8 months, and it’s been really hard for me to slow down ever since. That is, until about 10 years ago when I met an elderly Chinese woman, named Pao Chi Chen, who taught me that patience is not only a virtue, it can also help you lead a longer, happier life.

So back to what happened Saturday. I had a huge contract to inspect all of the Light Poles throughout The Irvine Spectrum Center. There are hundreds of Light Poles at that iconic Shopping Center, so it was definitely a challenging project. To make it even harder, I needed to complete it within one week. So I worked hard all week hoping to complete the project on Saturday, but I still had two of the hardest parking lots left to do. It was a busy Saturday, the parking lots were overflowing with cars, and people were fighting over parking spaces. Plus, I nearly got ran over several times as I maneuvered my equipment between cars and along driveways. I was tired, frustrated, and getting upset that people were carelessly driving so close to me. I was getting angry and definitely losing my patience. I hate to admit it, but I was actually cussing people out under my breath.

Then it happened! As I completed a pole and turned around to squeeze out from in front of a car, there she was. A tiny, elderly Chinese woman staring at me. I could see she was waiting for me to move so that she could get in her car, and although I was tired and frustrated, I immediately apologized for being in her way. But she didn’t appear upset at all, In fact she was smiling and said, “That’s okay, I see you working, so better for me to wait.” Her clothing, her face, her smile instantly brought back memories of my friend Pao Chi Chen and her lessons about patience and compassion. As the lady got into her car, she smiled one more time and nodded her head at me and I swear I saw a wink in her eye! The only response I could think of was to bow and say “Syeh, Syeh, Nee.” (Mandarin Chinese for thank you!)

And that got me thinking… We learn lessons in life that are extremely valuable, but over time it’s easy to forget and fall back into bad habits. Maybe God put Pao Chi Chen in my life to teach me about patience… and maybe yesterday was just God’s way of reminding me.

Interesting side bar – Pao Chi Chen was a very patient woman, which helped her to live to be 95 years old, despite me running her over with my truck and nearly killing her when she was 88. Patience should be a way of life for all of us! 

The secret of nature is patience.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful

You’ve all heard the expression, “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” right? Well let me tell you how it applies to my wife. (Not the ugly part, she is totally beautiful!) But there is good and bad to her. Now I know she is going to read this, so let me get to explaining right away!

I will address the “Bad” first. What’s bad is that this poor girl has more health issues than you can shake a bent stick at. Besides breathing issues, multiple lung surgeries that included a compound fracture of her 5^th rib, and severe asthma at times… she also has lower back pain, intermittent hip pain, a bout with plantar fasciitis, constant migraine headaches, and a plethora of other problems too numerous to mention. And oh yeah, two weeks ago she fell and fractured her 6^th rib.

But fortunately, the “Good” greatly outweighs the “Bad”. First off, she never complains about her health issues and instead, goes about her day with a super sweet smile and heart so huge I think it sometimes affects her balance. (Maybe that’s why she gets hurt so often??) Anyway, instead of complaining she spends her time figuring out how she can help needy people. After 10 years on the Board of the South County Outreach, she has now started her own specialized charity drive to support foster kids. Hard to believe, but there are over 3400 kids in the foster system in Orange County alone. They don’t own anything and what little they have they carry with them in green trash bags. So my wife started a drive to obtain small suitcases (meaning beg, borrow, or buy) and fill them with age appropriate clothing and toiletry items for kids in foster care. She started with four suitcases and had four of our grandchildren do the shopping for kids their own ages of 9, 11, 14, and 16. Her goal is to create suitcase goody bags for at least 10% of all the kids in foster care. That’s 340 suitcases!

I guess if there’s an “Ugly”, it would be that any kid ends up in Foster Care at all. But my wife understands the world can be a dark and cruel place, so she is determined to brighten it up one kid at a time. I am proud of her and love her very much, so I decided to take her on a short vacation this weekend since we haven’t been on a real vacation since Covid started. Except there’s one small problem. Despite the fact that our garage is filled with suitcases, my wife and I don’t own a suitcase at the moment. Dang! About midway through Covid, we threw our personal suitcases away because they were old and Covid was killing our vacation plans. But I know for a fact that we have some extra-large trash bags in the garage, so it’s all good…even if the bags are ugly!

P.S. - For Men Only - Valentine’s Day is coming up so if you love your wife like I do mine, start buying her a Valentine’s Card tomorrow and keep it up every single day all the way through Feb 14^th. I started several days ago because our lucky number is 24 and I want her to end up with 24 Valentine’s Cards and realize that no matter whether the world is good, bad, or ugly, having a heart for helping is beautiful!

Where there is love there is life.

 ~ Mahtma Ghandi