Your Sphere of Influence

Sociologists call the primary group to which you belong a cohort. There are various types of cohorts: a macro cohort would be one to which I belong—the baby boomers; a micro cohort might be your birth family; other cohorts would be groups with which you strongly identify such as Viet Nam veterans or San Francisco Giants Fans or the high school class of ’71.

Since we all belong to some cohorts and since all people (even psychopaths) have a desire to leave a legacy or a mark on the world it follows that we would find our greatest chance of leaving a mark or making a difference in working within the cohorts we most closely relate—those with which we have the most in common. These groups or individuals within the groups we voluntarily or of necessity interact are the ‘raw material’ with whom we live, work, love, hate, and have the most influence.

I am convinced that our primary affiliation groups or associations do not come about by chance; God doesn’t just sprinkle us out on the world like one would with a gigantic salt shaker filled with salt, pepper, and every other type of spice all mixed together. Instead, we get sent to specific parents, families, generations, locations and times, even opportunities and challenges, with the idea that with these associations we will have our best chance to influence or be influenced for the good.

So, I subscribe to the notion to ‘Bloom where you are planted’ or become, as the Army slogan says, ‘Be all that you can be’ given your circumstances and help others in your sphere of influence to do likewise. I have very little patience or sympathy with those who get caught up in the ‘poor me’ mentality and do not see the opportunities before them. Even the supposedly most ‘disadvantaged’ can leave a great mark for good on others and can personally grow in important ways. History has shown this to be the case over and over; age, race, handicap, place of birth, etc., are not ultimately limiting.

The key to a successful life is this: Determine to do the greatest amount of good with the circumstances in which you find yourself. And if your circumstances aren’t what you want, do everything you can to improve them. As I have often said, “He who waits with mouth open for a roast duck to fly in, is in for a long wait.” A song I sometimes sing says, “Improve the shining moments, don’t let them pass you by….” Maybe it would be better said, “Improve the darkening moments….”

A good guideline we could all follow to improve any relationship or marriage is to ask yourself this: “How could I help this person or this situation to make things easier or better for them?” Then just do it.

Your sphere of influence is always larger than you think it is.

A Good Book

I just finished reading ‘Have a Little Faith’ by Mitch Albom. Although Publishers Weekly called it “a masterpiece,” and it is a #1 New York Times bestseller, I wouldn’t go quite that far with the encomiums; nevertheless it is a really good little book and I (and my wife who reads most of what I read so we can have our ongoing great discussions) would recommend it.

In this little non-fiction gem the author relates his experience with two very different churchmen who changed his life: the rabbi of his youth—whom he avoided as a youth—and a reformed black convict who was the pastor of a ghetto church in Detroit. Maybe the book would be a catalyst for change in your life.

Although I agree with nineteenth-century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson that “man is a god in ruins,” I also agree with C. S. Lewis that “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of these destinations…there are no ordinary people” (from ‘The Weight of Glory’).

‘Have a Little Faith’ illustrates both of these observations from these astute observers of human nature.

Since the Lewis quotation is so provocative for contemplation I will end by giving you the Emerson quotation in its expanded form for a balanced discussion should you want to explore the work of any of these three influential writers.

The Emerson quote is from ‘Generations’: “Man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer and pass into the immortal as gently as we awake from dreams. Now, the world would be insane and rabid if those disorganizations should last for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by death and infancy. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah when it comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.”

Hmmm….

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

I have been told that maybe I should stop writing the ‘morality plays’ that have made up a big part of my weblog essays. People, they say, don’t want to hear about these things; you will lose readers. They probably are right; but I won’t (stop, that is). For there are people, whom I am proud to know, who “enjoy the words of eternal life,” or at least moral truths or insights that lead to a happy life; and I enjoy sharing these.

Yes, there are plenty of people who like to write about themselves and show innumerable pictures of themselves, which is fine, I guess, as far as it goes, and others who much prefer entertainment or feel-good ‘religion’: The Bible says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers [or celebrities] having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth….” That time is now and I have no interest in competing with them.

Instead, I will joyfully plod on and hold up my Savior to look upon and share ideas or insights that I believe are congruent with eternal truth.

My object has been and will be to be a counterpoint to the prevailing ‘winds of doctrine [or degrading social norms]’ that blow to and fro. We have been enjoined to ‘Be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love….’

