Tag: example

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Holmes is On The Case

I’m constantly amazed at how fast Holmes’ mind works. He’s capable of amazing leaps. And once something catches his interest, he’ll stop at nothing to pursue it.

No, not Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective.  Holmes Rochat, the Great New Dog.

Yes, for the first time in way too long, we’ve got a dog in the family again. Small-ish. Black. One year old. About as mixed as a mixed breed can be. And one of the fastest learners I’ve ever seen on four feet (or maybe even two).

Mind you, some of that is in contrast to what’s come before. Duchess the Wonder Dog was brilliant – as a combination of border collie and Lab, she could hardly be anything else – but also quite timid from some bad early experiences before we got her. Big Blake was 85 pounds of solid muscle, including his head: loving, devoted, but not exactly a canine Einstein.

With Holmes, we’re learning how to do this all over again. Largely because he’s so ready to learn himself.

Maybe it’s because he’s so young. Maybe his previous owner worked with him a bit. But Holmes listens.  Not always perfectly: we’re still working on concepts like “vets can be trusted,” “grass isn’t edible,” and “a flying hug isn’t the perfect greeting for all occasions.” But for the most part, he listens. He tries to do what you tell him. And he’s steadily forming a picture of the do’s and don’ts.

That’s awesome. And a little terrifying.

It always is when you have the power to be the Example.

“Into the Woods” put it well, with its closing advice to parents everywhere:

“Careful the things you say, children will listen,

Careful the things you do, children will see … and learn.”

We teach constantly. Not just in the conscious lessons like helping a dog learn to “sit” or a child learn to count and read, but in the thousand different ways we meet the world.

When someone shoves a dog roughly from their lap, they teach it to be fearful, even around those it should love.

When someone claims to love their neighbor but greets actual people with contempt or neglect, they teach that their word can’t be trusted … or worse, that it’s OK to mistreat those you say you love.

With our example, we teach what’s acceptable and who’s accepted, whether it’s by passing a law or paying a bill. (Dave Barry refers to the latter as the Waiter Rule: “If someone is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, they are not a nice person.”) We teach what we want to see by how we behave … and too often, we find the lessons coming right back at us, learned perfectly.

 If we want to see respect or compassion, we need to show it.

If we want to see justice, we need to confront injustice.

And if we want a nation that values everyone in it, we need to look at who’s being left out.

It starts with the small, daily actions. That’s how a dog learns it’s loved. That’s how a child learns it’s valued. It’s how a world learns the way we see it.

Big thoughts from a small dog, I know. And for now, that’s where my own attention is: watching Holmes chase butterflies, explore his new home, and learn just how much his new family loves him.

It seems so simple to put it that way.

Maybe even elementary.

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The Face of Choice

A few days before he died, Heather saw footage of John Lewis in “Eyes on the Prize” and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“He looks so young,” she said in amazement.

A simple thing. But powerfully true. There on the screen was the young Freedom Rider, protester, orator and organizer. A face so different from the Georgia congressman so many of us had gotten used to, the man who had represented his district for so long that no one would have been surprised to see him turn up in “Hamilton” – as one of the characters.

Now all the faces belong to the past.

What face will we see?

That’s not as simple a question as it sounds. Like many people in many places, America loves its heroes. But we love them best when they’re safely distant. A Founding Father who belongs to a different time. A martyr cut down at the height of his glory. Crusaders and agitators whose messages can be carefully shaped the way we want to hear them, rather than have them inconveniently speak for themselves.

Lewis received an honor that many fighters for justice never claimed. He got to grow old. And so, for years and years, he got to remain a person rather than an image. Someone who could inspire people or irritate them, make them proud or make them angry.

The living get to do that.

They get to challenge us.

They get to embarrass us.

They even get to shame us.

Most of all, they get to remind us that they’re people. Not saints and angels from another realm. Not heroes conveniently written into a Hollywood script. But people like you and me.

And that can be the most humbling lesson of all.

Because if someone like you and me can do so much and stand for so long, it suggests that we could do it, too.

And then we have to ask ourselves why not.

For some of us, true, it’s a matter of opportunity. If you’re sweating and straining just to find $5 for a cheap dinner, simple survival looms much larger than leaving any sort of mark or legacy on the world. But for many of us – most of us – the answer is more unsettling.

For most of us, it comes down to choices. Often ordinary choices, that collectively have an extraordinary impact in what we do or what we ignore.

Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a piece about a photograph I’d found in a World War II history. It showed German soldiers throwing snowballs at each other in a train yard. Replace the uniforms with civilian clothing and they could have been anyone’s sons and brothers, taking joy in a winter’s day.

Ordinary men. Capable of laughter. Capable of silliness. And fighting for one of the most evil regimes in history.

Not monsters, safely separated from the human race. But people. Like us.

We can be our monsters. We can be our heroes. These are roles of our making, born of our choices.

Who will we choose to be?

John Lewis has left now, his choices made. Only his example remains behind. Will we remember a man, in all his complexities and contradictions, who left a mark and a job to be carried on? Or will we just remember a face from a documentary, a name from another time, a message from an old battle that surely has nothing to do with us?

Will we remember that we share the same story and the same potential?

Will we remember that our choices matter? And make them?

John Lewis’s face belongs to the past now. It’s time again to look at our own.

What will we see?

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Watching the Mirror

As the song goes, just one look was all it took.

