"Get Up and Win the Race"

Is it just me, or were we all born with a giant mountain in front of us? Your mountain might be writing a book, or running a marathon, or raising a family, or becoming a world-famous scientist. My particular mountain seems to have many peaks to it, each of which seems completely unreachable most of the time. Yet, I cannot escape my mountain. It is in front of me all the time. Everything I do reminds me of it, and at the same time, everything also seems to oppose it. The harder I try to climb the mountain, the harder gravity works against me. Then, in the words of DH Groberg's poem, The Race, I hear: “Quit, give up, you're beaten,” they shout at me and plead, “There's just too much against you, this time you can't succeed.”
I could tell the story of my life with that poem. As a musician, a runner, a conductor, a reader, a writer, a mother, a composer, and even a Christian, somewhere, someone has always been behind me with those words of discouragement, trying to tell me that I couldn't do whatever it was that I was trying to do. There are those people in this world who make it their business to tell people when they have failed and to make sure that they don't forget it. I've known dozens of such people, and have heard of hundreds more. Ironically these people are also very adept at finding those whom they consider to be successful and encouraging them to be even more successful. They sometimes masquerade as teachers or friends but when the chips are down, they will always play the favorite. In other words, they might be walking the trail up the mountain with you, but when rocks mar the path they will be the first to say that you are climbing the wrong mountain and had better turn back.
Remember that we are all born with a mountain. I don't think you can climb the wrong mountain. Whatever mountain is in front of you is the one you must climb. Of course, you can choose not to climb. And you can choose to not get up in the morning. But where does that get you? Some people have got it into their heads that you have to have some kind of aptitude, or talent, or predisposition for a certain mountain in your life, otherwise you are just wasting your time. They are constantly testing people to see where their aptitude lies so that they can funnel them into a certain field of endeavor, no doubt so that the economy will run smoothly from year to year. But real experience and real people defy those beliefs. Some of the greatest accomplishments in the history of the world were achieved by people who had to overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles to do it. Fred Astaire was so clumsy all his life, that he decided to take dancing lessons to improve his weakness. Einstein did poorly in school. The man who first broke the four-minute mile barrier was told at a very young age that he would never walk.
There are countless other examples of extraordinarily weak people accomplishing some of the most difficult tasks in the history of man. The trouble is that we think that we are somehow different. We cannot accomplish anything unless we, a) have an amazing talent for it at birth, b) are given all the money and opportunities we need to achieve the goal, and c) we happen to have enough time in our busy schedule to fit it in. How absurd. It is precisely the weakness, inability, and lack of opportunity that gives you the incentive to grow into the challenge and to build the strength to succeed. No one ever climbed their mountain over night. You have to be careful when you look around you. There are some people who appear to have reached the top of a very majestic mountain, and you might envy them. But remember that sometimes, they were put on the top and they didn't have to climb. In that case, their real mountain is still in front of them, and they may be deceiving themselves and others who think that if you have an amazing talent, lots of money and all the time you need, that you have found success. True success, and happiness, is in climbing your own mountain, in your weakness, growing stronger each day battling the winds of adversity, and, like in the poem, whenever you fall, and others tell you to quit, you hear another voice within you that says, “Get up, and win the race!”

Do You Know Me?

Have you ever noticed how you can live with someone for a long time and still not really KNOW them? But it isn't proximity that teaches you about people, it's connectivity. I read somewhere that people have four basic needs: to be trusted, loved, appreciated, and understood. How can that happen unless you know them?
I lived with my brothers and sisters for about twenty years. We ate, worked, played and lived together in every circumstance. Years and experience have taught us much about each other. However, there are times when I wonder if they will ever really understood ME. We all know that people are dual beings. They have the outward person; what people expect of them; appearance, habits etc. Then they have the inner person; the thoughts known only to them; the motives, desires and dreams. There are many people with whom we share the outward person. Acquaintances, friends, neighbors, and strangers alike can be familiar enough with us that they might even say that they KNOW us. But I am convinced that only a few people in this world were ever truly known and understood by their fellow beings.
When I was twelve years old I had a band director who motivated me to be the best I could be in my music. His dynamic personality, love of music, and friendship with the students made his band program the best in the state. For two years, as his student, I worked harder at my music than I had worked at anything else in my life. My older siblings had spent five and six years under his tutelage and had accomplished great things. I looked forward with great anticipation to the time when I would be a part of his high school band program. The administration of the school, however, felt very differently about our teacher. They saw him as a threat to the discipline of the school and they feared the student's admiration for him. Because of that fear they decided to fire him. The students were in shock when they found out, but there was little they could do. Pickets, petitions and pleadings were all in vain. Mr. Sheets left the school at the end of that year, never to return. That summer, he died of blood poisoning after a painting accident. The students were stunned and horrified at his death, and the whole town was deeply troubled by the whole incident.
Those administrators couldn't understand all the good in that man's heart. The students couldn't understand the administrators' animosity toward their favorite teacher. I didn't understand why I would have to be deprived of a great teacher, and no one understood why I wanted to be a band director when I grew up. Everyone's life is made up of countless layers of experience. Tragedy, triumph, heartache, joy, trouble and peace attend us by turns as the layers of our lives are forged. Misunderstanding is like a thorn that works its way into the layers of our lives causing untold suffering, until the festering, burning wound is opened and the thorn is removed. Ignorance is the hammer that drives the thorn of misunderstanding into a human heart. Understanding is the hand that removes the thorn and allows the wound to heal.
In order to trust, love, appreciate and understand another human being, you have to know them. In order to know them you have to listen to them. Listen not only with your ears, but with your eyes, your mind and your heart. When people speak, look at them, in the eye, and see and understand not just what they are saying, but what they are NOT saying. See them for who they are trying to be, who they want to be, who they must be, and who they are. Then, when you understand, ignorance is banished, thorns are removed, lives are healed and pain is gone.

