"Is it hard to be a pilot?" asks the fifth-grade boy with coke-bottle glasses.
Each year I volunteer to spend time with fifth graders as their "adopted" pilot and discuss what it's like to be a pilot, the science of flight, geography, and possible future careers. It is a labor of love, but it is definitely labor. I dress up in my uniform, with a special tie, and head to the elementary school to dazzle them with my vast knowledge of the world of aviation.
I remember when I first wanted to fly. I was in the hot summer sun hoeing weeds when a low-flying military jet came screaming by. It looked like he barely missed the trees he was so low and seemed to be outrunning the speed of sound, because I saw him before I heard the thundering roar of the engines. I leaned against my hoe with the smell of dirt lingering in my nose and watched him disappear like a shooting star. Right then I decided that flying looked easier, and more fun, than farming.
My first lesson with the fifth graders is about helping your dreams take flight. I encourage them to dream about the future; to plan for the future; to work for the future they want. I teach them them that goals not written down are just wishes, and that fate favors the prepared. I instill in them the importance of honesty, courage, and tenacity (a new word for fifth graders), and tell them they can control their destiny.
One of the smallest boys in the class said, "I want to be a football player!" Then his face fell and he looked at the floor. "My dad says there is no way I'll ever make it in the NFL." I almost cried when I heard that.
They always ask the same questions. How does a plane fly? Are you ever scared? Do pilots make lots of money? Have you ever shot down another airplane? Have you ever crashed? What's your favorite city? Were you flying on 9/11? Their inquisitive minds are eager to understand the world around them, and I do my best to give them answers that will inspire them to learn more. But I never answer their questions if they don't raise their hands.
I have my old Air Force flying helmet and a flight suit that they love to try on. The flight suit swallows them whole and the helmet flops around their small heads like a bucket. They get a kick out of my patch collection and all the charts and books that I bring to show them. It's like they can begin to see themselves growing into the capacities that the future will surely require of them. They laugh and tease each other about how loosely it all fits, but behind the laughter is excitement for becoming something they can be proud of.
They are a smart bunch and catch on to the science of flight very quickly, even though they have a hard time pronouncing "Bernoulli." I get a lot "oohs" and "aahs" when I suspend a ping pong ball in midair with a blow dryer to discuss the principles of lift, but then the mystique turns to confidence when each one of them comes up and takes a turn. Science leaps from the pages of a book when you have firsthand experience to help you understand and remember.
Much to their chagrin, I do give them homework. They have to write down some of their career goals, figure out how many miles I have flown each week, review the science of flight, and learn about a city I fly to. Each week when the teacher checks their progress, the excuses fly. My parents didn't tell me I had homework. I left my book at home. I didn't have access to a computer. I thought this was just for extra credit. Their teacher takes it all in stride, but when I reward those who were diligent in their tasks, it motivates the remainder to get the job done.
The best part about spending three days teaching fifth graders is the gratitude they display. They wave at me and call my name when they see me. They all say, "Thank You Captain Booher!" like I am the only one that believes in them. They often write me letters and color me pictures. My neighbor's chatty son points at me and says with a wink, "Great job with the lesson today."Another eager boy on the front row swoons and tells me, "You're my hero."
Is it hard to be a pilot? After four hours of standing in front of a room full of fifth graders for three weeks in a row, my voice is hoarse, my feet hurt, and my mind is mush. I feel like that tired kid on the farm all over again.
"No," I answer. "It's much harder to be a fifth-grade teacher."
Funerals are not the place to talk about doing the dishes, folding
laundry, or the daily grind of a boring job. We most likely will hear of great
deeds or the shining moments of the life being mourned and celebrated. Maybe we
should change that. Maybe we should hear about how many times the person cooked
dinner for her family, or how many days he endured at work in order to pay the
bills. What if we took a moment at someone’s passing to celebrate the marvelous
mundane that makes life possible?
Think about the day you had yesterday. Chances are you
didn’t hit the winning home run to win the World Series. You didn’t win the
big case before the Supreme Court. You didn’t solve the crime of the century.
