Discovering Your Own Beauty - May 2005
When I was at Auburn the Baptist Student Union was a bustling center of activity. So many fun, interesting and meaningful things happened there. The Center, a then modern and beautifully laid out structure was situated right in the heart of Auburn, very near the center of campus. I remember thinking then due to the sizable numbers of Baptist in that part of the country; the University probably could have saved the money spent building the University Student Union. A sizable portion of the student body would have been well served at the BSU.
My motives for being involved, hanging out at the BSU, were partly spiritual, partly recreational and following the day I first met Lynn there, a lot romantic.
It didn’t sound like a happening idea at the time when I was invited to join fellow BSUers at the regular Friday night visit to the local nursing home. I can remember feeling particularly virtuous that initial Friday night. I was giving up Friday night, date night, to go cheer up some old folks, clearly people far from possessing the cool my group was so good at.
But as it turned out that night impacted my life in a powerful way. That night I met several residents of that nursing home and became intensely engaged in a conversation with a man and a woman living there. Out of that conversation I discovered a valuable resource that I have tapped into repeatedly over the many years since that special night.
I discovered travelers on the same road I am traveling and the opportunity to receive the gift of information and wisdom about the road ahead from those that had long ago traveled these paths I was and now am on. Like me these fellow travelers found themselves recipients of, and caught up in this mystery we call life. But unlike me they had learned from a longer traveled road, learned lessons that were still ahead for me to master.
Many years before that night I was standing in a cemetery participating in some boyish pranks, trying to scare lovers who had picked the cemetery for their place to get away and park. One of my more mature companions commented on one of those nights, “We’re standing in a sea of wisdom; if only we could hear what they’re saying too us.”
That first night I visited the nursing home wasn’t the first time I had been offered information and wisdom from fellow life travelers who were father down the same road I was on, but I do believe it was the first time I realized the enormous value of such offers. Parents, teachers, and many other older and road wise people who cared for me had made similar offers/efforts to guide me, instruct me on the road ahead. And I accepted and took most of it in, sometimes not realizing then the full value of their gift and how much I would come to deeply treasure these gifts later.
Following that eventful BSU visit to the East Alabama Nursing Home, Friday nights at Auburn were never the same. My Friday night routine was forever changed. I looked forward to those special nights when I could once again visit with my road wise friends, now the coolest of all. Classes were during the week but the real learning was on Friday night.
Being date night I started taking dates with me on these Friday night visits to the nursing home. I still remember the expressions in the eyes of more that one date when in response to her question “What do you want to do?” I would suggest a visit to the nursing home. Thinking back on it, those kind of date plans may have had something to do with how some of those relationships turned out.
Over the years I’ve continued these visits and I will be forever grateful for the gifts that these and other road wise ones, my parents, my teachers and others have extended me and for the light that their wisdom and experience have shined on the path my life travels.
I have tried to share this secret of guidance, this life navigation resource with my sons and took pride in John’s effort to launch Generation Gratitude, an organization that fosters life- mentoring relationships between the young and old.
It was during one of these retirement home visits that I was told a story, a story about three men who grew up in the same small town. Geographically separated for a number of their mid life years, they found themselves reunited living in the same retirement home.
One day, as the story goes, two of three were in conversation, a kind of conversation that all us participate in regularly. They were talking about their mutual friend, the absent one of the threesome. They were expressing their view that this absent one was particularly gifted in a number of ways and they were talking about the wonderful strength and gifts this one possessed. And in the midst of their conversation, this one about whom they were speaking quietly approached unnoticed by his two friends but overhearing some of their conversation.
Taking his place between his two friends he asked, “Who were guys talking about?” To which they responded. “You, we were talking about you.” And this one, as the story goes began to cry. His friends, baffled by his crying and remembering the highly complimentary nature of their comments about their friend, asked why he was crying. To which this he responded, “I’m crying because I had no idea I might be such a person like the one you were describing. I’m crying because it is incredibly sad to me that only now at this late date am I learning important, valuable information about who I am and as a result who I can and could have been.”
I have a friend, a lovely wonderful friend who has been finally coming to know how beautiful, how lovely she is. For her the good news is she is still young. She won’t be sitting in a retirement home with essentially all of her days behind her only then learning of her loveliness.
I am often face to face with the realization of how late we come to know of our gifts, our talents, our loveliness. Gordon Livingston, a wonderful member of this community has written a recent best seller entitled, “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart”. I am convinced that one of the greatest tragedies that can befall us is too late if ever coming to know, to become smart, about our strengths, the things that make us not only smart but also unique.
At Mac’s diner every morning there is lively conversation emanating from every table and the predominant subject is the same across all of the tables. It’s people. At Mac’s they talk about people and while there is complaining about others, there’s also a whole lot of talk about the special ness of this one, what makes that one unique. Phrases like “you’ve got to meet him…….she’s a unique one, the most beautiful woman I believe I’ve ever seen…….makes me laugh……….has this special way about him……is a piece of work…….can do this or that so well” and on and on.
