Contributing writer
For this column, you may thank (or blame) my mother and Pastor Steve Humber. When I ran into the good pastor in a local eatery not long ago, I told him a story my mother used to tell. This led to a conversation about attitudes toward life, and he told me I should write about it.
During the darkest days of the Great Depression, when my parents did not always have much food, a tramp knocked on the door looking for something to eat. Although food was scarce, Mom never turned away a hungry wanderer. All she had to offer was the bread she had baked that morning and the butter she had churned.
The hobo took her offering, but muttered grumpily as he turned away, “Just bread and butter.”
Another food-seeking tramps stopped a couple of hours later.
When she handed this lunch to the second tramp, his face lit with joy and he said, “Oh, boy! Good old homemade bread and fresh country butter!”
This has always seemed to me to be a metaphor for life in general. Either we can complain, because we don’t get exactly what we want, or we can be grateful for what we get. Although I often fall into the complaining mode of the first man, I realize I’m a lot happier when I emulate the second.
Pastor Humber phrased the philosophy a bit differently. He said there are two kinds of people in the world — those who view the good things in life as a right and those who view them as a gift. If you believe you have a right to all the best blessings, then you groan and whine if you don’t get them. If you view life’s blessings as a precious gift from God, your heart sings with joy over each one.
Lately I’ve found myself being deprived of some of life’s privileges that I have taken for granted. My kidneys are failing, and a nephrologist estimates I am about a year away from dialysis. Not a happy thought. However, those organs have served me well for nearly 70 years. If I had lived 75 years ago, I would be facing death instead of the gift of dialysis, which could keep me going indefinitely. The time spent in those treatments will give me time to read many books, write many letters, and crochet many Christmas presents. I must try to anticipate it like the second man.
There are so many other blessings in my life that I should never whine. I have the love and moral support of my church family and a lot of friends and “heart children.” Whatever comes my was, they and God will help me through.
What gifts have been dropped into your life lately? Are you disappointed because you deserve better? Try to flip the coin over, see the good side and say, “Oh boy! Good old homemade bread and fresh country butter!”