You didn’t save the world from impending destruction. Most likely you spent the
day with routine things like wiping counters, sorting data on a spreadsheet, or
changing light bulbs. Tomorrow will probably be the same – a day filled with
menial tasks that don’t seem to make a difference.
Is that all life is – a string of almost meaningless
activities placed end to end together until we die?
At the recent funerals I attended, one man’s mundane
accomplishments included a thankless job that he trudged off to everyday, yet
it allowed him to come home everyday and play catch with his son. His sons
valued that memory more than his military service in the Korean War. One woman’s
father tasked her as a young girl to learn how to bake bread, but when she
passed even the local nail manicurist remembered her for all the delicious
breads and cookies that she baked. A young girl spent most of her time at play,
but was remembered for her warm smile on the volleyball court. None of the
activities seemed heroic, yet each one was remembered more for the mundane than for the unusual, or extraordinary.
We live in a new age. In days
past we knew who the outlaws were by looking at the wanted posters in the post
office. A gritty lawman with a big iron on his hip would bring the villain to
justice at high noon with a lightning-fast hand. Apparently today we can stop
evil with the click of a mouse.
Unless you’ve been hiding under
a digital rock for the past week, you know about the Kony 2012 campaign. It is a clever attempt to raise public
awareness about an international war criminal through social media and bring
him to justice. Judging from the number of friends who posted the video on
their walls I would say that they achieved their goal of raising awareness. I
am bit more skeptical of the second part of their campaign.
As best as I can tell, the
campaign’s plan goes like this: Use a well crafted video and social media to
spread the word about an evil warlord in Uganda that is forcing children to be
soldiers. Encourage those who watch the video to spread the word and contact
policy makers about stopping this evil warlord. Then policy makers will send
materiel and military support to the good soldiers trying to stop the evil
warlord. The good soldiers, now better supported and equipped, will bring
justice down on the head of the targeted warlord. The video even shows how the
dominos will fall after you click the mouse. Brilliant!
Except that awareness and action
are not the same thing. Knowing does
not always translate into doing.
During the first Gulf War a
journalist asked an A-10 driver a probing question that went something like
this, “Doesn’t it bother your conscience when you drop your bombs or fire your
missiles and know that you are killing people?”
He shrugged and answered, “You
don’t need a conscience, just coordinates.” (Coordinates are the numerical equivalent of a specific target's location.)
He understood that armed
conflict requires a certain measure of cold, calculated application of deadly
force in order to survive, and win. Dealing with an “evil warlord” requires the
same measure of detached thinking. If you clicked in favor of the Kony 2012 campaign, would you also be willing to pull the trigger if you had him in your
sights? Is it a cause you would be willing to risk your own life to support?
I applaud anyone that raises our
awareness of injustice in the world. We tolerate way too much of it. But ultimately
catching Kony (or other evil warlords) and bringing him to justice requires
someone equipped and trained with deadly ordinance, the clear conscience to
employ it, and coordinates.
A few weeks ago, I saw the crescent moon hanging in the
evening sky and worried that I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night. The waxing
moon casts a sleeping spell on me and brings insomnia to my pillow. I went to
bed on time, but by 3:00 the shadows from my neighbor’s overzealous security
light were dancing on the ceiling overhead. Insignificant worries circled my
head like some surreal merry-go-round full of pale horses of woe.
I got on the merry-go-round when I began to beat myself up
over a scheduling mistake that could potentially cost me a few hundred dollars.
That led to fears of not having enough money for an upcoming trip I wanted to
make with my wife. Then I worried about the arrangements of said trip and its
details. Those details reminded me of things I still needed to prepare for an
upcoming church assignment. The preparation I needed to complete reminded me
that I needed to rearrange my schedule. Rearranging my schedule made me stress
about the mistake I made, and it started all over again twirling around in my
head with some macabre music playing in the background.
After about thirty minutes on that fruitless merry-go-round,
I decided I wanted off. I slipped out of bed, put on a robe, and went
downstairs. As I quietly closed my bedroom door, I heard the icemaker dump a
load of ice in the fridge downstairs. It struck me as odd that I noticed it. I
padded down the stairs and stood before the fridge. The neighbor’s security light
bathed the kitchen in enough light that I didn’t need to flip on the overhead
light. I yanked open the door to fridge and pulled out the milk. The jug wasn’t
very full so I twisted off the cap and chugged the rest of it down, hoping that
it would help me sleep.
