Yes, baby. You made a lot of sense to me. I’d answer in the comments, but I’d rather answer here where there’s more scope for it.
“The guy winning the race but not actually winning until he shares his winnings. I agree whole heartedly but it will only be truly winning if he chooses on his own to share his winnings. This is why socialism doesn’t work. Because people are being forced to share their winnings.”
As I think about what you’ve written, I see there’s more in my head about winning—the nature of winning. I’m thinking about the person who wins because he’s so smart, so bright – or so blessed with resources. Both of those things can be so just the luck of the draw – born into it, blessed with peculiarly well tuned (or maybe even warped) DNA – or dropped into a household already successful in worldly terms.
My kids are bright. My mother-in-law took me very much to task one day for saying that very thing right in front of the kids. I was, evidently, never to tell them how bright they were. Which made no sense to me at all. Because along with the praise I heaped on them all their lives came this injunction: you were given whatever gifts you might have so that you might serve.
What the devil use is it to be intelligent, to have verbal or visual acuity, to be physically strong, to have gifts of song or dance or teaching or healing or cooking or a strong sense of order, a clear vision, swell problem solving skills or true sweetness of spirit and compassion – I say, what use are any of these things if they are not applied? In real life, winning isn’t about having something that you can use to make your nest bigger and stronger, because your nest doesn’t mean anything if you are the only flipping bird left in the world.
On Facebook, I gather that it’s great status to collect huge numbers of “friends.” The more you sign up, the more fabulous you are. Really. Or blogging – the more comments you get, the—what? More popular you are? Popular? Now there’s a word I’ve grown to know and love during my life (press the sarcasm button here). So we have gifts – because everybody does. Everybody has more than one, the basic one being: you are alive. Do we walk around with thought bubble things floating above our heads, the more neon gift labels floating in them, the more wonderful we must be?
Tangent: for me, believing is feeling and deciding that something is true enough, you build it into your perceptions, choices, operating system. But believing is only a state – like the thought bubbles are only potential energy. Faith is what you do. Belief has degrees of intensity and commitment. But faith is deed for belief. Gifts are only a potential state. What you do with them has to do with real winning and real losing.
A “right” is getting something you want. But real “being,” that is, becoming what your gifts suggest you might become, is not a matter of rights. It’s a matter of what you do with what you’ve been given.
In other words, you come to being by proving useful.
Any gift can make you either useful or dangerous. Assuming you actually use the gift. You can always choose to lose entirely by not using the gift at all.
“Take two little children and give them a bunch of candy and watch what they do with it. Child number one gleefully hoards it and then is told by his/her mother to go and share with his/her siblings. The child does it….watch the reaction. Child number two grabs the candy and then runs to his/her siblings and gleefully hands out the winnings. Watch the reaction. Child number two is obviously the happier and yet child number one says, “I worked hard and earned this candy. It is my right to keep it!”
I have this story I have told my kids: The fourth of July is coming, and the mother says, “If you want to have fireworks, you’re going to have to save your money!” So one kid saves all his money, and the other doesn’t. Finally, the kid with the money buys his fireworks. The kid without can’t.” Interruption. The story has two forms. This is the second: “The mother gives the kids fireworks (much wiser – now she’s choosing which ones) and says, “You have to save these if you want to have snaps for the 4th!!!” And one kid saves them all. And the other kid can’t stand it and fires off a few now. And then a few the next day. And on the 4th, has no snaps left.”
The end of both stories is the same: the mother looks at both of the kids and says to the first, “Look at you. Aren’t you ashamed? You have all those fireworks, and your brother doesn’t have any. You need to share.”
I hate those stories.
I also hate the story of the prodigal son – on so many levels.
(Thus you see that I am a shallow and nervous person.)
And that’s where I stand in politics.
Perhaps the first child will choose, out of compassion, to share. Perhaps not. Perhaps the first child will be wise enough to understand that getting something for nothing is not a blessing, and that sharing may actually damage the other kid. (This reasoning does not apply to actual food.) Perhaps the first child, compelled to give up what he has actually earned by obedience, self-discipline and all that enablement stuff like setting goals, will become deeply cynical and bitter and resentful, and then will run for office and vote everybody off the island.
“giving to others even when they themselves do not have and in so doing, they touch the lives of those they give to and then those people join them in their quiet ranks. “Where much is given….much is required.” We forget who really is giving us all that we have.”
Just so.
“’The man who buys what he does not need will often need what he cannot buy’. (Not my quote but a dang good one.) Nothing comes easy…Everything comes with a price but it is that which we work the hardest for….we appreciate the most.”
I believe this very strongly. Although I do have treasures given to me that I have been deeply grateful for and loved for decades.
“This country has been built on the backs of brave hard working men and a lot of blood shed.”
Yep. And there’s much to say about that. Especially in light of the way that some of the freedoms that seemed self-evident and essential to those very men are being compromised these days – fill in the blanks as you will, this isn’t the day I will discuss my politics. The statement can be claimed by many sides. I mean it generally only on one.
“Brian knew what it was to win and to share his winnings.”
Perhaps the two greatest winnings are simply the ability to choose and the ability to love. If you can only move one finger, you have ability. If you can be at all merciful, then you can love. In whatever place. Under whatever conditions.
I’m done now.
Except to say, Brian is so great. And so is G who once did the same thing (once?), selling a guitar to buy me a Bosch bread mixer. (Irony: now he’s the bread guy)
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