because they seeing see not;
and
hearing they hear not,
neither
do they understand.
- Matthew 13:13; Bible
That Charlene…she is something.
For a number of years, I had annual board meetings near Dulles
Airport in Washington, D.C. She didn’t live far away, and so my old high school
friend and I made efforts to find time for coffee, or a quick lunch, or a stroll
on chilly November afternoons, just catching up.
She is one of those souls as solid as the rock of Gibraltar…never
a girlfriend, but a real girl friend…a friendship that has percolated along in growing appreciation
decade after decade.
The Dulles meetings stopped six or seven years ago, but in the
summer of 2015 we saw one another at our 50th high school reunion in
Fairmont, West Virginia. It was comforting to see one another and be reminded
we were both still breathing on planet earth…the joyful hug didn’t hurt either.
Photo memories…
Her email contained pictures of entrances
to our high school. Over the top of some of the doorways familiar quotations were
carved in stone…two entry ways at the back, one at the side and a fourth on a wall at the main entrance…a set of stairs on
either side leading up to the doors.
They read:
“Knowledge
is the great sun in the firmament – Life and power are scattered with all its
beams.”
“Let
the people know the truth and the world will be safe”
“Achievement:
Life in deeds – Not words”
“Opportunity:
Act in the living present”
Proximity isn’t
always everything…
Our house was less than 50
yards from the back of the school, so I passed under those phrases thousands of
times in course of getting to classes in the mornings, heading home for lunch,
and attending school events. I remember
giving them quick glances, but never paid much attention.
It was more than 40 years before I was struck by their meaning.
A little public speaking…
At my 40th reunion, I was asked to give a short talk during
an evening dinner. Before coming I prepared few thoughts thinking about what
might be appropriate. The day of the dinner, the afternoon was free so I visited
the neighborhood where I lived for so many years.
The ‘family home’ still remained at 912 8th Street and looked pretty
much the way I remembered it.
Standing on that street, a flood of memories and
faces stored in the hard drives of my mind came rushing into view. Even as I
write these words, I am filled with images, stories, sounds and smells painted
in richly vibrant colors and soft pastels tucked away on long forgotten dusty canvases of liquid biochemistry, waiting for a trigger to bring them back…that old house
was a trigger and then some.
I crossed the street to the high school, walking around the
campus, listening for whatever might emerge. There was no real hurry on that bright
and sunny day…just a wandering spirit with an open mind. It was then I took
notice of, maybe for the first time, the sayings that had sat above the doors of
the building entrances long before I passed under them the first time and remaining to this very
day.
It was one of those ‘aha moments’ of appreciation for the mind of
the architect who left traces of thought, and the educators
of the day who felt the phrases added additionally subtle character to a school
that on top of providing excellent education, would in its future find a
place on the American National Registry of Historic Places.
Immortal and life giving…
These weren’t just words…they were great and universal ideas as
reminders this building and its purpose was a broader doorway leading to life and possibilities
yet unknown.
What about those quotes?
Daniel Webster said knowledge was “…the great sun in the firmament,”
and Abraham Lincoln “…safety in truth….”
George Washington suggested life was the result of deeds (action) not
words, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote these wonderful lines in ‘A Psalm
of Life’:
Trust no Future, Howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
-----
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Inspired, I discarded the things I had prepared for that
evening’s talk and used these quotes as a basis for, and reminder of, what a
special place our high school had been. The teachers sure, many of the events
of course, but the doorposts of the building themselves stood as ‘sentinels of
ideas’ to remind us of life’s potential.
Charlene’s email brought these quotes back to mind, and I was
delighted to see them again…more so to note they meant even more now than they
did at that evening’s presentation. In my 68th year my heart knows these
ideas as well worn, welcome friends, and by experience that knowledge lights
the firmament of life...in truth there is internal safety...life only rewards
action, and that one can only have life in the present.
These simple words and others like them still inspire and pull me forward through
doorways of opportunity and possibilities yet unknown.
Life is NOT about time on planet and the frailty that eventually comes
to us all. Life is about the words and ideas that know neither time nor
fragility, but remain as vibrant, fresh and alive as the soul that carries them.
- ted
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