As I waited for the lactose to lull me to sleep, I decide to
sort my mail. I grabbed the stack from my box and plopped down on the stairs to
shuffle through the stack of insurance advertisements, credit card offers, and
home mortgage refinance offers. While I sorted the mail, I heard one of the
dogs scratching himself vigorously at the top of the stairs. Almost everything
in the mail had something to do with money. Of course all of those advertisements
about money reminded me of my expensive blunder, and the merry-go-round of
inconsequential worries started up again.
By 3:30 am I had sorted all of my mail, and my dog was still
scratching. I could hear the tag on his collar jingle every time his foot
thumped against the floor as he tried to relieve his itch. I figured that it
was his form of insomnia, but when I checked on him I saw that he had scratched
himself until his fur was red with blood in several places. I petted him and
tried to calm him. Some troubles are like his itch. They aren’t serious, but we
can’t stop scratching them. So, we scratch away until we draw blood over
nothing.
After he calmed down and stopped scratching, he took a drink
and came back to sit beside me. I petted him until he fell asleep and I could
put something on his paws to prevent further damage. I calculated his age. He
was getting old, but then again, so was I. Here we both were wasting our night
away scratching at an itch that we could never satisfy.
I slipped away from him and threw away the junk mail. Then I went back to the fridge and found
a chocolate malt protein drink hiding in the doorway. I wondered if it might
help. I read the label and laughed. The words, “contains no milk” were plastered below the brand name that included
the word “milk.” It was almost as
ironic as me losing sleep over worrying about losing sleep. I checked the date
and chugged it on down. Then I made a list of all the horses on my
merry-go-round so I could deal with them in the morning and slipped around my
itchy dog now fast asleep on the stairs to my comfortable bed in hopes of going
back to sleep.
People often
comment that my wife I look alike. I always respond that, in spite of the
similarities, it’s the differences that really matter. Men and women are
different. In a world where lines of gender roles and gender identity are
becoming fuzzy, I would argue that the feminine arts of womanhood are dying,
and that is not a good thing.
Now I’m not
advocating that we need to go back to the days of June Cleaver, but I am
suggesting that womanhood should be celebrated, not subjugated; That being
feminine is a strength, not a weakness; That behaving like a woman is not
something to be a scoffed and ridiculed, but something to be admired.
I have been
fortunate to have several strong and capable women in my life. From my mother
who brought ten children into the world and raised them, to my beautiful wife
who makes a friend everywhere she goes, and various other successful women
throughout my life, I have been surrounded by countless examples of womanhood
at its finest. I have watched them nurture the sick, organize large gatherings,
and perform manly tasks in a man’s world, without losing the hallmark
characteristics of womanhood such as warmth, kindness, and compassion.
Throughout
history women have been subjugated to subservient roles or minimized by
tradition or even the legal system of a given society. Perhaps men have done
this out of fear or a sense of insecurity, but the long-reaching result is that
women, and womanhood, have been marginalized or treated as an inferior station.
Women don’t
need to be placed on pedestal to be worshipped or admired from a distance. They
don’t need to be segregated and locked away like some hidden treasure. They
need to find their place alongside someone that celebrates their differences,
honors their virtues, and values their contributions. Womanhood should be
celebrated.
Men (speaking
of the gender as a whole) are physically stronger than women, but that doesn’t
mean that women lack strength. Femininity comes with its own set of strengths.
By nature, women multitask better, nurture more, and resolve conflict in
constructive ways. Because they lack the physical strength, and oftentimes the
ego, of men, they are more likely to use their head to tackle a problem instead
of brute strength. My mother can accomplish most tasks that a twenty-something
male body builder can do. She just uses her head, leverage, and tools instead
of muscle. The best part is that women can do all this while wearing a dress
and heels. Feminine is also strong.
