I’m reading Ralph Nader’s memoir The Seventeen Traditions (HarperCollins 2007). and much to my surprise it is well worth the read. It is the gentle telling of his growing up life in Connecticut. Na…

Source: Hang On

I’m reading Ralph Nader’s memoir The Seventeen Traditions (HarperCollins 2007). and much to my surprise it is well worth the read. It is the gentle telling of his growing up life in Connecticut. Nader has never been one of my favorites and today I have suspected and tentatively confessed my prejudice. For the younger among us, Ralph Nader ran as a third party candidate for president on the Green Party Ticket in 2000. Perhaps, he drained enough votes from the Democrats to give the election to George W. Bush.

The Naders were immigrants and as they established themselves, they became active politically and in civic events. Their senator was republican Prescott Bush who is the father of a president and the grandfather of another. In August, 1955 a hurricane destroyed main street of the Nader’s home city. Ralph’s mother determined that only a dry dam could prevent the city being so damaged by every storm that followed. She talked to a friend who had connection with Prescott Bush to push for that dry dam.

“Alas, came the report, Bush responded with no more than a smile.” (page 140)

One day, that mutual friend invited Mr. Bush to speak in the area. Mr. and Mrs. Nader went to hear him. Let Ralph Nader’s words describe the event.

“After his speech, my mother went over and introduced herself. As she was shaking hands with him, she said, ‘Senator Bush, Winsted, Connecticut needs your support in getting the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dry dam to prevent future flooding.’

“Bush smiled, but said nothing.

“Mother always loved recalling what happened next. ‘I wouldn’t let go of his hand,’ she said, ‘until he promised to help.’ She had a tremendous grip”

Prescott Bush did help. A dam was built. There hasn’t been a flood since.

Mrs. Nader said, “If you want to get a politician to stop smiling and start promising,” she always said, “just don’t let go of his hand.”

©2016 D. Dean Benton—Benton Books, Blogs, & Blurbs.

Benton Blogs, Books & Blurbs Ralph Nader uses the phrase “Casual cruelty” in his book The Seventeen Traditions, (HarperCollins 2007). We didn’t use the phrase “verbal bullying” much in 20…

Source: Kind Doesn’t Cost Much

1. Benton Blogs, Books & Blurbs

Ralph Nader uses the phrase “Casual cruelty” in his book The Seventeen Traditions, (HarperCollins 2007). We didn’t use the phrase “verbal bullying” much in 2007. Casual cruelty describes a mean remark about and to a thirteen year old girl by a kid who was not normally a bad mouth. But it hit her like a harpoon and his buddies smirked.

I don’t watch late-night talk shows because guests and hosts seem to be all about casual cruelty. I heard POTUS use that fine art of nasty communication yesterday. The recipient of the barb deserved it, probably, but I expect more of leaders.

One of my favorite TV news commentators said this has been a very difficult year for her. The vitriolic words and tones have hurt her. She corrected herself. They have driven her to her knees. She was stating a fact, not just a phrase. What a nice lady. I think she should be on the ballot and I would vote for her no matter what she was candidating for. She is brilliant, has a kindness about her soul and her smile takes the edge off of toughness. That differentiates meanness from observations about wrong behavior.

This election season has turned the airwaves and stump environment into a cess pool. Last week, I sensed God was speaking a “word of the week” to me.

Nice

What would it have cost Mr. Trump had he greeted Mrs. Clinton with a “hope you are feeling better” at the debate? Being civilized does not equate to agreeing with nasty behavior or encouraging stupidity. Crude, mean, barn lot behavior seems to define our culture. One of my friends has become severely handicapped—he can’t post a Facebook note regardless of length without using the F word. He is a better person than that! I doubt he would use that word if we were talking face to face, but it has become part of the entertainment milieu,social interaction and sadly it has taken control of his media device. A writer’s Holiness mother said, “You don’t want to be afraid to use the word “DAMN!” but you sure don’t want to waste one.

I know God said the word “Nice” to me and maybe not to you. I’ve found several convenience places during the past week to drop in a passionate DAMN! but I’m working on “nice.”

Finally, I’ve concluded that the words of the politicians have almost convinced me they do not deserve my vote. I don’t want to encourage their trash talk or behavior.

©2016 D. Dean Benton–Writer, Wonderer, Soul-Tender

Among the first tools I purchased for my own tool box was a chalk line. A few months ago, I was hanging eaves trough and couldn’t find the chalk line. A person can install rain gutters without a ch…

Source: Chalk Line

Among the first tools I purchased for my own tool box was a chalk line. A few months ago, I was hanging eaves trough and couldn’t find the chalk line. A person can install rain gutters without a chalk line, but almost everyone will know. I looked in my three official tool boxes, some plastic storage containers and in all the junk drawers. The tool was gone.