Mind you, February has always been a magical time for Missy. Not, I might add, because of the weather. Our developmentally disabled ward has been known to declare “I’m cold” when the weather dips below a sunny 70 degrees. When Colorado becomes a realm of ice, snow, and penetrating wind – suffice to say it gets remarked on. Many times.

Which makes it ironic that many of Missy’s favorite experiences are wintertime ones. Like Christmas light tours. Or bowling with old friends. Or especially the February “prom” for the disabled. Dress up in fancy clothes and dance the night away? It would take the White Witch herself to keep Missy away from that.

The night was in full swing – as was Missy, dancing with me and any volunteer within a 20-foot radius – when I noticed something. As Missy was having a blast near the edge of the stage, the lead singer of the band had spotted her and begun mirroring her movements, keeping up with each step, sway, and raising of hands.

Missy then spotted him. Her smile and her eyes widened. For the next couple of minutes, she and the front man danced together without coming near each other, their eyes and their moves perfectly aligned. When the song ended, Missy’s excited face could have outshone any stage light – especially when the singer acknowledged her from the stage with a gesture.

Dance like no one’s watching, they say. But someone had been. And it made the night that much more special.

Someone was watching.

Someone usually is.

As I write that, I realize how ominous that may sound. After all, we live in an age where privacy may seem to be a nostalgic memory. Numerous stories of data hacks have made it clear how often we’re being profiled without our knowledge, never mind the volume of data we willingly share with friends, family, and barely-met acquaintances across the world.

But that’s not where I’m going with this. This is something older than the internet. Maybe even older than recorded information in any form.

Someone is watching.

Someone is learning from you.

Stephen Sondheim put it well in “Into The Woods”:

Careful the things you say, children will listen.

Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.

We all teach by example. And it’s not just to kids. Every day, whether we know it or not, we make ourselves a model for someone else. What we say, what we do, what we embrace or avoid gets noticed and learned from.

That can sound a little intimidating – “Oh, my gosh, I’d better be on my best behavior!” But if you think about it, it’s kind of endearing. Somewhere, someone has decided – consciously or not – that they want to be like you. That you’re cool. That something you do is worth their attention.

It may be subtle. We may not notice right away. But each of us quietly shapes the world.

Admittedly, that does put a little responsibility on us. It means we don’t exist in isolation, that we can’t disclaim any effect on others. Even if we don’t have to turn into Clark Kent, The Super Boy Scout, we still have to think, at least a little, about what we put into the world, because it will come back to us. We know this, even if we don’t think about it all the time – “Do unto others,” after all, is one of the oldest rules there is in almost any culture.

What we would see, we must be.

But it’s an exciting thought. It means we can put beauty in the world as easily as anger. It means that our joy, our wonder, our kindness, can create ripples that may someday lead to a wave. It means we have hope – that we can build hope.

We’re not alone. And that’s a wonderful thing. Even on the coldest night, a friend you’ve never met may just be waiting for your cue to start the dance.

Just ask Missy.

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Growing with the Flow

There are a lot of rough jobs in this world. Street sweeper at an elephant parade. Quality control for a parachute manufacturer. Speech coach for Bob Dylan.

But the roughest job of all may be the one inaugurated this weekend in our own backyard. Commencement speaker at a Lyons High School graduation.

Think about it.

What on earth do you say?

This is the class that saw its school turned into an island and its hometown into a CNN breaking news clip. These are the kids from the town that left town, the community that water couldn’t kill, the students who will never, ever again use the phrase “God willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”

What can you possibly tell them that they don’t already know? Especially within the tried-and-true themes of a high school graduation.

“Your entire world may change tomorrow and you have to be ready to change with it.” No kidding.

“Think back to when this school year began…” Um, maybe not.

“Be part of your community and ready to give back.” Can we get back to you on that? We’re running late to a Lyons Strong event.

Let’s face it. Life lessons have not exactly been in short supply around here. Once you cross off everything that the St. Vrain Flood made redundant, you might as well just give everyone two Dr. Seuss quotes, one proverb from Mr. Rogers, and then pass the paper and toss the hats.

After all, if you can’t listen to a 20-minute speech that might change your life (see vendor for details, satisfaction not guaranteed, void where prohibited), then what’s the point of a graduation ceremony?

OK, you can stop laughing.

No, I don’t remember the speech at my graduation. I’m betting you don’t, either. Commencement speeches have been pretty much fired and forgotten ever since David addressed the Israelite class of 1020 B.C. (“In a world of giant obstacles, sometimes life really rocks!”)

They don’t stay with us. They don’t need to. Deep down, every senior knows the real theme of every graduation since the beginning of time. And it’s one that might as well be an LHS class motto.

We survived.

We survived homework, exams, pop quizzes and the worst indignities our teachers could inflict.

We survived our own stupidity, our social life, and that moment with the lasagna in 10th grade that no one would let us forget.

And now, this senior class can say, we survived a flood that would make Noah look for a nice place in the Andes.

We outlasted. We persevered. We made it.

Even in the face of the worst that nature could do.

Between you and me, I think every school in this area should have a Lyons High School grad as a commencement speaker next year. These are the masters of disaster, and if anyone knows how to take the next step into an uncertain world, it’s them.

But then, it’s not really something you can say, is it? It’s something you do. Something you pass on by sheer, stubborn example.

And that example is now on stage for everyone to see.

Congratulations, seniors.

You survived. And then some.

Good luck to all of you. And mind the elephants on the way out.