Going Home

It was a warm spring day in June of 1977 when I hurried out of bed and into my riding clothes. My dad had asked me to go with him down to our ranch to pick up the horses and bring them back to the farm. The horses spent the winters on the pastures at our ranch in southern North Dakota. There was plenty of grassland, water and shelter for the long cold winter, as well as a slightly milder climate, due to the nearness of Lake Sacagawea. I was thirteen at the time and as excited as a girl could be that I was allowed to go with my dad on this particular trip. You see, I had four brothers who always went with dad. They helped on the farm driving tractor, hauling hay, picking rock and fixing equipment. They almost never needed a scrawny little girl to help them, even though I was more than willing. But this day, dad had asked me specifically and had left the boys behind. I was walking on air.
We drove twenty miles south past dozens of small farms with fields of grain and clover waving lazily in the breeze, to reach the old ranch house and barns. The aging and broken down homestead was beautiful to me. The house had not been lived in for probably fifty years and had the look of a ghost town about it. Sagging roof, graying wood, overgrown trees, and broken down fence all spoke of a late owner who had no use for them anymore. Our family had taken on the farm and ranch as renters. The old ranch was part of the property, but the residence was on the main farm where all the wheat fields were. The ranch was mostly pasture land by the lake which was not fit for farming, but good for grazing cattle and horses. Sometimes we would have to round up all the cattle and bring them to market and sometimes we would cut some of the land for hay. The land had a natural spring with pure, cold water that ran by the ranch house all year. I could imagine that I was a pioneer, living on that ranch, making a living in that rough, inhospitable country where the wind blows incessantly and the cold lasts for six months out of the year.
At eight O'clock in the morning we pulled up to the gate of the pasture where the horses were kept. We caught the horses and began the loading process when dad turned to me and asked if I wouldn't like to ride one of the horses back to the farm. “Yes!” I said, without hesitation. It had been my secret hope all along. I was ready. Then, as the weight of what I was about to do settled on me, I asked my dad if he thought I could do it alright. He calmly answered, “Sure you can. Just follow that road north until you come to where you start to recognize the farms, then you'll know where to go.” It sounded easy, but I began to doubt myself. Dad, who must have seen my trepidation, reassured me again and lifted me on to the back of the gelding Quarter horse named Cobra. As he lifted me up, I also felt a lift in my confidence and I waved a cheerful goodbye and began the long trek homeward.
I knew that I must not tire my horse by running, because we had long miles to go in the hot sun. We walked along at a comfortable pace, taking in the scenery. The dust from the truck faded into the horizon as I squinted to catch the last glimpse of dad going home. Mile after lonely mile receded under Cobra's hooves while I anxiously scanned the landscape trying to recognize a familiar barn or house. Hours went by, and still there was nothing familiar to me. I began to worry. I also began to feel extremely alone. When I got off the horse to lead him for a while because I was tired of being in the saddle, I found that there was a lump in my throat. But dad's parting words to me kept going through my mind. “Sure you can. Just follow that road north until you come to where you start to recognize the farms, then you'll know where to go.” I said them out loud, to reassure myself. I said them to Cobra. I said them to the sky.
Then at last, something familiar! A house. Yes, I had been there before. I knew where I was. Oh, the joy! I am not lost! I was still hours from home, but it didn't matter. I knew where I was. The rest of the trail seemed to fly by and I arrived home, safe and sore.
Never have I forgotten that feeling of utter loneliness, nor the joy of recognition, nor those words of reassurance. Those words and feelings are ever-present with me because I am still on the road, trying to get home.