Tag: action

Service over Self

Tuesday the 19th of February 1945 marks the 75th anniversary of the storming of Iwo Jima by some 80,000 U.S Marines. This small island in the Pacific played a critical role in the pacific theater and waged on for 36 days killing more than 6,000 American Soldiers.

Four days later Joe Rosenthal snapped perhaps the most iconic war picture from the second World War. The image is of six soldiers from the 28th regiment 5th division Marines triumphantly raising the stars and stripes on top of Mt. Suribachi. Of these 6 Marines, 3 of them would answer the ultimate call of service to their country and leave the island draped under an American flag in the name of ensuring democracy for our nation and for others.

Fast forward to 74 years and 364 days and you would find me sitting in the jury waiting room at 8:30 A.M Monday morning. I’m pretty sure that no one gets that letter in the mail and thinks to themselves ” Oh, Sweet. Jury duty I’m pumped about that.” However, the level of disdain and utter lack of respect for a constitutional right was appalling by a few of the people who were sitting in that same room with me. One fellow juror who was picked in the group before me was back down in the waiting room a few minutes later and joyously announced he had been removed from his duties and could leave. I later overheard that when asked to take his hat off when entering the courtroom by a bailiff he told him in several words that were not going to use in this blog how he felt about that. Essentially this gentleman and I use that term loosely was rewarded for actions that should have left him sitting in contempt of court for the rest of day.

12-20-2020

A lot has changed since I started this blog post in mid-February of this year. I’ve got quite a few incomplete thoughts saved in the cloud and every once in a while it’s nice to come back and read them and utilize what I’ve learned since hitting save to finally finish out the puzzle.

I remember being so disappointed in a large portion of that room on that Monday in February. I heard a lot of me, me, me this is so terrible, horrible and a major inconvenience for me! Why did I have to get picked for this, I don’t want to be here, I’m going to tell the judge I hate cops, criminals, or whatever I need to say to get out of this. Did I really want to be there doing my part as a citizen of this country, NO, I did not! But when you are called upon to be a part of something bigger than yourself you make the necessary sacrifices to answer that call. And the call of sitting in an air-conditioned room all day is a very lite load to bear by the way.

The men who served in world war 2 didn’t want to leave their families for years on end, they didn’t want to work under the horrendous conditions they faced and they surely didn’t want to die on some far off island in the pacific. But they answered the call for the greater good of America and the world. They made sacrifices to their freedoms that I will likely never understand and hope never to experience. The next time I think that something in 2020 is a horrible inconvenience for me or is an encroachment on my freedom I’m going to think about the guys who raised that flag for their brothers living and dead and remember that I don’t have a leg to stand on.

Love, the working persons verb.

Early on in the Super Bowl you may have noticed a commercial with some weird words about love in Greek, it wasn’t very flashy or funny at all but it was a very powerful message that may have gone widely unnoticed.

The English Language is pretty amazing in a lot of regards but is confusing and completely misses the mark in a lot of ways. Words like witch and which or there and their sound the same but have different meanings, how is it possible that something as important and complex as love only gets one?

The Greeks had four separate and very distinct definitions for love and if you were paying attention in the Super Bowl you may recognize some of these…

Eros – Romantic love. This is the type of love I think most of us think of when we hear the word.

Storge – Love of your family. This is feeling of bonding that you have for your Mom, Dad and siblings.

Philia – Brotherly love. Ever wonder how Philadelphia got the nickname the city of brotherly love? This is the love that grows from friendship and camaraderie.

Agape – The fourth and greatest kind of love is a selfless, unconditional and sacrificial kind of love. This has been best explained to me by one of the motto’s of our church. Willing the good upon others and acting upon it. Thanks Father Phil you are amazing!!

So now you know at least four words in ancient Greek and maybe that side of this blog will pay off in your next round of bar room trivia. What i’m really hoping that you take away from this is that its okay to spread the love around. We’ve always needed it and maybe now its needed more then ever.

We often hand out the superficial thumbs up or the heart on our social media posts but what are we really doing to spread real love to those people in our community? It’s pretty darn easy to answer the question from the cashier at the store, “fine” how are you today? without giving it any genuine effort or really caring what the answer is. I know I’m guilty of throwing out lack luster effort plenty of times in this situation. Now I’m not suggesting the check out line is the time or place to have a 15 minute conversation about the challenges of life but greeting someone with a genuine smile and a dedication to being present and maybe sneaking in a question could make a huge difference in their day and the customers to follow.

Call to action… Love is not a sit around kind of word, you have to go out and spread it around. Here’s the good news though, it isn’t very difficult and it will make someone else feel better and you will as well. Here’s a few things we can do that take less then a minute to accomplish. Talk to a stranger, pull up a neighbors trash can, hold the door open for someone or bring your shopping cart back can spread a little love around.

I’m going to work on these for the next month or so and I challenge you to spread some love in these ways as well. Once we’ve mastered these were both moving on to bigger and better things like serving at the local homeless shelter where our new found Agape can really make a difference.