Glen Jackson talks with Andy Stanley about being a preeminent organization by listing Seven Pillars. Number 6 is “Fanatical Focus.”

Find what you do best and do that. Do what you do best. Outsource other things to release you to do what you do best. Pastor A. R. Bernard adamantly says, “Manage your weaknesses and increase your strengths.” Glen Jackson says, “Stay in your swim lane.”

The ironic thing is if you try to do what you are not gifted to do you will undercut your premium gift(s) or become discouraged with your weaknesses that you will abandon or undersell your pathway to achievement.

Andy Stanley says in the podcast that when the cash flow is strong and the opportunities are many, it is easy to lose your focus. That grabbed my attention hard. I’ve been obsessing over the oil boom and bust of the 1980s. Let this statement set up the discussion:

“Of all the deals that Aaron Giebel had made from his base of operations in Midland during the boom, the hardest part, by his own account, was figuring out which one was the worst.” (Friday Night Lights, H. G. Bissinger, Da Capo Press, 1990 & 2015) Page 234.

Giebel had degrees in geology and petroleum engineering from Texas A & M. He says, “…I was a heck of a businessman. I became a fast-moving promoter type.” He was generally a cautious and careful business man. He knew how to do oil. He had the Midas touch. He drilled 195 wells with a 55% success rate. The oil boom was seductive. As Andy Stanley says, the cash flow was deep and the opportunities plentiful.

“The moment was suddenly at hand not only to make ungody sums of money but to build an empire, a lasting monument.” (Page 236)

He lost his focus.

“Had the five planes, and the three full-time pilots to fly them, really been necessary? Should he have bought the Brangus bull for $1 million? Should he have paid cash for the thousand head of hybrid cattle. Did he think it through as carefully as he should when he took a multi-million position on a method of breeding ‘super cattle’ by hormone injection and embryonic implant? Had it been reason enough to pay $17.5 million for the 7000 acre ranch with the palm trees that had been flown in and the private runway and the breathtaking view of Mexico when he used it largely for entertaining and hunting? Should he have planted 28,000 pecan trees when the only thing he knew about pecans was that ‘they’re all named after Indians?’ Had it been smart to go into the home construction business and end up losing $1.2 million? Had he really needed the trucking business that cost him $4 million? Had it been slightly impulsive when he decided to open five additional offices in San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Denver, Calgary, and Lafayette, Louisiana?” (Bissinger, Page 234)

What I have read about him, I like him. I think I  would enjoy sitting on the porch looking across 100 miles of flat West Texas with the view broken only by pumping oil rigs and listening to his stories.

“He spoke about it with candor, as if he saw a danger in what had happened that needed to be exposed, materialism and a desire for money and wheeling and dealing that became as impossible to resist as any addiction.” (235)

He lost a lot of toys and things and about $55 million. He declared bankruptcy and by 1988 he was back in the oil business “although on a far reduced basis.”

I don’t know his heart or thinking, but it seems to me that it was not greed that drove him into the ditch, but his loss of focus. He knew little or nothing about the businesses he diversified into. He knew the oil business.

I’m  just gonna make a huge guess here that most of us—you and me— will never get to make the decisions to diversify at that level. I’m guessing our greatest hazard is not knowing what we do best and then doing it.

Ephesians 2:10 has bright insight on this. What if our abundant life—our “more than enough life” is connected to knowing what we do best and then doing it?

What do you best? What imbedded talents? What Spiritual gift(s)

©2016 D. Dean Benton   Writer, Wonderer—and at least one more thing.

Several of my friends are going through less than pleasant life transitions. One of the repeated phrases is, “I just want to be happy.” Another is, “I just don’t want to hurt anymore.” A couple of weeks ago, their hurt, gloom, hopelessness and lostness overshadowed me—more like 99% humidity than an overhead cloud.

“This transition is a great opportunity for you to ask yourself what would make you happy. With a full life as your guide, what will you add, subtract to your life that will produce what you are now lacking? What does ‘happy’ look like to you? Write it down. Draw a picture.”

That is what I’ve been telling those friends. Among the top truisms is, “Unsolicited advice is seldom welcomed or considered.”

In the midst of my anguish for my “clients” and my friends, I ran across Andy Andrews’ ebook “Creating the Future You’ve Always Dreamed of….” ©2008 Andy Andrews. He suggests 5 questions:

Identify what you want. What do you want to happen over the next year of your life?

Identify why you want it. Why is this important to me? What will doing, becoming, or accomplishing this mean to me?

