Sympathy when I was a lad was in short supply. It was a different time. I worked with the Wilis Boys for three hot days cutting corn out of a bean field and it was so hot my socks slipped off my feet. When the farmer came by he mentioned that I was a bit slow…and I probably was but it was not for a lack of trying. 

Neva J awakened me each morning with her favorite motivational speech, ‘Hit The Deck, Your Rubberneck!’ All my friends must be experiencing the same call to battle. 

Each evening it was already dark in the winter…I was tasked with bringing in the coal for the stove adjacent to the kitchen. Now the coal was not the expensive kind and thus it was full of clunkers and Neva J had cats and thus cat poop as well. 

I learned to not wait for someone to give me something. Neva J was dating a gentleman called Cracky who offered me a penny and when I said no thanks he lectured me on the value of a penny.

I really appreciate Horatio Algier’s Stories or Rags to Riches because I remember the rags. When I moved out on my own the day after High School Graduation…I learned what it was to be hungry. 

So, when I see a fellow human on my Journey back to Jerusalem I empathize with them. It is indeed possible to work very hard and have nothing. 

We must decide to do something about our problems rather than talk them to death. Decisions whether they are right or wrong are at least forward movement. Stagnation in organizations churches universities and countries results in folks not caring or refusing to become involved. Risk-averse we are…while Rome is burning we are tuning our fiddles…

Committees are where ambitious plans for improvement expansion and renewal…go to die. We must ‘Hit The Deck’ when the call goes out, ‘Who shall work in my vineyard.’