Inspiring | Forward Ever Forward

November 13, 2011

FW: The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you a bridge at the eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

-Will Allen Dromgoole

FW: “If You Were Busy Doing” Poem

If you were busy being kind,
Before you knew it you would find
You’d soon forget to think `twas true
That someone was unkind to you.

If you were busy being glad
And cheering people who seem sad,
Although your heart might ache a bit,
You’d soon forget to notice it.

If you were busy being good,
And doing just the best you could,
You’d not have time to blame some man
Who’s doing just the best he can.

If you were busy being true
To what you know you ought to do,
You’d be so busy you’d forget
The blunders of the folks you’ve met.

If you were busy being right,
You’d find yourself too busy quite
To criticize your neighbor long,
Because he’s busy being wrong.

FW: Survival Day by Day

It’s a nightly tradition. After evening prayers are said, dishes washed, and my three daughters and one son have drifted off into a quiet slumber, I walk into three-year-old Catherine’s room as she peacefully rests. Like many fathers, I look at my beautiful daughter with a mixture of awe and gratitude, thanking God for such a precious gift. The sight of her chest rising and falling with her breath gives my wife Becky and me the ease to go to sleep ourselves.

Catherine, the youngest of our children, was a home-birth baby. In the first year of her life she seemed remarkably healthy. At fourteen months, Catherine’s health unexpectedly and drastically changed. She was irritable and run down so initially we wondered if it was teething or a virus. Catherine began drinking water and urinating constantly. It got to the point that we had to change her diaper and pajamas at least once during the night. We set up a doctor’s appointment. Throughout the day of the appointment, I carried her around the house. She was hardly moving and could barely raise her head off of my shoulder.

I stayed home with the other three children while my wife took her to the doctor’s office. Upon arriving in the doctor’s office, the nurses took one look at her and immediately moved her to the front of the line. As my wife describing the symptoms, the nurse took one of her used diapers and ran a glucose test on the urine. “You need to take her to the hospital immediately,” she told Becky, “We think she has the onset of diabetes.”

My wife called me from the doctor’s office to tell me what had just transpired. As my wife described what they had told her, tears welled up in my eyes. I had worked in a camp for children with diabetes a few years earlier. I was familiar with the condition and knew what it meant for a fifteen-month-old baby to have it. My mind swirled realizing how this would change everything as I quickly arranged for a neighbor to watch the other kids so I could meet Becky at the hospital.

We walked into the emergency room together with Catherine. Once again, Catherine was moved to the front of the line. After drawing her blood and starting an IV they pointed out that she was having small seizures from her extremely high blood sugar. She spent the next two days in the intensive care unit while Becky and I took turns watching over her twenty-four hours a day. I called everyone I knew asking them to please pray for our little girl. Catherine was put on every prayer chain we could think to contact.

We watched anxiously as her small face began to improve and the little girl we loved so much began to return. On her third day in the hospital, one of the nurses brought in a little red wagon filled with stuffed animals and toys. We loaded her in and wheeled a much healthier looking Catherine into a room in the pediatric wing.

In the four days Catherine spent there, Becky and I became experts on the disease. We learned how to monitor her blood sugar levels. Our daughter would depend dearly on us using our knowledge with precision.

Diabetes is an extremely intense disease to deal with in a small child, because you cannot predict when and how much they are going to eat. It requires constant vigilance of testing blood sugar to make sure it does not get too high or too low. There is no room for error. Too high and she could face long term damage such as kidney failure, amputations, loss of feeling, or loss of eyesight. Too low, and she could pass out, have a seizure or even go into a coma and die.

Medical conditions and dealing with them are part of our family’s life now. Since the diagnosis of her condition, all of my other three children have been diagnosed with some sort of autoimmune diseases. As fathers, we all have fears for our children, both for the present and the future. For my daughter Catherine, a very tangible fear is present on a daily basis. If I don’t make sure she has eaten her food after an injection, then she could end up sick at the very least or even have a reaction that poses a significant threat to her life.

For her, the world is a very dangerous place. Things we take for granted-like sneaking an extra few cookies or skipping lunch, can seriously harm her. It is humbling to realize how little control we sometimes have over small things that carry great importance. My wife works in the nutritional supplement industry and there are some in her industry who think that taking the right supplements can cure almost anything. With diabetes there is nothing you can do to stop it. It leaves us with only one perspective; God is in control here. In the end, it is the same for all of us. We can do our best in whatever situation we are placed, but in the end, our life is beyond our control so we best rest in the Lord.

So we pray for her condition often and we pray that some day a cure will be found. And in the meantime, we trust that God does not do things without a reason. He gave us our wonderful daughter, and we know that despite her condition she is perfect in his eyes.

- Chris Cash

FW: A New Pair of Shoes

When I got sober my sponsor told me that I had to be willing to change everything about my life—everything. So, I wore blue jeans and switched to slacks. I wore western shirts and switched to T-shirts. But the one thing I just couldn’t give up was my cowboy boots.

I went to my sponsor and said, “Surely I won’t get drunk over a silly pair of cowboy boots. I’m willing to change a lot of things, and if needed I could even give up those boots, but it seems so silly.”

My sponsor said, “I don’t know how silly it is, or if you’ll get drunk over those cowboy boots, but I can tell that you are not ‘entirely’ willing, though.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll give up the boots for 30 days just to demonstrate my willingness to God.”

