Jim Esten

This came to me in email .. not my own work!!!  But once a soldier, always a soldier and these short narratives are profoundly moving.

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“It is the duty of all nations to  acknowledge
 the providence of Almighty God,
 to obey His will to be grateful for His benefits,
 and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”
 — George Washington
 
Here are two very touching photos honored this  year.

 First Place
 Todd Heisler, The  Rocky Mountain News 

 When 2nd Lt. James Cathey’s body arrived at the Reno Airport , Marines  climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the  tarmac.

 During the arrival of another Marine’s casket last year at Denver International Airport  , Major Steve Beck described the scene as so powerful: ‘See the  people in the windows? They sat right there in the plane,  watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what’s going through  their minds, knowing that they’re on the plane that brought him  home,’ he said. ‘They will remember being on that plane for the rest of their  lives. They’re going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should.’

 Second Place

 Second Place
 Todd Heisler,  The Rocky Mountain News

 The night before the burial of her husband’s body, Katherine  Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his  body for the last time.  The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the  flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer  and played songs that reminded her of ‘Cat,’ and one of the  Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. ‘I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing  it,’ she said. ‘I think that’s what he would have wanted’.

 And the one that really tightens MY throat:

 PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING!
 Blue Fridays.
 Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing blue every  Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the ‘silent majority.’  We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized,  boisterous or overbearing.

 Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want  to recognize that the vast majority of America  supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support  for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday —  and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come  home, sending a deafening message that every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear  something blue. By word of mouth, press, TV — let’s make the United States  on every Friday a sea of blue much like a homecoming football  game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this  country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends,  and family, it will not be long before the USA  is covered in BLUE and it will let our troops know the once  ’silent’ majority is on their side more than ever, certainly  more than the media lets on. The first thing a soldier says  when asked ‘What can we do to make things better for you?’ is: ‘We need your support and  your prayers.’ Let’s get the word out and lead with class and  dignity, by example, and wear something blue every Friday.

 IF YOU AGREE — THEN SEND THIS ON.
 IF YOU COULDN’T CARE LESS — THEN HIT THE DELETE BUTTON. BET  YOU DON’T!  

 Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
 1. Jesus Christ
 2. The American G. I.

 One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

 YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON, AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET BOTH OF  THEM.
 

Let me caveat the whole thing by saying I am not one of those psychotic sports parents. I’ve been coaching youth and young adult athletes for some 25 years and if anything, I find it challenging to look at the athletic exploits of my own children through the eyes of a proud dad rather than a coach.  I rarely coach my own kids, but still find myself observing them through the filter of coaching.  That said, I’ve got ample reason to be proud of the athletes living in my house. Two of my kids, assuming they continue on current trajectory and manage to stay healthy have an extraordinarily bright future as soccer players.  I’m happy to say I’ve had a hand in at least their early development.

But there is more to it all than the dreams of national teams and college scholarships. Just things are fragile and fleeting and can be as quickly beyond the reach as in your grasp. So we call ourselves particularly blessed that our kids, though laser focused on sports, also pursue their other gifts.  And the news this week has been good … 12 and 13 year old will perform soon in a local theater company’s production of The Music Man — one on the stage, the other in the orchestra.  Same two got some great news for fall activities with the older one playing first trombone in the state honors band and the younger one offered a contract with a local opera company.  And since they are but 25% of the kid population around here, well, they are just the tip of the iceberg.

I feel quite blessed that not only do they pursue non sport things, but that they pursue them with the same drive they bring to the pitch.  The same drive that earned the older one a medal at the Irish Dance world championships a few years ago.  Sports are a wonderful tool for developing character in young people.  But it isn’t the only tool. It might be the one I understand the best but for once in my life I’ve actually let myself be open minded enough to let other things have their moment in the spotlight. And it only took nearly a half century to grow up that much .. not bad for a guy…

It wasn’t all that long ago that those of us who “thought” we were close to the front edge of the internet revolution as CGI programmers looked at mashups and thought, wow, why didn’t we think of that?  Not like they were terribly original.  Then again, I’ve long said that original ideas have been few and far between in the past few thousand years.

Kids are the masters of the mashup without any thoughts of there being any particular need to connect the dots.  Couple days ago, the second of my very talkative daughters (I recall labeling her big sister by age two as a phone bill waiting to happen….) hopped up onto the bathroom scale and said “how much do I cost?”  Thinking myself clever, I said “you cost more than you weigh”.  Not to be outdone, her retort?  No, I cost two minutes!

