The Best Laid Retirement Plans

 When I first read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, I discovered, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” I use that line from a Robert Burns’ poem to explain why, no matter how carefully I have planned a project, something goes wrong. When things go wrong despite my best intentions and efforts, I comfort myself by reciting, ‘the best laid plans….’

 Through my life I have been a planner.  I wrote a letter to my mother-in-law while I was courting her daughter to explain how I planned to live the next twenty-five years of my life so that I would become President. The letter worked in gaining her approval of my plan for her daughter to become my bride.  As for the rest of the plan, well, ‘the best laid plans….’

 After a lifetime of planning, two years ago I planned my retirement with a team of colleagues at our church.  We planned for me to retire from full time ministry four days from now. This would have been my last Saturday Stirrings.  Then ‘the pandemic’ happened. You may have heard of it.  ‘The best laid plans….’

 Plan B: wait a year. In June 2021, begin a search process for my successor, so that I would retire one year hence.  As the calendar turned to June, that bride I mentioned above, my partner of 46 years, she and I came to the same conclusion.  I am not ready to retire. There is more work to be done with the people of Hope Church, and anyway, there is nothing she wants me to fix around the house since everything I touch breaks on contact. ‘The best laid plans….’

 The church leadership agrees. Not that I break things, but that there is more work for me to do.  The wonderful people of Hope agree, or at least the majority do.  For the first time in my adult life my plan is to have no plan.  Having no plan there is nothing to ‘gang aft a-gley’. What happens next is God’s plan.

 To God alone be the glory.

 “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.” Psalm 71:18

Why I am Celebrating Juneteenth

 Happy Juneteenth!  Today, June 19, 2021, is the first time the United States officially celebrates in the form of a new national holiday the end of slavery in the United States.  It happened by means of a rare overwhelmingly bipartisan show of support in the United States Congress, and it was signed into law by President Biden, in what he describes as one of the greatest honors of his life, and Vice-president Kamala Harris, in her role as president of the United States Senate. The official name of the day is Juneteenth National Independence Day. 

Why should the people of God observe and celebrate Juneteenth? Allow me to suggest three reasons among the many reasons we should support this new holiday.

First, the story of the Bible is about the end of slavery for human beings.  The story of the humanity in its relationship to God is about the Exodus, where we leave our individual and collective ‘Egypt’ and march toward the freedom of the Promised Land.  The people of God oppose slavery in all its forms, especially the slavery caused by our sin. The people of God celebrate freedom in all its forms, and in the United States that means celebrating the end of one of the darkest chapters of U.S. history. 

Second, the unique story of Juneteenth, in which the celebration was delayed two and one-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is representative of the story of salvation. Jesus Christ won the war over the slavery of sin at the Cross, but the battles over sin’s influence continue until Christ returns to proclaim final victory.  We are free, but not everyone yet knows that truth.

Third, it is a day we can use to reflect on our progress in achieving true independence and equality for all races.  The final scenes of God’s Word pictures a great gathering of a multitude ‘from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne’ of God.  When we pray ‘your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’, what do you think that means? That we, the people of God, strive on earth to set all people free and to celebrate our liberty until that day when we all stand as equals, the redeemed of the Lamb, celebrating our final freedom in heaven.

Graduation Speech: Secret to Success, Pt. 2

 Verda Tetteh. Remember that name. Verda Tetteh is near the top of my ‘most likely to know success in her life’. She unlocked the secret as a high school senior.

 Ms. Tetteh is a child of an immigrant family, from Ghana. She worked her way through the pandemic year at a grocery store while achieving the highest of academic honors at her school. Oh, by the way, she also received admission to Harvard. Yet, admirable as are these achievements, the part of Ms. Tetteh’s character that impresses me most is what she did with the $40,000.00 award from her school for her excellent record.

 After listening to the graduation day speeches about ‘being selfless and being bold’, she made an unscheduled trip back to the graduation day microphone.  She proceeded to ask that the school change the game for someone else’s life by taking back her $40,000.00 award and granting it to someone in greater economic need.

 One news outlet reported her remarks and what followed: “’I am so very grateful for this, but I also know that I am not the one who needs this the most,’ she said. Out on the grass, her classmates rose from their folding chairs to cheer. It was her second standing ovation that day.”  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/08/verda-tetteh-scholarship-graduation/)

 I would have been one of those rising to cheer her too. Ms. Tetteh’s selfless and bold act, one could argue, was poor personal financial planning. But it is great life-planning, learning as a young adult that keeping what we need while being generous with that we do not need, or that someone else needs more.

 As Leslie Barnor, Verda’s stepfather explained, “’We are a Christian family….We believe we don’t need to have so much before you give to others.’” That’s the secret, friends.

 I don’t know what God has in mind for Ms. Tetteh’s path going forward, but I hope her story will be one that her generation will repeat often and widely.  The future of our society is much brighter because of visionary immigrants like Ms. Tetteh, people who truly understand that making someone else’s dream possible is the secret to success in life.

Graduation Speech: The Secret to Success

 There are two types of people in the world.  The difference between them lies in how each type responds to a problem. As you enter the next stage of your lives, there are many parts of your life you cannot control, many aspects of your future you cannot choose.  But everyone chooses which one of these two types of people we will be. Everyone chooses how they define success.

Whether it is building a cohesive family, a profitable business, or a socially valuable non-profit, one characteristic is common to the people who are more likely to find satisfaction in their relationships and ventures. When it is all said and done, do you find the adventures you experience on life’s journey satisfying, worth your time, helpful to the people you care about and love?

There are two types of people in the world. The first type sees a problem and thinks, “I need to fix this problem, or find someone who can help me fix it.” The second type sees a problem and thinks, “Boy, that’s a real problem. Someone (else) should do something about it! It’s not my job.”(Or ‘I don’t care’; or ‘I am too busy’; or ‘I don’t know how’; or ‘I don’t know who to call.’ And on and on.)

The type of person I would hire for my business or bring alongside on a new project are the people whom I know to be the first type.  The volunteers who make our church possible are the people who ‘find a need and fill it’, to borrow a phrase. The people who made the law firm I managed for many years successful were those who saw what needed to happen to make our clients successful and wouldn’t stop trying until that occurred.

Sure, you can get through life, even make a good living, by being the second type. You can join the crowds who see a problem and complain that ‘someone’ doesn’t fix it. But that just makes you grumpy; not happy.

Or you can decide that you will be the one with the heart of a servant. At the end of your life, you will have the satisfaction, the joy, of knowing that you made a difference.  Be ‘Mr. Fix-it’; ‘Ms. Problem-solver.’

Choose to succeed.