Interesting conversation last night with a young man. He’s one of my “orphans” as Paul Stavlo calls them, OPSU students that my family has befriended. Orphan Nate had seen the article in the Guymon Daily Herald about me and an award. He had also been to the award presentation in Amarillo last year.
Nate asked if the awards were important to me.
That is a pretty loaded question. After thinking on it, my answer is this … it is nice to be appreciated for something you’ve done. But nothing that I get done is done by myself, so realistically all those who help deserve the recognition with me. What is important to me is having friends and family there to help you celebrate when something good happens. Those are the same people that are there to visit with when you’re lonesome, the same ones that are there to help when you’re needing assistance, the same ones to laugh with you when something great happens.
Then I wondered if I was there for my friends when they needed me. I’m not very good at that and it’s a shame because I have friends and family that are great with it. I usually partake of celebrations (well, not showers and weddings), but you need friends who are there for the bad and the good, don’t you?
Guess I need to improve.
We all need to improve. All great changes begin within us.
Read a story in the Rotarian magazine about a guy who loves birds. He says, “I have bird feeders in my backyard, and every morning is a miracle. … I don’t know what it is about them that makes me so happy, gives me such peace, and fills me with such wonder.” This guy, Tony Fitzpatrick, draws pictures with the birds.
Talking about his art, Fitzpatrick says, “Often there is a silhouette of a woman in my drawings. That woman is my grandmother Mae, who, every morning, would toast a couple of pieces of bread and put jelly on them. She would then dice them up and toss them out the back door for the birds. When I asked her why she was giving our bread to the birds, she would hold a finger to her lips and tell me, ‘Listen.’
“When I did, I heard blackbirds, mourning doves, warblers, finches, and sparrows. My grandmother would look down at me and tell me, ‘For a piece of bread, you can hear God sing.’”
May this week find you with friends and family there for you, and find you listening to God sing.
See you on the bricks!