I hired a friend to finish the job that was two feet over my head (read that courage). He told me he had forgotten his tool box containing his chalk line and wondered if I had one. So I told him the story I’ve just told you. I told him I would look again, but after thirty searches I couldn’t imagine finding it. I scoured the three major boxes, the plastic containers and all the junk drawers. Nope. We talked about possible options. I sorted through all those boxes for string and in my primary tool box in absolute plain sight—nothing covering it—there was my chalk line. I told Adam I had looked in the tool box 30-35 times. Probably an exaggeration, but without a doubt, I had looked 10-12 times. How could I have missed it? It is about 4 inches by 6 inches plus. Hardly miniscule.

A chalk line is string wrapped around a cone in a box of blue or orange chalk. Mine predated orange by several decades. The process is to hook one end on a nail and pull the string out of the metal container for a few or a hundred feet. You pull it taut around another nail at the far end and the snap the line. It leaves a straight line to guide things like foundations or roofing. Next to a plumb line, a chalk line is fundamental to quality construction.

November 9, 2016 has occupied my mind. We have talked about this election just this side of constantly. What will this country look like on the morning of November 9? What will have been set into motion? I’ve concluded madness has taken control and above everything else—this country has lost its chalk line!

I’m reading a biography of Winston Churchill. At his death, he was among the most honored and revered of men, Citizens from 110 nations had assembled–six monarchs, five presidents and fifteen prime ministers had assembled for the funeral. Stephen Mansfield writes

“…they were free to return to their lives in the world Sir Winston had worked to build, to the future he had struggled so valiantly to preserve.” (The Character and Greatness of Winston Churchill, ©1995, 2004, Cumberland House Publishing)

When the bunting, placards and speech notes are swept up on November 9—the day after the election—what shall we return to? Who will set the chalk line? Lord, whatever you plan to be doing on November 9–please schedule in mercy.

©2016 D. Dean Benton       DeanBenton.org & bentonministries.com

Do you still have hummingbirds in your lawn? We have one hummingbird and I’m concerned. He (she) comes to the feeder, sits on the swing (yes, Carole bought a hummingbird swing. I made fun of her, but as usual she and the birds were right.) The little bird swings for a bit, looks into the house through the window to see how we are or just to check in, and then feeds before zooming off. The bird follows the same pattern a couple of times an hour.

Has that bird noticed his buddies are gone? I wonder if it looks into the house to ask if it can spend the winter with us? My anxiety rises thinking about that moment when the little bird realizes he didn’t get the departure memo. What went into the decision for him to stay behind? Is he the Rudolf of his herd—they won’t let him join in…?

Does he plan to meet his flock at Joplin on their way to St. Petersburg? I’m also wondering about Wednesday when the temp is supposed to reach a high of 50 that the creature will decide he had better pack. How lonely will he feel when he reaches Keokuk or Columbia, Mo? Will he suffer severe separation anxiety?

Some years ago, I put Carole on a plane in Nashville to send her home to be with her sick mother. As I drove onto I-40 to head for South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, I felt all three words: Severe! Separation! Anxiety! and said out loud, “Dude, you are alone!” I don’t do alone well. A couple of weeks later, I was hurting so bad I went into a Macon, Georgia pet store to borrow a puppy to hold.

I am concerned about that hummingbird. He has become a family member. I’m also concerned about several of my close friends and a few more acquaintances who are alone today. Divorce. Post funeral. Living with the shakes kicking drugs. Abandonment, neglect, rejection, results of wrong choices, no clear pathway to day after tomorrow.

I want you to know—if you can make it to Joplin, I have friends there. There are also places along the way you’ll want to avoid. I know some of those places—don’t do this trip alone.

For 15-20 years, I’ve been building and equipping Southwood—the Community You’ve Always Wanted. Can you make it to Southwood? What is about the place that makes it so attractive? I’ve been thinking this weekend about the folks who live and work there. It is more than what they feel, need or long for. It is what they are becoming and what they do. It is the emotional and spiritual atmosphere—the culture. That is shown by how off-course hummingbirds are received, greeted, fed, encouraged and equipped for the rest of the journey. A 40-year old man said to me, “I need a man to embrace me—like a father does.” The culture is not a feeling.  It  is action!.

These are the essential elements of what makes a cluster of humans a family, or a tribe, a great place to work, church, life-group:

We BELIEVE the best IN each other

WANT (help make it happen) the best FOR each other

EXPECT (demand) the best FROM each other.¹

I have been working this weekend defining each of those words.