Somewhere along the way, most of our brains seem to check out of that wonderfully creative mode of mix and match and see what happens.  I’m sure science has a really good explanation for why that is.  I also know that adorable waif couldn’t care less about science. Why should she after all  .. she’s not even three and already knows how to get on a scale and figure out that she costs two minutes.  Doubt I’d ever would have figured that out!

I’m awfully fond of old tools and greatly admire folks who can use them — especially those things which are powered only by the muscle and intellect of the person holding the tool.  However, I realized a long time ago that even having a shop full of very capable tools does not make a very capable tool user.  Those in the OldTools community are fortunate to have among them some phenomenally skilled folks to learn from.  I’ve discovered a principle (okay… discovered probably a real stretch….) that I believe applies rather universally.  When you get to know people who are really good at something, but know them beyond that context, you realize that on some level, you need not fear attempting what they have mastered.  You may never do it as well as them and may even fall flat on your face, but your perspective changes dramatically.

This occurred to me as a looked at yet another spot in this old house that needs some attention and realized that having this change of perspective in the last decade has actually allowed me to accomplish quite a number of things I didn’t even know I could do.. let’s see, just off the top of my head ……

1. made new storm windows for the basement since only screens existed when we moved in
2. replaced glass in at least 2 windows on the property per year since my now 13 year old played U8 level soccer
3. replaced a ceiling fan with light kit on front porch
4. replaced a broken secondary faucet on the kitchen sink (plumbing used to be REALLY scary to me!)
5. added a storm door to the back basement entrance
6. replaced a sprayer kit on the kitchen sink
7. reinforced the bottoms of upwards or two dozen dresser drawers over the past few years
8. stopped the shower from leaking
9. modified the dryer door latch to stop it from popping open
10. patched a hole in the dishwasher tub
11. installed a new auger drive belt on the snowblower
12. ran wire to put wall switches in several places where bare lightbulbs with pull chains lived

… and as I think about it, the list goes on and on and on. 

It is really easy sometimes to think of the things that just seem so far beyond us.  Take a moment to think of the things you’ve actually accomplished — especially the little things.  We’re inundated with plenty of things that make us feel like a dufuss.  And yeah, I know I’ve made three trips to the hardware store in the span of 4 hours to fix something that somebody who REALLY knew what they were doing would have knocked out in a few minutes.  But on the whole, give yourself a little credit.  You’re probably more capable than you think!!

I noticed that this year, the commemoration of Dr. King seemed rather subdued (though even the low key of that paled in comparison to the next to nothing coverage of a quarter million and then some folks at the March for Life…). This greatly saddens me. Although I did not support him, I had to admire the American people when we elected an African American President. While he carries some views that really perplex me, it felt like maybe we’d turned a corner in this culture. You don’t have to dig far to realize we really haven’t come all that far.

Lila Rose, the president of Live Action  (liveaction.org), did a piece a few months ago that painfully illustrates this.  While so many in this great country really do have have their hearts in the right place, the things we let go on around us appall me.  Here is the opening paragraph from that piece:  (I encourage you to visit Live Action and read the full piece HERE)

 Over the summer, The Advocate investigated the financial dealings of Planned Parenthood and made some shocking discoveries about the clinic-owning “nonprofit.” We obtained the information by having an actor call clinics across the country and pose as a donor. The actor who called, The Advocate’s advisor, communicated to them a very racist agenda—the one that Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s founder, had envisioned. He then asked to donate money specifically for the abortions of African-American babies in order to “lower the number of blacks in America.”

To which, Dr Alveda King, niece of Dr Martin Luther King, said:

Again, I encourage you to visit Live Action and read the full piece HERE

We’ve got a long way to go. Seems like we’ve gotten awfully selfish during my lifetime.  We’ve settled for telling ourselves that it is enough not to be participating in evil.  But we urgently need to see that our sins of omission have just as terrible impact as those of commission. I just finished reading Abby Johnson’s book detailing her departure from Planned Parenthood and subsequent support of the Pro Life position. It is a gut wrenching book to read but inspiring.  May we all have the courage to do the right thing.

A good friend whom I’ve never met (I have a few of those courtesy of the worldwide old tools community…) posted this morning about a successful toilet repair. Trivial? Well, yeah, of course. He knew it, I know it. Everyone who comments on it knows it. So what!  Life is not measured by the epic events but rather the daily grind.  Even our church year is dominated by “ordinary time”, which isn’t “ordinary” at all in the sense we use the word today but rather more along the lines of the original word which refers to “counting the days”.

