‘Talk less; smile more’, sings Aaron Burr to Alexander Hamilton. And there are nights I meet my pillow with the melody in my ear wishing I had followed that advice.
I do take to heart the admonition in James chapter 3: “7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind,8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.” But just when a sin of omission would be the proper choice, (Talk less! Smile more!) is when I find all kinds of words to say….repetitive words, superfluous words, and the ever popular foot in one’s mouth words. Oh, blessed Father, please keep me from offering advice unless someone truly asks for it.
For the most part, my parents led by deeds, not words. We were expected to pitch in during any family task; we were expected to get up on time and take care of ourselves. I know we gave out good night hugs but I don’t remember anyone coming to wake us. We were expected to tell the truth, behave at school, and clean our plates. Some of those tasks were easier than others; when I was young, I didn’t always get around to my chores. I didn’t think it was laziness on my part so much as forgetfulness...a distinction without difference in my father’s opinion. But my mother and father always cleaned up together after a meal; we attended church and Sunday school together; we finished our work before we played, and somehow, though it wasn’t a topic discussed over supper, we knew our parents saved for everything they purchased. They practiced without preaching, bringing to mind 1 John 3:18:”Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
All that aside, I can tell you two very specific instances that my father spoke to me very seriously, and, in doing so, set the course for my life.
During high school, I spent all my spare time playing music: giving lessons, playing in jazz band, playing in the pit orchestra for productions. And I was encouraged by my director...and friends...to pursue a career that included music. But my father had a strong opinion on the subject and what he told me had the solid ring of truth. He reminded me that one needs more than practice, more than talent, to be a musician: it is a profession that requires, if not genius, then passion...a single-minded devotion to perfection that very few people can sustain. And I wasn’t one of them. Like him, he said, I could love music...and enjoy it as an avocation all my life. Better, said he, to choose a profession that would undoubtedly serve mankind..one so encompassing of the various threads of knowledge that a person would find it not just rewarding, but also fascinating, whatever contribution he made.
So..I got a scholarship that paid for clarinet lessons and enrolled in the College of Agriculture. My piece of the ag pie may have been a small one, but it has never been boring.
That was vocation. His second piece of advice was issued after Blake and I were engaged. I was coming down the stairs into the basement of their house in Jeff City when he turned to me and said: “After you are married, you cannot come back home.” That wasn’t all the conversation, but that short admonition told me I was on my own, a grownup, and responsible for my own life from here on out. I guess Blake and I thought at the time that we were grownup, and neither set of parents told us we were foolish, but I always remembered and took to heart the gravity of that exchange.
I cannot imagine better advice than that which yields four decades of happy marriage and satisfying work!
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