Pratt: The difference between success and failure
It may be no surprise to confess that I am something of a “bookaholic,” a development that took me from a tomboy playing Tarzan in the trees around our house with my two younger brothers to burying my head in Nancy Drew mysteries after I learned to read and could find access to such delightful stories.
I loved climbing trees, and the man who had owned the small farm planted a lot off trees at the homesite before my father, then a young bachelor, purchased it at the nudging of his parents who lived nearby.
If it weren’t for the joy of reading, I might have been a drop-out as I was unimpressed with school, especially the playground recess. I was always last in line at the swings or merry-go-round.
I did like learning, but I was an “over” participant, who gave the teachers a headache, I’m sure, judging from some old report cards. You know what was most often checked – “talks too much.”
But as much as I liked to talk, I also liked to read, ask questions and learn. Just in my defense, I should say that I inherited these predilections from both sides of my family. I’ve passed it along as best I could to three sons, poor guys. Fortunately, their father is a bit more discreet.
As I regard the issues today that plague our cities and even country folks, I am immensely grateful for the somewhat isolating experience of growing up out in the “middle of nowhere” important, as history would judge.
Since our neighbors were also country people at a time when communications and transportation limited our exposure to the faster-moving world of city, state and country, we were to some extent protected from some of the horrific experiences that crowded cities too often provide – crime, chaos and corruption.
That is not to say we were better people, but we had fewer temptations and as children, probably less opportunity to get in trouble since we lived a mile or more, not next door, to our neighbors.
We made up for some of that at our small country school. We girls, led by the principal’s daughter, came close to starting a fire in a small out-building between the teacherage and the school at recess. The girls who had access to their father’s cigarettes brought some to school. At recess we huddled in that barn to learn how to smoke. I think we got caught before the lighted cigarette made its way around the circle to me.
Being a girl, I can’t tell you about some of the mischief the boys caused, but I do know their parents were notified and punished them. Children haven’t changed, but the world has come not only to our doorsteps, but inside front and center of our living rooms today, even for those of us who still live in the country. Smoking cigarettes is a small concern compared to the danger inherent in the drugs so available today.
It began simply, with a small television screen, and then larger and larger the picture grew until suddenly, it did something much more difficult to control – shrinkage of the screen onto a device called a telephone transported into the hands of our children what could be the most dangerous tool of destruction the family has ever encountered.
Just to be fair, the cell phone is also one of the most helpful tools we possess – it’s all in how the device is used, which depends on parents and educators to a large degree. Therein lies the difference between success and failure – how and what we do with the tools at our command for good or for ill.
At no time have we been in greater need for wisdom or with capacity for both good or evil to be visited upon our world from our own inventive minds. We must not leave the equipping of our children to institutional programs. We must be informed and aware of what they are being taught and by whom.
It is the nexus of the family that provides either hope or despair for the future as decisions are made about what is important in life. “Count Your Many Blessings,” for example, a hymn written in 1897 by Johnson Oatman, still reminds us that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. (James 1:17 KJV).
Oatman was ordained into the ministry by the Methodist Episcopal Church, but continued to earn his living as a businessman as did his father, also noted in churches for his singing voice.
By 1892, the son began writing hymns, averaging 200 yearly – 5,000 in his lifetime.
“It reflected Johnson’s optimistic faith…” according to “Then Sings My Soul,” a history of the familiar hymns we still are singing today, compiled by Robert J. Morgan, c2003, Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville.
Whether we worship in a great cathedral or a tiny country church, it is the music of faith that touches our hearts deeply – a hint at why the most quoted part of the Bible is from the Psalms of David. I’m not sure that many of today’s children are receiving the spiritual training that once guided our forefathers.
Somehow, we’ve become much too enamored with a worldly viewpoint to be still long enough for God’s voice to penetrate, convict, comfort and inform our behaviors.
Part of our problem is a false sense of security, the “it can’t happen here” idea that freedom to worship or not to worship if we’re so inclined will always be our birthright in America. It’s already being eroded, if you follow the news carefully and notice what is “allowed” and what is not mentioned in news reporting.
Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: The difference between success and failure
