Why do we put people on pedestals during the Olympics?

Team USA's Evan Lysacek (Yuri Kadobnov/Getty Images)

Because they’ve placed in the top 3 positions in the world - within a particular event, within a particular sport. Tiger Woods was placed on a pedestal by many of us for the same reason – because he was the dominant player in the world – within a particular sport.

For Tiger, and the Olympians, that is the only reason that they’re on the pedestal: dominance within one event or one sport – they were not put there for any other reason.

They may have other very strong  traits or qualities in addition to their athletic ability but, we usually don’t know much more about the person except for their one, dominant skill. Each person that you and I have placed on a pedestal was put there because they were good at some THING.

What do we do to athletes, musicians, actors and politicians whom we’ve placed upon a pedestal when they show vulnerability in another aspect of their lives?  We crucify them!  We act as if we expect them to be perfect role models in every area of their lives – husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, role-models  – just because of their proficiency in one particular area.

How long would you and I last if we were one of those placed upon a pedestal by others?

Should we be placing people on pedestals above us in the first place?

Is it fair that we quickly push people off their pedestals and begin belittling them as soon as they reveal that they’re human and imperfect in other areas of their lives?

My name is Bob and I’m not perfect. Phew! I’m glad that I got that out of the way so that your expectations will be lower.  It’s so easy for me to say that because, despite my daily efforts, I understand that I fall short of what I’m capable of becoming. I’ve been given a tremendous amount of potential and I have NOT utilized all of it – yet.

Although I wouldn’t mind being put on a pedestal because of my relatively medium height (I’m short!), I don’t belong there.  If each of us were to be put  on the ideal pedestal, it would be one which automatically adjusted so  that each of us would be at identical heights. Can you picture each of us at exactly the same height looking eye-to-eye with Tiger, Gold Medal Olympians, musicians, politicians and other people whose internal value is exactly the same as yours and mine?

You see, although we have different jobs, incomes, faiths, languages and skills, we all have the same internal spiritual value.  We’re all part of the same universal spirit. Each person’s spirit is valued equally by the only One capable of putting a value on you.

We’re all part of the same universal spirit. We all came from the same creator.

We’re all being drawn and called toward our creator and spiritual perfection like a flower is drawn toward the sunlight.  We’re seeking the light. We’re seeking love. We’re seeking a feeling of unity and oneness.

My position in the world is not above you.  It’s not below you.  It’s beside you walking hand-in-hand.

The only person who can see you as less valuable than any other person in the world is YOU. It’s not our financial net worth that matters.  It’s not our intellectual net worth (IQ) that matters. It’s not our physical net worth that matters most either. The only thing that is lasting and permanent that we’ll take with us upon our departure from this earthly realm is our spiritual net worth.

How much time are you investing on a daily basis in your spiritual capital?

When we accept the idea that our spiritual value is the same as every other person’s, we begin looking at every person in the world as a peer – as a spiritual brother and sister.  Each of our brothers and sisters has received some sort of spiritual gift but, that gift does not make them any more valuable than any other person.  Your spiritual esteem allows you to see each person as one who complements you.  Our unique gifts and talents complement those of the people around us.

When joined together in one spirit, humanity becomes complete and whole. When we stop fighting each other, this will be the end result.

Why do we resist what we truly desire?

So, although we can recognize that each person has gifts and some people excel in a particular area, no one belongs on a pedestal above you. Each of us is allowed to be an imperfect human who is striving for perfection.  How do we accomplish this quest for spiritual perfection?

It becomes very easy for us to notice, recognize and acknowledge the spiritual beauty that’s in others once we realize it in ourselves. We develop and nourish our souls by feeding them with soul food – silence, meditation and prayer. We move toward perfection as we move into unity with our souls.  Moving toward unity with our soul is a deliberate move toward oneness with the God within.

Our souls need to be nourished, fed and nurtured much like our bodies and minds. The soul food which is digested on a daily basis, brings our bodies and minds into oneness with our souls and into oneness with our Creator. Once this occurs, we feel a very strong sense of connectedness to ourself, to God and to all other people.  We move from a state of competition into one of cooperation.  We move from states of envy and despair into ones of compassion, love and joy.

Although I exercise on a daily basis, I know that eventually my body is going to die. This is guaranteed.