And I’ve got to tell you, having listened to a lot of this kind of talk, I’ve never heard someone described with the words, “Just like every other person, nothing at all distinguishes him.” No, it’s the uniqueness, the talent, the gifts, the style, the manner, the gifts, the beauty that inspires this kind of talk about others.
The question is, the haunting question is, how many of these being described if they walked up on one of these conversation where they were the subject, how many would be like the man in the nursing home, not know the person being talked about?
How many of you would recognize that lovely person, you, being discussed in a conversation you walked up on?
During our Valentine’s service I suggested to you that the real reason, the most important reason to be in relationships with others be they friend, acquaintance or lover is to introduce them to who they are and to be introduced to who we are.
Today I want to encourage you to fulfill that purpose, particularly that part of it that serves as the focus of today’s service. And that focus is to make sure you are active about getting to know yourself, getting more and more fully acquainted with your gifts, your loveliness, the things that make you memorable, the things that stimulate conversation among those that know you, conversation about your unique gifts.
`Are you in touch with this vital information, these clues as to the shape your marvelous uniqueness takes? Do you really know and as a result have your life guided by your special traits and gifts?
And remember that this kind of important learning is life long. It’s life long in part because we are ever and always evolving. Not all that long ago, I didn’t know I could write, didn’t know I could be as good a friend as some have told me. I’m standing in front of you, all eyes on me, a microphone around my neck and I can remember a time when I didn’t know I could do this, would have thought that fear would overcome me. You and I are ever and always evolving, blossoming into a fuller and fuller unfolding of who we were designed to be. And because we are blossoming and continuing to unfold we must also continue an effort to become better acquainted with ourselves so that it’s not just others who recognize what makes us special.
And sadly some of us have some catching up to do in this business of becoming smart, informed about who we are. It isn’t just the recent blossoms that we need to bring into the fold of our self-knowledge. For some of us, there’s some catching up to do. There’s some editing and correcting of false information we have been given. My beautiful friend was late in part to learn of her beauty because some in the past, out of their struggles and limitations, gave her the idea she was not attractive and lovely. They gave her wrong information and since we are all much more prone to believe and hold to the negative take on who we are and find it less easy to believe and hold to the truth of our beauty, my friend held on to this misinformation about herself.
Others introduce us to who we are and the sad fact is we sometimes get an inaccurate introduction. And fear and self-doubt often causes us, when faced with the choice, to adopt, agree with the negative instead of the positive.
But fortunately there are those around us who offer us accurate information about our make up. There are those all around us who count themselves fortunate to know us, to share life with us.
And I want to encourage you to spend some time with some of these people in an effort to make sure what happened to the man who learned from his friends much too late wonderful things about himself doesn’t happen to you. I want to suggest some things that can make it much less likely that such a tragedy happens to you.
A little later in today’s service you are going to be given the opportunity to participate in a private exercise to assist with gaining, updating and correcting this important self-knowledge. And I want to encourage you to do more than just consider this issue of coming to know your gifts. I want to suggest some specific things you might do to go beyond mere consideration of this vital issue. I want to suggest some specific things for you and I to do in order to make sure you and I avoid the tragedy of missing out on knowing the best about us, the really good stuff.
A friend called me a couple of months ago. She was fulfilling an assignment given her by an organization with which she was taking a course. Her assignment was to call four friends and ask them about the strengths they saw in her. I agreed to do this and asked for the same from her.
And I want to suggest that you do the same. Think about four close friends, four people who have been around you a lot, really know you and ask them if they would be willing to give you, correct for you, update for you this vital information about yourself.
And finally, as a way to make this time you have invested here this morning more useful to you, I want to suggest that if you are so fortunate to be able to claim some special other as you lover, your dear one, I want to suggest that you make a specific date with him or her and invite their best efforts at mirroring your beauty, you gifts and that you work really hard at listening and even harder at believing what is lovingly reflected to you.
You and I both know that as strange as it may seem it can be hard to hear and even harder to believe the truth about our loveliness, our strengths. There are for sure many reasons why this is so hard but I am convinced that one of them is simply the challenge that comes with believing that we are lovely because it challenges us to live out of, be guided by our strengths and gifts instead of out of our fears and our failings.
And if you are so inclined to follow this suggestion of seeking, updating and correcting this information about your gifts, your beauty, may I suggest that at some other time, some other equally planned and special time, you return the gift to those who so lovingly gave it to you.
There exists an absolute fact, an irrefutable given and it is simply this. Whether you know it or not– and there in lies the hint of tragedy–You are unique. You are special. You are gifted. You are lovely.
Recently Michele was talking with her wonderful son and said to him, “Nicholas, you are the smartest seven year old around.” To which Nick, head up and confident responded, “I know.” May all of your “who me’s” “really” “you really think so” with God’s help come to be “I know!” “I know!” “I know!”
“Thank God, I really know!!”