¹ Remarkable! ©2013 Dr. Randy Ross & David Salyers,(Enthusiasm Publishers)

©2016 D. Dean Benton     bentonministries.com

new email: Dean@DeanBenton.org

In the Afterword of the 25th year Edition of publication, author H. G. Bissinger describes interviewing several of the high school football players who had been central to the book Friday Night Lights. (Da Capo Publication 2015) Most of the players acknowledged they had not experienced, nor did they ever expect to experience, anything like the 1988 season. One player, now a businessman said,

“It took me about 10-15 years of working in different groups, different places, different environments, to finally come to the conclusion and realization I’m not ever gonna have a group of coworkers and teammates like I had then.” (page 402)

I am saddened to think that life peaked for many of them when they left high school. For some, the “tribe” experience was not duplicated off the field nor have they found another working relationship or friendship to equal.

Chick-Fil-A shifted their mission statement to one-word: Remarkable! That word was to define engagement with customers and the culture of the work place—how workers engaged with each other.

“A Remarkable Culture where people BELIEVE the best IN each other; WANT the best FOR each other and EXPECT the best FROM each other.”

Wouldn’t you like to work in that culture? Would that be a driving and defining mission statement for a family? Wouldn’t you like to be part of tribe defined by that?

©2016 D. Dean Benton        Writer, Wonderer.     Bentonministries.com    DeanBenton.org

High school class reunions. Have you been to one lately? It is going to take me a while to figure out what I experienced. Most of my closest friends did not attend or else they were there and I didn’t recognize them.

Without name tags, reunions might as well be gatherings of the Lions Club from a different planet. Some of my class mates see each other around town or saw each other at the last reunion. We were on the road the last two, so we haven’t seen the folks for 15-20 years. After I talked to some of them, certain characteristics became familiar again. “Ah ha! You used to be Larry….”

These were the people who were the most important humans on the face of the earth to me. I needed their favor or approval and now I don’t even know them. These are not my people! And they haven’t been long since the wrinkle fluid was injected.

Charlie has been a professional photographer since graduation. He has been taking reunion pictures for decades. He shot photos for one of The Bentons vinyl record albums. I’m not sure he knew who I was. He took pictures of the graduating class and also the grade schools we attended. There were 5-6 grade schools that fed into Junior high. I attended four of them. We moved and when the family divorced, I changed schools a couple of times. That was kinda weird. I thought Charlie was going to limit the number of school pix one person could be in.

It was interesting to watch how people clustered. I was blessed in school by running with a very eclectic group. I noticed at this reunion I got hugged less. The last one I attended I hugged people I would never have touched in high school. Maybe once every two-decades was enough for them.

I am also blessed to have a couple of peers who are Facebook friends with whom I talk. How I treasure them. One of those ladies has been a friend since third grade. I really do treasure that connection and the memories she reminds me of. Another lady greeted me 20 years ago with “Why! Dean Benton! I thought you were dead.” We’ve kept making sure the other one is not  ever since via Facebook. She is one I hugged.

I found myself asking the same question of people whose faces hinted that I knew them in earlier life. “Tell me about you.” Several reminded me how they remembered me. I was the one voted most apt not to graduate from the 8th grade. Every conversation reminded me how different I am—due to the redemptive love of Christ. How lost I was during the years those people knew me. I desperately wanted to hear people’s stories—what has your life been? The big questions I kept asking about me: Who am I? Who are my people?

My mother operated a café across the street from one of our grade schools. Surprising how many remembered Mom. I was Vi’s kid to some of my peers. I was pleased for her. Had I ever asked her what her mission statement was, she wouldn’t have understood. She had a phrase that described it. Listening to some of the memories, she fulfilled her mission.

I felt honored to be asked to pray over the meal. During that prayer, I suddenly was aware of the teachers who invested in us. It was a startling, moving moment for me. Some of those classmates had also influenced me. One of the guys who came to sit at our table was not among my closest friends in school. He told me he works with Celebrate Recovery in his church and I felt closer to him—we belong to the same Kingdom family. Had we had time I would have found more of Jesus’ friends.

It has not been easy to figure out the traffic in my mind or soul. I don’t think I am as old as that gathering, but I realize the Chicago Cubs are probably not going to call me up. Therefore, Who am I, now? And who are my people?

Two or three decades ago, I told a seminar group I was going to my high school reunion. The story fit into the seminar. “So I sent in my $10 fee….” One lady asked with loud unbelief. “How much did it cost you?” I told her $10. She said with great passion: “$10? It cost me $700!” I asked her how it could have cost me $10 and her $700. She replied, “You didn’t have to buy all the new weight loss exercise equipment.”

Thanks for being my people.

©2016 D. Dean Benton                             bentonministries.com