Identify how you will get it. What 5 or 6 actions will I take to accomplish?

Identify when you will take the action to get you there.

bserve your progress. Is what you are doing working? Why? Why not? What actions need adjustment?

I doubt that many if any of those on my prayer list and in the fog will take the time. None of us can see ourselves 360^0. We all have blind spots and we fear and resist asking. It is like that question, “Does this dress make me look fat?” Any man asked that question should run like the wind! Historian and presidential biographer, Stephen Mansfield has a new booklet worth looking at: “Building Your Band of Brothers.” (Available from his website) We can’t answer Andy Andrews’ questions thoroughly while in isolation.

“As he comes home to a new vision of manhood, it dawns on him that he cannot achieve it alone. He needs men around him to help him. He needs the eyes of others on him. He needs a team, a pack, a tribe, a band of brothers—all committed to the noble project of achieving valiant manhood. He finally accepts the truths that nearly always launches men to new heights: we are better together.” (Mansfield, page 10)

Bill George is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. He wrote the best seller True North. He and colleague Doug Baker wrote True North Groups. Not only did I read both books, I underlined almost every sentence. True North groups are defined as a resource—“a powerful path to personal and leadership development.”

The greatest need in our culture is for each of us to have at least one person—mentor, friend, small group partner, who will fill in the blind spots of our 360⁰ . Who will that be?

Start with Andy Andrews’ questions and then when you can’t figure out an answer talk to a brother or a sister who has no agenda other than your happiness, achievement and accomplishment. Join me at The Quest House for conversation in the Launch Room.

That is why we call it The Quest House.

© 2016 D. Dean Benton   writer, wonderer                             bentonministries.com

We’ve been watching “Friday Night Lights,” a TV series about a Texas high school’s football team and the player’s lives. I hadn’t expected Jesus to be in the script along with people going to church or high schoolers having that much sex. In another age, the show would have been subtitled, “Hormones on parade!” The show takes on tough subjects with respect and directness. To me, the show’s constant theme is the place, role and responsibility of men. Fathers and how teens become men and how honorable men act.

I re-read my book Caught in the Tail Lights to make sure I am offering a quality product. Several of my relatives and friends are in the grisly process of divorce. I want to suggest they read it and find long-term help for themselves and the kids. There are some words in my book about the damage done to the kids when one of the adults speaks ill of their ex—which is the kid’s parent. A kid will personalize the verbal attack and will take the criticism or ugliness as a personal evaluation. When “love turns to war” obliteration of the ex becomes the primary battle strategy. When a relationship goes sour, the perceived rejection is the worst of all feelings and it sets loose a vicious tendency in the hurting. Retribution or a need to prove the ex is worse than infected pond scum. It is one thing to sit on a bar stool and sing, “She got the gold mine and I got the shaft,” and quite another to say it in the hearing of the children or adult children or attempt to convince the children. Jesus is quite clear about his evaluation of such–Matthew 18:6.

The child listens, observes and concludes the words have implications for themselves in the present and as they grow into adult. They begin to question if the attacking parent will defend them or throw them to the wolves. Children are active listeners and observers and often terrible interpreters. They don’t translate cynicism, sarcasm and hate naturally. They are literalists—the nuances are lost on them.

Stephen Mansfield’s new little book Band of Brothers arrived. Like all of his writing, I underlined a lot of sentences. His line “Manly men tend their fields” comes from 2 Corinthians 10:13:

“…we will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned us….”

Mansfield uses the phrase “sphere of service” and translates it “field.” God has assigned men a field. That field has boundaries. That field contains everything for which God has given responsibility. (Page 35)

“That field is comprised of the people, things, and priorities God has assigned to you. Your job is to know your field, protect your field, and make sure that everything in your field flourishes according to the will of God.” (Building Your Band of Brothers, Stephen Mansfield, 2016 Blackwatch Digital Publishers)

Mansfield says health and healing of wounds come to a man (and/or  woman) who “…using your gifts for the glory of God, own the field you’ve been given and making everything in that field come into its destined state.”

Can you grasp the honor and beauty of “making everything in that field come into its destined state.”

God especially gets ticked when covenants are broken. I thoroughly get it that sometimes divorce is the best idea. There are embedded covenants in that relationship, however, that are not erased by signatures on a divorce decree.

