When I honor others I am the one who gains the benefit.

One of the criticisms that I have read of 21st Century life in the West is that we tend to give undue preference to those who happen to be alive right now. We think we are smarter than those who have gone before us. When there is a way that things used to be done, and a way that we do things now, our default position is that the current procedure is better. "We finally got it figured out." When have you heard an advertisement bragging that a business or organization is on "the back side of the knife"? Everybody wants to be "cutting edge." The Edsel was new, so were 8-track tapes, and Beta video recorders. How'd that work out? Clearly, the cell phone most STTA readers use to access these thoughts I offer represents an incredible technical advance over the front porch where people used to share something about which to think. We ought to ask, however, "In the biggest sense of the word, is the pocket device that connects me to the world better?"  Does it connect or separate?

I'm in Chuuk as I write this. Technically Chuuk is one of the four states that make up the Federated States of Micronesia, a collection of Islands in the Western Pacific. In the way the Bible uses the word, Chuuk is a "nation." It has its own language and culture. People here aren't FSM-ers, they are Chuukese. I'm here to honor a church leader who recently died. The body of the deceased arrived by jet airplane and was transported to his home island on a boat powered by Yamaha, but the ways of honoring his memory, and seeking to comfort his family are rooted in ways that don't require gasoline or a battery. Physical presence is maximized. A willingness to put other things aside is evident. There is a deliberate focus on reconciliation and learning lessons from the dead that will help us move forward with life.
When we think of honoring someone our initial thought is that the benefit is given to the one honored. I'm being reminded that honoring another--even, perhaps especially, when the one being honored is no longer here to receive the honor--means those of us who slow down and take time to show-our-respects receive much more than we give. 
I wish we could sit down on the porch and talk about it. It's not cutting edge, but it would be better.
It's Something To Think About.

Digging Graves

My respect for grave diggers has gone up tremendously.  I'm not talking about the guys who run backhoes, though I have plenty of respect for anyone who does an honest day's work for an honest day's wage.  I'm talking about the real life Jayber Crows who show up with pick & shovel and dig a nice square hole six feet deep.  I had a sewer problem and decided that I needed to dig down to where I could get access to the line.  The hole is on a grade.  The shallow end is maybe three feet deep, but at it's deepest point I figure the hole is over eight feet.  Breaking up the earth with a mattock and a digging bar, shoveling it out and hauling most of it out in a wheel barrow, gave me time to think.
Aside from thinking about how much easier this would be with a machine, I thought about the old tradition of honoring the dead by digging their grave.  Trust me.  If I had been digging that hole for someone's final resting place I would remember that friend.
In my world, ladies are better at honoring others in a hands-on manner.  They are the ones who bring a meal by the home of a new mom, or a grieving family.  It seems that most of the grave-digging type tasks, that men used to do, have been mechanized, bureaucratized, and eliminated.  When was the last time you helped a neighbor build a barn, or harvested the crop for an ailing friend?  Still, with a bit of thought we can find opportunities.

• A friend mows grass to supplement his income.  One of his clients is a senior citizen with limited income, so she only has my friend mow the yard every other week.  My friend goes the extra mile by raking the long grass for her.
• I talked to a guy the other day who is having back trouble.  He hurt himself helping another.  
• Some guys I know are collecting junk, not to pile in their garage, but to sell, so they can help a couple of families.

There is something manly about serving others with sweat on your brow.  It's a lesson I learned in the hole.

Lord help me remember it.

It's Something to Think About.