When things are going
well, it is easy to have an attitude of gratitude. Like when the Reds
win, the grass is cut, the right song comes on the radio, or someone
mistakes me for Brad Pitt (which, oddly enough, hasn’t happened lately).
It’s in those times I say “thank you” quickly and repeatedly.
But there have been other times when I have felt just the opposite. Stuff happens, and I’m ready to fly to the Arctic Circle and become a trash collector. Or volunteer for a root canal. Things could not get any worse, and nothing good could come of such times.
Or so I thought.
Later, though, I see everything from an altogether different view. As Joe Walsh, a guitarist for the Eagles, once said, “When things happen, they appear as random and chaotic events that bang into one another, with no possible purpose, but then one day you look back and see your life as a finely crafted novel.”
Wow. Not bad for a guy who doesn’t remember the Seventies.
So as we celebrate Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my family, my health and all the goodness that surrounds me.
But I am also thankful for the bad moments over the years that ultimately turned out to be good ones. Three such occasions come to mind.
I REMEMBER THE FALL OF 1973 when my parents moved us from Springboro to Franklin. What? Why? I was a Panther, with lifelong dreams to be a varsity Panther, and serious reservations about moving to a town that was bigger, tougher, and an arch-enemy.
But something interesting happened on my way to misery.
Moving to Franklin turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I found smart, successful friends. And I played on teams that were remarkably talented. I grew up with “The Heart of the Panthers,” but I’ve since lived knowing the meaning of “Once A Wildcat, Always A Wildcat.” And it's all good.
Mom, Dad, I didn’t understand at first. But now I see. Thanks.
I remember a time in 1986 when a break-up made me face more personal weaknesses than I cared to admit. While every other couple seemed like two grapes that blended together to make fine wine, my relationships were like two marbles banging together to make noise.
Matters of the heart are not simple, business-like transactions. The end is like radical surgery without an anesthetic, and it hurts like hell. Since I now work in divorce court, I remember that. The pain makes it hard to move forward.
But then, a few years later, I met Kim -- so pretty she was out of my league, so friendly she has 14,000 best friends, and so genuinely loving and understanding, that she is impossible not to love. I realized I was being given this undeserved second chance, and I had a chance to make up for all my mistakes from the past.
The lonely moments made me better, more appreciative. What I went through was worth it. Because she is worth it.
To Heartache, I hated you. But you also helped me. Thanks.
THEN THERE'S THAT February morning in 1998.
Ostensibly, I had everything – a wife and kids, a nice home and a thriving law practice. But as I sat at the stop sign at 741 and McCray Blvd. in Springboro on the way to work that morning, I found symbolism in the fact that a heavy snowfall kept me from seeing clearly.
I had it all, but I always wanted more. More money. More status. More individual recognition. Life gets unsatisfying when you’ve put yourself in the middle of the universe.
Analytical, hard-edged lawyers are supposed to be too smart to believe in God. Where is the evidence? What about the apparent contradictions? Those questions can be debated elsewhere; I just know that what hit me hard and true that cold, Friday morning.
When I lose sight of the eternal, I become paralyzed by the immediate. If I have read the last chapter of the book, I can easily navigate the twists and turns in the story along the way. Life is not all about me and my likes and needs. Despite our age and intellect, we are all children in the eyes of the One who created us, and happiness comes when we quit trying to figure it all out.
We often look for this Eternal Euphoria at the mountaintop, when everything is going well. Instead, we find it when we’ve sunk to the bottom, having been knocked to our knees and looking up.
I wish we could have a life without hardship.
But until that happens, we can hold hope for the miracle that comes from hardship.
In time, the light appears. In time, we see things more clearly. And then we say a word we never dreamed possible.
Thanks.
It’s in those times I say “thank you” quickly and repeatedly.
But there have been other times when I have felt just the opposite. Stuff happens, and I’m ready to fly to the Arctic Circle and become a trash collector. Or volunteer for a root canal. Things could not get any worse, and nothing good could come of such times.
Or so I thought.
Later, though, I see everything from an altogether different view. As Joe Walsh, a guitarist for the Eagles, once said, “When things happen, they appear as random and chaotic events that bang into one another, with no possible purpose, but then one day you look back and see your life as a finely crafted novel.”
Wow. Not bad for a guy who doesn’t remember the Seventies.
So as we celebrate Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my family, my health and all the goodness that surrounds me.
But I am also thankful for the bad moments over the years that ultimately turned out to be good ones. Three such occasions come to mind.
I REMEMBER THE FALL OF 1973 when my parents moved us from Springboro to Franklin. What? Why? I was a Panther, with lifelong dreams to be a varsity Panther, and serious reservations about moving to a town that was bigger, tougher, and an arch-enemy.
But something interesting happened on my way to misery.
Moving to Franklin turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I found smart, successful friends. And I played on teams that were remarkably talented. I grew up with “The Heart of the Panthers,” but I’ve since lived knowing the meaning of “Once A Wildcat, Always A Wildcat.” And it's all good.
Mom, Dad, I didn’t understand at first. But now I see. Thanks.
I remember a time in 1986 when a break-up made me face more personal weaknesses than I cared to admit. While every other couple seemed like two grapes that blended together to make fine wine, my relationships were like two marbles banging together to make noise.
Matters of the heart are not simple, business-like transactions. The end is like radical surgery without an anesthetic, and it hurts like hell. Since I now work in divorce court, I remember that. The pain makes it hard to move forward.
But then, a few years later, I met Kim -- so pretty she was out of my league, so friendly she has 14,000 best friends, and so genuinely loving and understanding, that she is impossible not to love. I realized I was being given this undeserved second chance, and I had a chance to make up for all my mistakes from the past.
The lonely moments made me better, more appreciative. What I went through was worth it. Because she is worth it.
To Heartache, I hated you. But you also helped me. Thanks.
THEN THERE'S THAT February morning in 1998.
Ostensibly, I had everything – a wife and kids, a nice home and a thriving law practice. But as I sat at the stop sign at 741 and McCray Blvd. in Springboro on the way to work that morning, I found symbolism in the fact that a heavy snowfall kept me from seeing clearly.
I had it all, but I always wanted more. More money. More status. More individual recognition. Life gets unsatisfying when you’ve put yourself in the middle of the universe.
Analytical, hard-edged lawyers are supposed to be too smart to believe in God. Where is the evidence? What about the apparent contradictions? Those questions can be debated elsewhere; I just know that what hit me hard and true that cold, Friday morning.
When I lose sight of the eternal, I become paralyzed by the immediate. If I have read the last chapter of the book, I can easily navigate the twists and turns in the story along the way. Life is not all about me and my likes and needs. Despite our age and intellect, we are all children in the eyes of the One who created us, and happiness comes when we quit trying to figure it all out.
We often look for this Eternal Euphoria at the mountaintop, when everything is going well. Instead, we find it when we’ve sunk to the bottom, having been knocked to our knees and looking up.
I wish we could have a life without hardship.
But until that happens, we can hold hope for the miracle that comes from hardship.
In time, the light appears. In time, we see things more clearly. And then we say a word we never dreamed possible.
Thanks.