It was a good motto, the kind of inspiration you’d like to
see somehow inoculated into human souls. “There is no comparison without
injury,” I told my kids when they were young. In other words, don’t stack
yourself up against someone else, because one of you will end up on the low end
of things. Instead, remember each person is unique and valuable. Your abilities and achievements are
distinctively yours, as are everyone else’s. There’s no value in calculating
increments of similarity and difference with a ruler that measures
dominance. Someone will always end up
diminished.
In those days I was young, inexperienced, and largely
ungrounded, unable to consistently demonstrate by example the way I hoped my
children would someday live. And yet I
tried my best, giving them what I had to offer: a vision. Little did I know
they would all grow up to become ambassadors of this mentality (far beyond my
own application of it) while traversing the very wide-ranging terrains of their
own adult lives.
As I watched my four offspring interact with each other and
various family members these last few days (our family now includes a total of
9 adults and 11 grandkids), I witnessed more than tolerance and acceptance. I beheld honor and commitment laced with
appreciation and patience – flag-waving affirmations of peace and consistency
in a world of ongoing turbulence and change.
No comments:
Post a Comment