Although I exercise my mind on a daily basis through recitation of affirmations and through learning, I know that my mind will eventually fade away or die with my physical body. This too is guaranteed.

I feed my soul on a daily basis because this is the piece of my being that is truly me. Our soul is the only part of our being that will be with us forever.  Because of this fact, this is where I spend a disproportionate amount of my time. I’m intentionally investing in that part of me that will never die – guaranteed.

When my soul is healthy, I feel good about myself, the world, and all of the people in the world. It is a feeling of joy and oneness with God and with all of humanity.

You and I became the recipients of Gold medals at birth – our souls.  We must become silent and go inside ourselves in order to find, retrieve and nurture this gift. Once this gift is acknowledged, you’ll notice the Gold medal worthiness inside of all people just waiting to be recognized.

Team Germany's Eric Frenzel (Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images)

Recognize the vibrant, living soul inside yourself first and then you’ll see it in others quite easily.

No one deserves to be on a pedestal above you and no one deserves to be in a position below you.

The goal is to be united in spirit with one another.

Our souls are longing to be acknowledged by us and united with God.  Once this occurs, we’ll then seek unity with all beings.

I was recently asked to be a guest on my childhood friend Rich Hancock’s radio show. During the interview, I was asked a seemingly simple question: Why do you read the Bible and study other faiths?

My seemingly simple answer: I don’t know what I don’t know!  But there’s so much more to it:

Although I’m reading at least one entire book every week, I can’t learn enough information fast enough to satisfy my lack of knowledge.  How do I explain this: am I simply thirsting for more information or hungry to learn what I haven’t yet in the first 48 years of my life?

Growing up as a Catholic in the northeast, I was never strongly encouraged to open a Bible at my Catholic grammar school or at home (or I didn’t pay attention to that wisdom).  We were taught by nuns and priests at school and we learned from listening to the scripture readings at church and from the priests’ homilies on weekends.

I thought that I was way ahead of the curve. Although I may have been, I was nowhere to being as close in my relationship with God as I could have been. I wasn’t close to being as good a person as I was capable of becoming.

Faith is relative |  Health is relative |  Wisdom is relative |  Kindness is relative

Reading the Bible allows me to understand the faith into which I was born in the context of history – from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  Whenever we’re truly trying to learn and change, repetition of key concepts and ideas allows the new trait or behavior to become deeply imprinted in our minds and being.  When we hear things in church or on the radio or television, we might say to ourselves, “that makes sense” but, do we imprint that information so that it becomes our second nature?

Most of the time (at least for me) the answer used to be no.  Many great ideas have slipped through my cranium because I didn’t write them down and repeat them so that they’d stick.

Whenever I am struck with a thought, quote or concept from scripture (or anywhere else) while reading, I immediately grab a 3 X 5 index card and write it down so that I can repeat the thought and assimilate it into how I think and act on a daily basis.  This process allows me to change and become the type of person being spoken about in scripture.

That is the whole idea behind religion.  It’s an organized way of teaching us how to live, think and behave in a God-like fashion.

I decided to increase my knowledge of other faiths because I realized that all of the major problems that we’re facing on our planet are the result of ignorance – lack of knowledge.  Many of the  problems that are going on in our world are because everyone is acting based upon the limited knowledge that he or she has and that knowledge is always incomplete. If all of my knowledge of God is related to Christianity, I am therefore ignorant as to how billions of loving, devoted people of other faiths have  come to know God.

Seek first to understand.  Then seek to be understood. Thanks, Mr. Covey!

I wanted to understand other faiths because it’s become very evident that there is a lot of fighting and killing going on today in the name of religion.

True knowledge of God will result in kindness, compassion and love – not in anger, hatred and killing.

The reason that so many people are so passionate about a particular faith is because it happens to be the one that they learned, studied and practiced since birth.  Because it’s the one that our parents or guardians gave to us, it must be the right one and therefore, everyone else of a different faith is completely wrong.

Is it possible to know God, love God, pray to God, listen to God and act in a God-like fashion incorrectly? I don’t think so.  I’ve come to believe that there are many ways in which we can deepen our knowledge of and relationship with God.  By studying other faiths, many things are happening to me:

• I am deepening my own relationship with God.
• I am solidifying my own faith.
• I am developing very strong respect and understanding of people from other faiths.
• I am developing very strong respect and understanding for people without faith.
• I am reinforcing the belief that there is only one Creator and that there are numerous ways in which we can come to know that Creator.
• I know that once we understand any differences that we have with another person – or group of people – that person is no longer a threat to us.