The words about children of divorce are mine since I’m pushing my book on adult children of divorce. Some of my friends are divorcing and the men are alone or start looking for another woman to fill the vacancy. That leads to ill-health. Mansfield says we guys need to be connected to other men. I invite you to invest 15 minutes into your life by listening to Mansfield’s podcast. You can listen to it on your computer without subscribing to his podcast. Link:

http://stephenmansfield.tv/stephens-new-book-men/

Scroll to second page for the podcast.

©2016 D. Dean Benton       Writer—Wonderer

There must be something about “4”.

Age four. In unscientific observations, the age four seems to me to be a particular vulnerable time for molestation and abuse. Most of the adults I have “counseled” in a pastoral setting, tell me there were crises and events at age four.

Fourth grade. Stephen Mansfield reported in his podcast that prison authorities research fourth grade records for trends and social situations to determine what prison facilities will be needed in 15-20 years. Executive mentor Bobb Biehl says fourth grade (typically Age 9) is “The Single Most Shaping Year of a Person’s Existence.”

Fourteen. Most of the men and young men I have visited in jail and prison and have had across the table conversations tell me the trouble began or the critical event happened when they were fourteen.

Forty. This is the stereotypical time for the mid-life crisis. Some face it earlier, some later, but forty is about the median age.

Several years ago, I read Bobb Biehl’s book Mentoring. It is one of the most impacting books I have read. In the book, he has a small section on fourth graders which set me on a search. Ten years ago, a school friend sent me two pictures of our fourth grade class. The boys gathered in one and the girls in the other. Each person was identified. There was some confusion about which kid was me. I could be one or other of two standing side by side. No one knew, including some in my family of origin. The two boys are opposites in physical appearance and emotional expression. I concluded that I was absent from school that day and was not in the picture. Before I read Biehl I was plagued by the question: what happened to those kids?

If we only had the statement—“Fourth grade (typically Age 9) is The Single Most Shaping Year of a Person’s Existence”—should that be motivating and challenging?

Several years ago, I talked to a couple of school administrators about that phrase and we spend our time together discussing whether it was the fourth year in school—which would be third grade and not fourth. It was a nice conversation that determined nothing and developed into nothing.

After hearing Mansfield’s statement about the prison system planning, I was in touch in Bobb Biehl. The book Mentoring (Aylen Publishing) was first written in 1996–now updated. His DVD on 4th grade has a few years on it. Think how kids mature physically so much faster in 2016 than in 2002. That change has been attributed to a wide range of causes from hormones in cows’ milk to the influence of living in a highly sexualized culture.

A friend who has two daughters teaching fourth grade in different schools said Mansfield’s remarks fit the observations of the teachers. My friend’s tone was sad. So I asked Biehl if he stood by his statement:

“Yes. I believe 4th grade…actually age 9—typically the 4th grade…is a physical development issue…more than a cultural development issue.” (Bobb Biehl)

“The Single Most Shaping Year of a Person’s Existence”—

If that statement is anywhere close to being true, should we not be organizing youth ministry around 4th graders? I have never heard of a church that focused ministry on 4th grade. Why not? Okay. Most of us grandparents and most parents, acknowledge that today’s 4th grader is a whole lot different than we were in 4th grade. But, is first grade the new fourth grade? So, let’s give it some space and say 3rd or 4th grade is…. How come more churches do not market their ministry to the most shaping year…? I do not have statistics in front of me, but based on memory, most kids come to Christ at ages 8-9-10. Grades 3-4-5.

In my book, “When Whales Sing,” a man and his child psychologist daughter are standing in front of an orchard. The question is “What do we plant?” The child psychologist answers “Depends on what we expect to harvest.” If we want to reap at 14, 24 or 40 a specific harvest, then we will be intentional what we plant at 4 and 4th grade and how the seed is nurtured.

In my work in process–The Carafe Business–you will meet Lance. He is 9–at least he thinks he is nine and he is self-named and a run-away. He was abandoned by his parents and given up on by the state.  What do we pour into him if we want him to be a productive citizen at 40  and healing at 24?  How do we minister to anyone at 24 or 40 who did not fare well in fourth grade?

© 2016 D. Dean Benton           writer & wonderer           bentonministries.com

We’ve been watching a TV series about a news room and broadcast. It is fantastic! I didn’t know it existed. After a terrible broadcast, the Executive Producer says to the news anchor, “You are leading from fear. Be the moral center of this show. The integrity. This is Friday. On Monday I want you to come in here …and tell me if you are in.”