Therefore I will not promote myself, for I am an ordinary man; there are many out there who do promote themselves—they are called politicians or ‘public figures.’ But I will promote that which is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, [and will encourage all to] seek after these things.” Maybe that’s the ‘old-time religion’ as contrasted to the ‘feel-good religion’ that needs a few more spokesmen.

A Creed

I found this creed posted on a residence hall bulletin board at Brigham Young University in 1981. I liked it so much that I put it in my notebooks to periodically ponder in all the subsequent terms of my attendance at the university. I encourage you, too, to use it or craft a better one for yourself (if you could):

I will do more than belong. I will participate
I will do more than care. I will help.
I will do more than believe. I will practice.
I will do more than be fair. I will be kind.
I will do more than forgive. I will forget.
I will do more than dream. I will work.
I will do more than teach. I will inspire.
I will do more than earn. I will enrich.
I will do more than give. I will serve.
I will do more than live. I will grow.
I will do more than be friendly. I will be a friend.
I will do more than be a citizen. I will be a patriot.

Some Issues With Technology

I have a computer, a book reader, an iPod, a television and a telephone. I also have a refrigerator, a furnace, a stove and lights on in my house. You probably have all those things (and more) as well. Are they useful? Yes. Can they be a problem? Yes, especially the more modern gadgets—at least for me. Here is my issue:

Technology is pervasive and intrusive. It always connects and disconnects. It connects people to something outside of their immediate world and disconnects them from people and concerns around them. And it seems some people are always connected or plugged in. They are never ‘off.’ How many times do you find yourself engaged with someone and suddenly are put on hold because the cell phone rings and the new message supplants you. Technology is supplied to almost everyone; morality, good manners or common sense isn’t.

Psychologists and teachers tell us that the ‘electronically connected’ are increasingly having a difficult time in holding a focus—seeing something all the way through. As a trade-off they may now better manage the multi-strands in their personal lives but lose depth and quality with their relationships. How often do you find yourself in a group of young people and ‘hand held’ devices are holding them mesmerized? They are in another world. They can text but they cannot talk—or at least they cannot carry on an intelligent conversation with any depth. Sound-byte assertions and partial sentences from so many of our young seem to be the norm.

These things are taking over our lives. More and more people are living a ‘virtual life.’ I have asked myself, in my own lifetime what were some of the technological marvels, the novelty of the new that drew some of us in? How about small transistor radios; stereos and speakers; cassette tape recorders, 8-tracks and VCR’s; Walkmans and mini-disc recorders; cameras—Polaroid, video and digital; video games, Game Boys and Nintendos; personal computers, laptops, tablets, pda’s; cellular phones, smart phones; etc., etc. Some of these devices had and continue to have legitimate business or educational value and utility, but all of them seem to compel the attention and draw us away from living people and real-time issues or opportunities. They all take time.

What are we giving up? We are giving up intimacy. We are giving up a connection with nature. We are giving up the present. We may be giving up freedom as we become tied to or even addicted to the latest toy and many are even beginning to live a ‘virtual life,’ a Facebook life. Some are even giving up their marriages; their virtual affairs have supplanted a healthy real life.

I recently listened to an interview with Jason B. Ohler who wrote a book titled ‘Digital Community, Digital Citizen.’ He observed, “We’re at a technology party now and are going bananas.”

So, we are now living an option-based life because of electronic technology and it is becoming normalized. It can be good, but too often it isn’t; it is taking a toll. We need to question the degree to which we submit to technology—are we using it too uncritically? Is it a tool or is it becoming a master? As I look around it appears to me that it is becoming a master for many—especially the young.

Lights Out

I would like you to take a few minutes to contemplate what would be a catastrophe for you of the highest magnitude—one that would completely change your life as you are currently experiencing it and would start to do so within just minutes. Since it would be happening to others as well, within just a few days the social disequilibrium would have spread and chaos would be the norm. Within a few weeks life, as we knew it, would be completely different—and there would be many fewer of us; the elderly and the very young and highly vulnerable would be first to go. And then there would be a new norm for those who remain.

I am setting up a scenario where the reader consider where our technological dependence is disrupted by having, say, our national and regional electrical power sources go down for a protracted period of time—maybe weeks or months or maybe a year or more. And for those who think their stored supplies and batteries and generators would get them through, perhaps they would be partially spared for a slightly longer period of time, but what happens when the batteries run down and cannot be recharged and when the generator fuel is depleted?