Behaving like
a woman should be admired, and I don’t mean the glossy-magazine type of
admiration. A woman’s touch can brighten a room or event and make it more
enjoyable. A woman’s charm can soften even the hardest of hearts. A woman’s
courage can carry her, and sometimes her entire family, through the valley of
the shadow of death. A woman’s virtue can inspire us to reach for loftier
heights. A woman’s love can transform us and encourage us to make the woman in
our life proud. Womanhood, with all its endearing behaviors, should be admired.
Women today,
in their attempt to be more like men, are losing the feminine arts of
womanhood. When women downplay their feminine features they are also minimizing
the inherent strengths that come with being a woman. The very qualities that
make a woman feminine also make her strong and talented. They overlook the
intrinsic value of their womanhood in an attempt to be like a man, and in the
end they find that they are neither a capable man, nor a desirable woman.
I’m a better man because of them.
The daughter coughed and moaned. “Tell Mom I’m
not going to school. I’m sick,” said the daughter to her older sister.
“Sure,” said the sister as she fixed her hair
and put on her makeup.
The
daughter rolled over in the king size waterbed she shared with her sisters and was
soon fast asleep.
The
daughter sloshed out of the king-size waterbed and trudged down the squeaky
stairs of the farmhouse in her bathrobe and fuzzy pink slippers looking for
breakfast. She was hankering for a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar. She was
about to get a bit of excitement instead.
The
mother sat on the edge of the bed with her back to the bedroom door and the
chorded phone to her ear. She was talking with a local printing shop about an
upcoming church project. Her morning had been full of getting children off to
school, feeding the cattle, gathering the eggs, and several other never-ending
chores on the small family farm, and it was only ten o’clock in the morning.
Her heart stopped when she heard someone come down the stairs and into the
kitchen.
“I think
there’s an intruder my house,” she whispered to the lady on the phone.
“Oh my
gosh! Do you want to me to hang up and call the police?” said the lady on the
phone.
The
mother had another plan. “Do you have another line? That way I can keep
pretending to talk,” she asked.
“We sure
do. Hang on!”
The
daughter grabbed a bowl from the cabinet letting the cabinet door snap shut as
she rummaged through the large silverware drawer for a spoon. She pulled out
the bin of quick oats and spooned a few scoops into her bowl. As she covered
the oats with water, her mother laughed from the master bedroom adjacent to the
kitchen. It was a strange laugh, the kind of laugh you make when you’re
watching a scary movie and you don’t want your friends to know you’re scared
but you’re really about to wet your pants. Who
is Mom talking to? She shrugged it off. (Since when do teenagers understand
their parents anyway?)
She slipped
the bowl of quick oats into the microwave and turned the dial. While the
microwave hummed along cooking her breakfast, she hunted for the brown sugar.
“The
Sheriff should be there shortly,” said the lady on the phone.
“Oh yes,
that will be wonderful,” said the mother. Her voice felt strained as she tried
to keep up a cheerful appearance. When I
hear the Sheriff coming down our gravel lane, I’ll slam the bedroom door shut
so the intruder can’t get to me. She kept up the verbal chitchat and
continued the charade.
The
Sheriff pulled the cruiser through the snakelike turns of the country road,
entered the straightaway, and poured on the gas. He was almost five miles out
of town hurrying to answer a frantic call about an intruder in a farmhouse. He
turned down the gravel lane and topped the small hill at breakneck speed. He sent
gravel flying as he slid around the corner in between the big maple trees and
skidded to a stop a few yards from the kitchen door. He threw open his car door
and jumped from the cruiser with his gun drawn.
The
daughter in fuzzy pink slippers stood in front of the microwave with spoon in
hand waiting for the timer to ding when she heard the roar of tires against
gravel. She looked out the kitchen window and saw the Sheriff’s cruiser skid to
a halt. Her mouth dropped open when she saw the Sheriff jump from the car with
gun in hand and run towards the house.
When she
saw the Sherriff’s car, the mother dropped the phone and sprang for the bedroom
door. She slammed it shut in a millisecond and turned to make an escape out the
front door away from the impending clash between the Sheriff and the intruder.