That was the best few seconds of television I have ever seen. Someone needs to sit our two major presidential candidates down and repeat those lines. This is the worst campaign cycle in the history of the universe. The USA is better than this! We are presenting democracy to the world as if we are a fourth-world country. Yes! Worse than the third-world countries. We are better than this railroad yard rock fight.

I want a president who will be the moral center, the integrity. Someone whom we respect, not because he or she is perfect and never screws up, but because they are good.

In the middle 1800s, Frenchman Alex de Tocqueville came to America to study our form of government—democracy—to measure whether it would be a plus for the French. His book “Democracy in America” is his debriefing. You know more of his quotes than you can guess. To me, the most important is,

“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Donald Trump contends (I paraphrase) that he has never asked God for personal forgiveness because he has never felt the need. Mr. Trump, America has been keeping score and making a list. We have a list you may want to use as primer.

Mrs. Clinton told us that we didn’t accurately hear what FBI James Comey said to the congressional committee. I heard him say she had not been honest. Mrs. Clinton says he didn’t say anything of the kind. I trust my hearing more than I trust hers.

I’ve been mulling 2 Chronicles 7:14 for a while. “If My people…turn from their wicked ways….” I’ve been trying to picture what that would look like in USAmerica 2016.

I want my president to know how to repent. Mr. Trump gets into trouble when he tries to be funny, cute, cynical. He may or may not have meant what it sounded like he said about the Second Amendment people. He would have benefitted with an acknowledgement that in spite of his slightly bent humor it was a bad statement. Saying I’m sorry is a powerful skill. Mr. Trump you are a better man than what you sometimes sound like.

If Mrs. Clinton is the most qualified person in history to become president, then she must follow Lincoln’s path from skeptic, agnostic, to a person of prayer with an emphasis on asking for mercy and forgiveness and then godly wisdom.

Some time in the past 24 hours, God spoke to me. It may as well have come via Facebook. He didn’t tell me who is going to be the next president, therefore, He said, I am to pray for both of them. Seriously pray. That the winner of this cage fight will have earned authority and trust and the right to be heard when they express condolences and present challenges. How is that “moral authority” ranking achieved? Sincere expressions of “I’m sorry” and—oh, you know what we teach kids whom we want to be good. Good and tough and honorable–honest, respectful.

It is odd that one of the two most distrusted people in our country will become our leader. Leader in what? As in “moral center?” “Integrity?” Repenter in Chief? How about it? Can you get it started by Monday?

Yes, Mr. Tocqueville, I hear you. To be great again—to be good again.

©2016 D. Dean Benton         writer & wonderer,         Bentonministries.com

I had determined not to read any more of Pat Conroy’s books, but the book “The Death of Santini” seduced me. It is a memoir of how Conroy’s other books were made into Hollywood movies. I had heard many of the stories which are fictionalized and slightly disguised in his other books. My primary purpose in reading has been to study one of America’s great Southern writers.

Reading the stories of Pat Conroy’s father’s brutality is not easy. I realized as I read one of the stories that I was trembling. My hands were relatively steady, but my insides felt like I had consumed ten times my limit of Starbuck’s coffee. Every nerve within me was on the move.

My guiding question was where Conroy learned to tell stories. His father was from Chicago, went to college at St. Ambrose in Davenport, Iowa and was a Marine fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam. His mother grew up in the mountains of Alabama during the depression. Her mother left her four children in the depth of those years, leaving them alone while she moved to Atlanta and through eight marriages.

Chapter eight in The Death of Santini is about that mother—the author’s maternal grandmother—her influence upon him and her re-entry into the family. She alone could have given the writer enough stories to keep him busy. The chapters about her are worth standing in the library and reading.

“Every family produces one unconventional, breakout member whose sheer willfulness and obstinacy will change the course of that family’s history. When my grandmother Margaret Nolen Peek deserted her four children and husband in the middle of the Depression and hitchhiked a ride on a mule wagon heading for Atlanta, when she got a job in the notions department at Rich’s Department store, then married a Greek salesman of adding machine who also ran the numbers racket in the city, she transformed everything about how her children looked at themselves in the world.” (Pat Conroy, Death of Santini, Doubleday-Random House, 2013. Page 117)

The story of that grandmother takes on color when she reveals she married first when she was eleven. She did not “bail” on her kids. She saw herself as leaving them to go into a new land to find a life that would release her children from poverty, starvation and dead-end lives. She did that.

