Yesterday morning on the way to work, I heard an interview
on the Fan 960 with R.A. Dickey, the new starting pitcher for the Toronto Blue
Jays. He was telling the story of how he had gone from traditional pitcher to
having to learn to throw a knuckle ball if he had any hope of becoming a big
leaguer - a transition that he has certainly been successful in making, having
won the National League Cy Young as the best pitcher in baseball in 2012. However,
in telling his story he said something interesting: “I’m in no way a self-made
man.” R.A. then spoke about all of the people who loved him and cared for him
in his life and profession - people that made it possible for him to be the man
he is today. And I thought, “That is so awesome”.
I know what people mean when they point to someone and describe
him or her as a self-made man or woman. But, is it ever truly possible to be
that person who is so stable on their own two feet that their family,
education, faith and all the amazing people that they have in their lives has
not shaped the person they have become? The greatest of people on this earth
are in fact a combination of a whole series of influences both positive and
negative that allow them to be the man or women that they are.
For example, I am excellent at doing dishes…but I didn’t
start out that way. When the lovely Janice agreed to marry me 25 years ago, I
was actually very poor at house cleaning. I often say I didn’t know what dirt
was until I married Janice, as she just kept pointing it out to me all the time.
Now 25 years later I have become quite accomplished at dishes, cleaning
bathrooms, and the even the occasional vacuuming of the house. Janice has
influenced the man I am today.
I work at The Mustard Seed, an amazing organization that is
doing all it can each and every day to build community, grow hope and support
change amongst Alberta’s homeless population. Amongst my friends on the street
I have truly met some of the most amazing people that I have ever met in my
life. Talented people and often terribly intelligent people who had dreams and
visions of what their life was going to be. None of these dreams involved being
homeless.
Unfortunately, the homeless are often stereotyped in very negative
ways. They are described often by people who have never taken the time to hear
a homeless person’s story as somehow they deserve what has happened to them,
that they must have done something to deserve their situation. Failing to
recognize that homelessness is something that happens to good people. That it
is, in fact, but a symptom just as most addictions we see all around us are
symptoms. The illness is a world that is increasingly so self-possessed that we
miss the whole point of our existence on this earth. So how do we finally once
and for all kill these misconceptions?
Well, if there is truly no such thing as a self-made man or
women – at least in the truest sense, if they are in fact really nothing more
than compilation of a series of influences of people and circumstances. We now
have an ability to understand my friends on the street. They also are not self-made
men and women. They also are more often than not a compilation of a series of influences
of people and circumstances; however, in the case of the homeless these have
seldom been positive.
We are surrounded by people to whom we could be that source
of positive influence or experience, so they too could one day stand up as R.A
Dickey did and say, “I’m not a self-made man.” Then they too could talk about all the people
who loved them and cared for them in their lives and professions that made it
possible for them to be the man or women they are today. The formerly homeless.
@billbytheminute
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Right on.
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