The
daughter stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, fuzzy pink slippers, dirty
robe, spoon in hand, eyes wide as saucers. What
is going on? Why is the Sheriff here? Her teenage mind began to race. The Sheriff is about to burst through the
door with his gun drawn. I know I’m innocent, so he can’t be here for me. My
mother has been acting strange on the telephone this morning. What is she up
to?
Just as
the Sheriff burst through the kitchen door with his weapon at the ready, the
bedroom door slammed shut. The daughter jumped at the sound of the slamming door.
And then it came to her. Oh my gosh! The Sheriff’s after my mother. My mother must be a drug dealer!
“Mom?!”
she shouted.
The
mother hurried for the kitchen when she heard her daughter’s voice. She called her
daughter’s name and yanked open the kitchen door. When the mother saw her
daughter standing in the middle of the kitchen – fuzzy slippers, dirty robe, spoon
in hand, perplexed face – she went weak in the knees and sat on the kitchen
floor.
As soon
as the Sheriff saw the mother rush into to the kitchen he understood, and put
the gun away with a sigh of relief. It was just a false alarm.
Nothing made sense to the daughter and
she stood like a statue in the middle of the kitchen. The timer dinged. Her
oatmeal was ready.
“It’s
okay. It’s okay,” said the mother to the understanding Sheriff. “I guess my
daughter stayed home from school without telling me.”
The wide-eyed
daughter came to life and insisted, “I told them to tell you!”
“Nobody
told me!” cried the mother.
The relieved
Sheriff grinned and pulled out his handcuffs.
“Do you
still want me to haul her in?”
Based on a true family story.
Going into politics is a lot like wrestling with a pig. You
both get dirty, but the pig likes it.
By nature politics is a dirty business, and it is impossible to get involved in
the process without getting a little dirty because politics demands compromise.
Compromise is often considered a dirty word. We are not
proud of compromising our principles. We avoid compromising situations. We
don’t want to compromise when it comes to value. We consider compromise somehow
a weaker position. We often consider a politician that has reached a compromise
as a sellout. He or she becomes someone who has gotten dirty by wrestling with
the pig.
If rights, liberties, justice, and the rule of law are the
stones we must use to build a sound representative government, then compromise
is the mortar used to hold that government together. A politician that isn’t
skilled at using the mortar of compromise will find it very difficult to build
anything of lasting value.
We would like to believe that our nation was forged in the
patriotic fire described by Patrick Henry when he said, “Give me liberty, or
give me death!” It is true that a fervent zeal for freedom beyond the desire
for life itself was necessary for us to break the yoke of bondage, but it took more
than fire. It took compromise.
When the Articles of Confederation failed to provide the
necessary framework for managing and governing a nation such as ours, a
Constitutional Convention was formed in 1787. Patrick Henry declined to attend
saying that he “smelt a rat.” As a representative to the Virginia convention,
he voted against ratification of the United States Constitution.
Another famous Virginian by the name of George Washington
took a different tack. As commander of the Continental Army he would often
propose a course of action to his council of war, but then change course based
on the urgings of his subordinate officers. He was elected as president of the Constitutional
Convention and put his political clout behind the various deals that allowed
for the document to come into existence. Under his direction, delegates hammered
out several deals such as the three-fifths compromise, the commerce compromise,
and the great compromise. Washington wasn’t afraid of wrestling with that pig,
and went on to be our first president.
We often view our founding fathers as uncompromising pillars
of patriotism that never deviated from their positions in the name of
compromise. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were men of great
passion that risked their very lives for an idea. They pledged their lives,
liberty, and sacred honor to a cause. They never compromised when it came to
their love for freedom and the right to self-government, but they were skilled
craftsmen with the mortar of compromise. They used the mortar of compromise and
the stones of principle to build a constitutional government that has stood the
test of time.
I am grateful for the Patrick Henrys of today that will lay
down the gauntlet on an issue and rally us to a worthy cause, but I tend to
look for someone more moderate and willing to compromise when I vote. I look
for someone that mirrors my values and principles, but I also want someone
pragmatic and willing to incorporate good working ideas even if they come from
the other side of the aisle. I don’t want a rigid, uncompromising robot unable
to reach agreements or strike pragmatic deals.