I won a little battle of my own last night.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an ongoing battle with the notion of indoor plumbing. We live in an old house where something always seems to be broken or well on its way to be that way — and way too often it seems to involve running water.  And every time something like this happens,  I have flashbacks to home where we actually had an old outhouse in the backyard throughout my childhood. Oh, we didn’t actually use it for anything but storing the garden tools, but it was there, a stunning reminder of days gone by.

We recently had some appliances services on the verge of them going out of warranty (okay, there’s another win!!). So, the dishwasher was on this list. The service tech came — 2nd time for this exact same problem in the span of about 6 months. So my befuddlement, they weren’t carrying the part. Huh? Same machine, same symptom and you wouldn’t at least be carrying a very common part just in case it just happened to be the same problem? Anyway, part ordered, part received, part installed and away we go, yes?  Well… almost. First run of the beast and water starts spraying into the basement. Eeegads!

So… I pull the thing out (no small trick itself since we had a new floor installed after the machine was in place and it is just higher enough to require quite an effort to extract the dishwasher.) But I digress…  I tip it to the side only to now very easily see a hole in the tub. Dandy.  Ah, but this time, I win. In spite of vast skepticism on the part of my lovely bride, a $3 tube of epoxy and a patch trimmed from a PVC cap seemed to be just the thing … after letting the epoxy cure overnight, back on goes the water, I fire the beast up and voila, no more drips!! We’re back in business.

Yes, those little battles are the stuff of the good life. Never forget it!!

The past few years when I was teaching second graders in the Christian Formation program the normal pattern was to spend the fall preparing for First (and hopefully not last!!) Reconciliation and then the winter and spring preparing for First Eucharist. It is an exciting year where the material is at the very edge of what the kids are ready to grasp. A few actually seem to get, most go through the motions but it will take another year or two before any of the preparation sinks in. Hopefully, the formation is going on well beyond the classroom.

This year I was asked to step into an older classroom but the curriculum contains a somewhat different view of familiar material, adapted for the minds of kids who have gotten a little taller and lot smarter. Opportunity knocks. We get to talk about stuff with a little meat on the bones and so we get to broach the subject of sins of omission. Oh, it’s easy to pick out the things we do that we ought not be doing. Even in a culture gone haywire with permissiveness, people of good will can largely agree on actions which cross the line.

But somewhere along the line we got lazy. Yes, lazy. I’m sure I was a lazy teenager. Seems to have always gone with the territory to some degree. Here’s the difference. Once upon a time we really did feel accountable for the world around us. We really did feel a need to do something about situations around us that didn’t seem right, didn’t seem fair. Don’t get me wrong, I still see it around me. But it has sadly become a notable exception. When I see young people around me that stand out now, it is with a tinge of regret that I have to wonder when things changed. Remarkable actions today were often just a way of life only a few decades ago. As a culture, as a society, we have largely institutionalized sins of omission. We are instructed in James, chapter 4: “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (RSV). The Old Testament spoke of this as “complacency (Zephaniah). I think those same people of good will I mentioned above can probably agree that complacency crosses a line we ought not cross.

Like so many vices, complacency has a corresponding virtue. So let us open our eyes to the world around us and practice compassion. Parents, look for ways to put your childen in situations where they act with compassion. Young people, I challenge you to look up from that hand held rudeness enablement device and do something about what you see. Little things matter. Little things, done with virtue, set a pattern of behavior that steers us away from vice.

Next week, I’m taking my three oldest children to help serve meals at a shelter for the homeless. A little thing really, but never think that a little thing is of little importance. Many decades ago, I had my first experience with service to those in need. No doubt a little thing. A little thing that was life changing. Find a way today to do those things you can for others.

We eat, breath and sleep soccer around here and when I’m not coaching, I like to be watching.  Given my own team schedules, I don’t often get to see my own kids in action, but we’re workin’ on that!

Tonite begins our soccer calendar year with both Teddy and Selena in action at Uihlein Soccer Park. Nat remains sidelined with a cast on the arm while we wait for a compression fracture to heal. Hopefully he will be able to at least return to field play before the indoor season ends but will almost surely be back in goal when the weather warms and young futballers look for green grass.

My own little band of stars adorned in their lime green jerseys returns to action on Saturday. Representing all five of our club’s rec U12 teams, this group, many of whom had never been on indoor turf before, darn near pulled out a win against an experienced all boys team in our first game almost a month ago. Should be a very entertaining winter!!

Updated July 2011 …… that age range has expanded …. youngest coming up on 2 months and the oldest headed off to college soon!!!  

Family .. that’s what it’s all about once you have kids. I started a little later than most, but now as a Dad of both a toddler and high school senior, I can’t imagine life being different.  More to come….