“My meek and God-fearing grandfather Jasper Peek had hitched his fate to the wings of a firebird, and Stanny (Grandmother Stanton) left her talon tracks everywhere she took flight.” (page 128)

I conclude my limitations as a writer rest on my lack of relationships with eccentrics and weird people. Most of my relatives are common sense types. They have successfully hidden all of their crazy habits or mountain adventures. I would like to know more about the histories of my grandfathers and their families of origin. There are stories there that have been erased from the family Bibles.

When Pat Conroy was twenty-five and married for the first time, he and his wife invited his parents and young siblings to visit them just before his father left for another tour in Vietnam. It was during one of the nights that he heard his drunken father slapping his mother. Pat followed the crying and defended his mother with flying fists. He threw his father out of his house and then picked him off the lawn, placed him in the car and threatened his death if the Marine ever again entered his home or touched his mother or siblings.

The writer’s mother ended the marriage soon after. Oddly, Pat and his father came to an rapprochement and the father began a rehabilitation process that borders on things thought impossible. They have a conversation that is engraved on my mind:

“Dad, do you understand your part in Mom’s kicking you out?”

The “Great Santini” responds with the most outrageous explanation imaginable. Pat Conroy’s response to his father is astonishing. There are a couple of lines that grip me:

“You were a hideous father and husband. You ran a reign of terror in every house we lived in. Your own children hate your guts. You don’t know a single thing about any of us and you never seemed to care.” (page 60)

We’ve been reading and studying about building a prayer strategy for our families. There is another line from another book that I engraved in my brain 30-40 years ago: “It is not that children and their parents don’t like each other; it is that they don’t know each other.” To me, the words to the vicious Marine are the worst indictment imaginable.

If we are to influence our pack’s young pups or intelligently, effectively pray for them as they mature, we have to know them. Until we do, Proverbs 22:6—“Train up a child in the way he should go…” is not likely—probably impossible.

1. What is their passion? What do they love? Hate? Would sacrifice for?
2. How do they manage life?
3. How do they see themselves?
4. Where are they uniquely vulnerable? What bruises them?
5. What is their love language? How do they say “Love you,” “I’m sorry,” “I need some help.”

It is possible for good people not to “get” each other. But “…you never seemed to care,” demands repair. That indictment makes my insides shake.

©2016 D. Dean Benton                 Writer, Wonderer          bentonministries.com

Wilt Chamberlain averaged over 50 points a game during one NBA season. He scored 100 points in one game. He was over 7 feet tall and ran gracefully as if trained by dancers. But he could not shoot free throws. He averaged about 40% or less.

Rick Barry was his contemporary. One of the game’s historic finest players. He was classy and smart. But he was different. He shot free throws underhanded. Here’s this guy shooting jump shots from all over the court, but at the free throw line he shot underhanded. In the WBA, they are called “Granny shots.” He almost never missed.

Barry makes the point that shooting free throws is a more natural way as well as generally more accurate. In the early days, shots from 3-point range would usually be shot two-handed underhand. LaBron James missed over 100 free throws this season. Barry regularly missed 8-10 free throws all season. Shaq comes to mind as a self-admitted terrible free throw shooter.

Chamberlain could be taken out of the scoring flow by putting him on the free-throw line. Forty-percent or less. He decided to try underhanded free throws. Immediately his percent leaped to 60% and climbing. Chamberlain for an unaccepted reason reverted to his old style of free-throw shooting and old numbers. Chamberlain sacrificed points for his team rather than look “sissy” or different. Shaq said he would rather shoot -0- than shoot underhanded.

Rick Barry was shooting 70% when he discovered he could shoot near 100% by shooting underhanded. His dad suggested it and Barry told him he didn’t want people making fun of him. “How can they make fun of you when you are making points?” He was right.

Barry is said to have been disliked by half of the league players and hated by the rest. He was deemed arrogant. He demanded that everyone do their best, play up to their potential and work to expand their potential. Rick Barry didn’t care one bit what people said, or thought about him. His personal demands on himself was what he listened to. Nothing else mattered.

The under-hand, two-hand shot looks old-fashioned and doesn’t make it to the newsreels in a run and gun, slam-dunk game. That style is so embarrassing (apparently) that only two NBA players during the Rick Barry era asked him how they could make it work. Today only two college players shoot that style. One is from an African nation and the other is Barry’s son.

The cost is the loss of cool.

One of the greatest experiences is to slam dunk after becoming airborne at the free throw line. I’m told. The other great feeling is to lace up your tennies and hit a jump shot from the corner. I’m probably past my prime on the court, but if I could help the team and put points on the board by shooting free throws with both hands, underhanded, I’d risk the snickers and ridicule. I think.