So, I bought a pair of tennis shoes, and after 30 days of not wearing my cowboy boots, wearing tennis shoes instead, the strangest thing happened — my feet stopped hurting.

That’s how it was getting sober and giving up the high life. I never stopped to think that the boots were causing my feet to hurt, or the booze was causing my life to hurt. I got willing to give up the stuff, one day at a time, for 30 days, then 60 days, then 90 days … and my life stopped hurting.

And everyday I do something different, some change in some small way. Maybe I just put my socks on different, or drive to work a new way. Everyday, I try to do Little Things in a Big Way so that when Big Things happen I can handle them in a Little Way.

FW: Happy 4th of July America

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. ~Thomas Paine

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. ~Elmer Davis

The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. ~Woodrow Wilson

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

Let freedom never perish in your hands. ~Joseph Addison

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. ~Erma Bombeck

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it. ~Curtis Billings

Freedom’s natal day is here.
Fire the guns and shout for freedom,
See the flag above unfurled!
Hail the stars and stripes forever,
Dearest flag in all the world.
~Florence A. Jones

This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. ~Lyndon B. Johnson

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail? ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

That which distinguishes this day from all others is that then both orators and artillerymen shoot blank cartridges. ~John Burroughs, Journal

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. ~Louis D. Brandeis

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. ~Albert Camus

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler

Liberty is the breath of life to nations. ~George Bernard Shaw

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact – the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. ~Adlai Stevenson

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! ~Daniel Webster

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. ~Robert J. McCracken

If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. ~Hamilton Fish

I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery. ~Author Unknown

I love my freedom. I love my America. ~Jessi Lane Adams

Without freedom, no one really has a name. ~Milton Acorda

Where liberty dwells, there is my country. ~Benjamin Franklin

All we have of freedom, all we use or know -
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
~Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. ~George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, “Maxims: Liberty and Equality,” 1905

It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism. ~J. Horace McFarland

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic – have always blown on free men. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom. ~Simone de Beauvoir

The United States is the only country with a known birthday. ~James G. Blaine

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. ~Thomas Macaulay

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all!
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
~John Dickinson

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. ~William Faulkner

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! ~Thomas Jefferson

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom “to” and freedom “from.” ~Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy. ~Paul Sweeney

From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.
~Samuel F. Smith, “America”

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit. ~Hubert H. Humphrey

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul. ~Moshe Dayan

And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood

It is sweet to serve one’s country by deeds, and it is not absurd to serve her by words. ~Sallust

My patriotic heart beats red, white, and blue. ~Author Unknown

Freedom is not enough. ~Lyndon B. Johnson

We are free, truly free, when we don’t need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths. ~Ricardo Flores Magon, speech, 31 May 1914

Freedom is never free. ~Author Unknown

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. ~William J. Clinton

FW: A Buzzard, A Bat, and A Bumblebee

If you put a buzzard in a six or eight foot square cage and leave it entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of his ability to fly, will not escape. The reason is that a buzzard always begins his flight by running ten or twelve feet before hand. Without space to run, as is his habit, he will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler will be there until it dies unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides, even though none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

In many ways, there are lots of people like the buzzard, the bat and the bee. They are struggling about with all their problems and frustrations, not realizing that if they look up, they’ll find the answer.

Don’t you love it? Look up…. GOD Is The Answer…..

FW: The Oak Tree

A mighty wind blew night and day
It stole the oak tree’s leaves away
Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark
Until the oak was tired and stark

But still the oak tree held its ground
While other trees fell all around
The weary wind gave up and spoke.
How can you still be standing Oak?

The oak tree said, I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two
Carry every leaf away
Shake my limbs, and make me sway

But I have roots stretched in the earth
Growing stronger since my birth
You’ll never touch them, for you see
They are the deepest part of me

Until today, I wasn’t sure
Of just how much I could endure
But now I’ve found, with thanks to you
I’m stronger than I ever knew

FW: Car Doors of the Future

Slightly dated cars, but the concept of an inline car door is pure genius. Unfortunately, the purpose of the door b-pillar is safety, removing it will have an adverse affect on the safety of the car. I guess for now we are going to have to deal with door dings, and car doors opening too wide into traffic.

FW: Xvxry Pxrson Is Important

One manager let his employees know how valuable they are with the following memo:

“You Arx A Kxy Pxrson”

Xvxn though my typxwritxr is an old modxl, it works vxry wxll — xxcxpt for onx kxy. You would think that with all thx othxr kxys functioning propxrly, onx kxy not working would hardly bx noticxd; but just onx kxy out of whack sxxms to ruin thx wholx xffort.

You may say to yoursxlf — Wxll, I’m only onx pxrson. No onx will noticx if I don’t do my bxst. But it doxs makx a diffxrxncx, bxcausx an xffxctivx organization nxxds activx participation by xvxry onx to thx bxst of his or hxr ability.

So, thx nxxt timx you think you arx not important, rxmxmbxr my old typxwritxr. You arx a kxy pxrson.

FW: Playing With The Moon

May you always have work for your hands to do.
May your pockets hold always a coin or two.
May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.
May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you.
And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
- Irish Blessing

Forward Ever Forward

FW: The Bridge Builder

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