Here are a few things that would immediately happen. If you were at the gas station the gas pump would stop and your car, which was empty, would have to be parked or left possibly some distance from your home. Who knows when you could get it because gasoline would be quickly used up and the refineries would be shut down. You would have to find another way home; you might have to walk. The checkout counter at the supermarket would have to shut down because the cash register would not work. And if they still let you take your purchases home, you would have to pay cash because the credit card machine wouldn’t work; likewise with the ATM machine where you were going to make a withdrawal. Soon the supermarket would be empty of goods because deliveries could not be made.

Money would quickly cease to exist, except for the little cash you might have in your pocket, because most money movement today is in the form of electronic funds transfers and practically all financial records are stored electronically. Bank accounts would mean nothing. You could not recharge your cell phone so you’ve only got, perhaps, a few calls you could make. Your computer would go down. There would be no television or electronically transmitted music to be heard—the transmitters would not transmit.

More seriously, for the ill or elderly, hospitals and medical services would go down after their emergency power supply was exhausted. How would law enforcement work and how overburdened they would suddenly be! There would soon be no heat for buildings and air conditioning would stop. All communications and information systems would break down. Systems for manufacturing, distributing, and accounting for all goods and most services would cease to operate. Your refrigerator and freezer would not work so you would quickly need to depend on your stored and canned food, and unless you had some bottled LPG gas, which would last for only so long, and a portable stove, and then you would have to eat your food, if you had stored some, cold.

Perhaps most serious of all, water could not be pumped. People might flock to bodies of fresh water which soon would be polluted water because sanitation systems would not operate—including your toilet.

Because so many people have become the passive recipients of services and have become so dependent upon technology, there would be comparatively few who would have the broad practical knowledge, tools, and skills to survive. So, many would die. In short, we would be plunged back into the world of the mid-nineteenth century or before.

Now before you just blow this off as doomsday nonsense or a negative attitude, take a serious minute and consider how you would get by and what you would do if the lights went out in your house—and your neighbor’s house, and every house in your community and state and nation for a protracted period. Where would that leave you? It would not take a nuclear bomb or an out-of-control communicable disease—all it would take is for the power to go down.

Fathers

Soon after the establishment of Mother’s Day in this country—about 100 years ago—the publicly recognized influence of fatherhood in society began to be promoted by some mothers and women’s groups. One encyclopedia source says that its promotion was met with “much satire, parody, and derision.” Sadly, even today many think that beyond the physical begetting of children, and maybe a paycheck, men are superfluous.

How wrong they are.

Those who came from good and happy homes knew that good parenting, which included good fathering, was vital to the welfare of children and to society. Although a number of Presidents of the United States in the early 20th Century tried to promote it, it was not until 1966 that the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was made and six years later, in 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed a law making it a permanent national holiday. It is formally recognized in many countries.

In 1960, when I was a boy, the total number of children living in fatherless families was fewer than eight million. Today it is around thirty million; around half our children are being raised in homes without their fathers. Many men, especially among the more poorly educated and certain minorities, have abdicated their responsibilities. And society has suffered. A few other sobering statistics may drive home the point: Over 75 percent of American children living in fatherless homes will experience poverty before the age of eleven, compared to twenty percent of those raised by two parents. Children from fatherless homes are absent from school far more frequently, and far more likely to be expelled from or drop out of school. They are much more likely to develop emotional or behavioral problems, commit suicide, fall victim to child abuse, and are far more likely to become violent criminals. Seventy percent of men incarcerated in prisons did not have fathers in their homes. Boys seem to suffer more, but girls also tend to act out when fathers are absent; they much more frequently become rebellious and promiscuous.

The fact is that mothers and fathers parent differently and both are needed. What children need to develop good character and to be prepared for their future is the combination of what mothers and fathers bring to the parenting equation, just as both the hammer and the anvil is needed to shape the iron, or both blades are needed for a pair of scissors.

Boys and girls need a high level of nurturing balanced by a high level of control. Fathers are more than just ‘paychecks,’ but can and should be teachers, protectors, and good examples as well as moral guides. To do this they need to be physically and emotionally present in their homes. If they did not have a good example in their own boyhood home, then they need to learn how to be a good father. Many resources are available to help them learn how.

Men need to honor their marriage, and if they are blessed to have children honor their sacred role and title as husband and ‘father’ and to honor their wives and children with the best they have to give. Nearly any pubescent male can sire a child, but it takes a dedicated and responsible man to father one. Then, when the third Sunday in June comes around, such a man can accept the card or necktie with satisfaction. Honor is earned.

It is an honor to be a father.