Personal independence is not something I want from my family. Interdependence is an admired trait for marriage and tribes. But independence from what others say is admirable.  It is not allowing someone or culture to dominate your action when you pursue your calling, gifts, goals, potential.

All of this is dependent on making your free throw shots.

This information comes from a Malcom Gladwell podcast which includes slices of Gladwell’s interview with Barry. I think Barry would be a marvel to watch play, but maybe difficult to live with. It has sent me thinking about what “underhanded shooting” changes I could make that would make me more effective in my calling, goals, gifts and expand my potential. What more natural, but not necessarily more stylish habit would add more points for my tribe.

Happy Independence Day.

©2016 D. Dean Benton                                                                                                                                    writer & wonderer                                                                                                bentonministries.com—Benton Books & Blogs.

My Father’s Day season was darkened and overlaid by the father whose life was white-washed to make him palatable in the book and movie “The Great Santini.” Author Pat Conroy says,

“My father may be the only person in the history of the world who changed himself because he despised a character in literature who struck chords of horror in himself that he could not face. He had the best second act in the history of fathering. He was the worst father I have ever heard of, and I will go to my own grave believing that. But this most immovable of men found it within himself to change.” (page 392—My Losing Season, Doubleday, 2002)

I have spent weeks with the book examining my own winning and losing, parenting and husbanding. I have measured again and again what I carried into my boyhood and from my boyhood into adulthood. I have been overwhelmed by writer Conroy’s description of being beaten and belittled. I am not surprised that he dealt with nervous breakdowns and did not do well in his first two marriages. My greatest surprise is that he survived at all, let alone became the man he became.

Ironic that I finished reading the book on Father’s Day. The book about basketball which disguised the main theme: becoming a man in spite of vicious, brutal fathering.

Pat Conroy’s father is said to have been the best basketball player ever to attend St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa. He brought the one-handed shot to Iowa.

“With my father’s great gifts, he could’ve taught me everything about basketball I’d need to know…. Instead, he taught me nothing, and I went to the Citadel not knowing what a pivot was or how to block out on a rebound or how to set a pick to free a teammate for a shot or how to play defense. A beautiful shooter, a fierce rebounder, a legendary defender, my father chose not to pass these ineffable skills on to any of his five sons. We grew up overshadowed by his legend and that legend did not lift a finger to help us toward any patch of light of our small achievements might have granted us.”

Growing up in such a house affected Pat Conroy’s view of marriage:

“The way I loved became bruised and disfigured—which is my fault and not Lenore’s, and I do not blame her for this. If Lenore had been a country, I would have married North Korea, this is how murderous, cut off, and isolated….”

Pat Conroy said,

“I could take my father’s fury and had proven that over and over during the long, forced march of my debased childhood: it was his laughter and mocking contempt that unmanned me completely, that I would do almost anything to avoid.” (239)

“He looked at me as he always did, as though the mere sight of me filled him with revulsion.”

So I come away from Father’s Day season with a fresh razor edge knowledge that there is nothing a father can do to wound or destroy kids more than practicing:

• Sarcasm
• Cynicism
• Criticism
• Contempt—even disguised as teasing
• Withheld praise
• Lack of expressed affection
• Unhealed personal wounds and brokenness

“It…never occurred to me that I would carry my childhood in a backpack to spread its coarse havoc and discord far into my adult life.” (p. 393)

Consider Winston Churchill’s father who ignored his son, probably hated him. He rarely spoke to him and refused to acknowledge the frequent cries for attention. Young Churchill was shipped off to boarding school as if to get him out of his parents’ sight. One cannot hear this story without marveling that Churchill did not become a brutal, hateful person passing onto society and his own family what he had experienced from his father. Instead, he became a world leader and at the time of his death was deemed the “Greatest Man in the World.” He packed a different backpack.

Lord Randolph was a well-known politician who had a disease causing his brain to deteriorate. Young Winston did not know his father was ill. Had he known he could have filtered the savage emotional and verbal abuse. Instead, the rejection came at him full force.

It is said that Churchill made a choice. Instead of reacting and owning the constant negative evaluation, he chose to extend the best of his father. He made a choice. One of the first losses for the abandoned, neglected or abused is the ability to make choices. The self-survival instinct is to hide. The ability to choose—a profound ability.

Sorting through my backpack.

©2016  D. Dean Benton     Writer, Wonderer