Fear is the absence of love

We’re threatened by the perceived differences which exist between us and others.  Any one who looks, dresses, worships, eats, speaks differently than we do is one of two things: This person is a threat to us and our way of life or this person is someone who has knowledge of things of which I’m ignorant and therefore is someone I can learn from.

Every person that you and I encounter has something that they can teach us (unless we’re know-it-alls!).  Each person is the way he or she is for very good reasons. Each of us is a product of our environment and education.

The more that I learn about people from every faith and from every culture and from every country is that we’re all the same.  We’re all beautiful sons and daughters of God whether we know it or not.  We’re all trying to make sense of today and this lifetime.  And if we’re very fortunate, trying to figure out the spiritual sides of our being which we’ll return to completely in the future.

We all want to love and be loved. We just show it in different ways – because we don’t know any better.

Seek to understand.  Once we do, we know that all people are good on the inside.  There may be layers of hatred, hurt and  anger which have grown on their exteriors which may cause them to be unpleasing at first glance. They’ve just grown those ugly layers to protect themselves from being hurt any more.

Inside each of us is the same loving soul that longs to unite with other humans and with God.

We’re complete and whole when we’re united with each other and with God. Until that happens, we’re all feeling incomplete.

There was an article in the January 25th edition of USA Today submitted by the Associated Press, Bin Laden praises attempted Christmas attack. While Bin Laden is praising the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who unsuccessfully tried to blow-up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, the article quotes him as saying, “If our messages had been able to reach you through words, we wouldn’t have been delivering them through planes.”

I wonder if he truly means it?  I wonder if he tried speaking with us and we either didn’t listen to him or we just heard what we wanted to hear?

Is it possible that each of us is part of the problems which exist on a global basis?  Are we isolating ourselves from problems that exist around the world?  Do we tend to focus too much on ourselves and the interests of our country?

We all want to be heard. Humans will do anything to receive attention. Although we’d prefer positive attention, if we can’t get enough of it, we’ll accept negative attention. Is terrorism a way of getting attention from people who appear to be living in isolation?

Have you ever had to yell, scream or punch a wall to get somebody’s attention?

Have you ever ignored what a child or spouse was saying to you because you were pre-occupied with something else that seemed more important than another human?

I wonder if Osama Bin Laden would try speaking with us again?  I wonder if he’d meet with me in the location of his choosing to have a civil one-on-one conversation about how to stop the killing in the world by replacing hatred with love?

What I know about Islam is that its’ followers profess tremendous love for Allah.  Devout Muslims pray 5 times per day. Islam is an Abrahamic faith that has much in common with Judaism and Christianity.  It is a faith which demonstrates tremendous love and compassion for Allah and others.

Many despicable acts have been accomplished throughout history in the name of religion.  Religion, like a tongue, can be used to bring love or to bring hatred.  Neither religion nor the tongue is bad – it is how it is used by the owner. Development of God-like loving and compassionate thoughts trains our tongues to be instruments of peace.

How can any person who professes to love God, kill in that God’s name?  Probably in much the same way that parents and children hurt each other on a daily basis with their words.

Each of us is being called to do the exact opposite of killing in God’s name: each one of us is called to love in God’s name.  It is love that is our true being and at the heart of our souls.  It is God’s love which created us and sustains our very life on a daily basis.  It’s only when we’re shielded from God’s words and God’s Spirit that we act un-Godly. It’s when we intentionally separate ourselves from our Creator that we become hateful, selfish, miserable and hurtful.

Would Osama Bin Laden really like to put an end to the wars in the world?  I would.

Would he like to discuss how we can begin educating the world so that ignorance would stop breeding hatred? Would he like to replace the hatred which exists in the hearts and souls of people with love?  I would.

Would he like to bring knowledge about God’s love for every single human to each of our 6.7 billion brothers and sisters?  I would.

Would he like to eliminate the doubt which exists in the minds of millions with a faith that only brings joy and love to self and others?  I would.

Would he like to replace the darkness that is clouding the souls of millions of people with a light that comes from the love of God?  I would.

Our planet is way beyond the point of  thinking and acting locally and selfishly.   It is our small minds and selfish thinking that have the world in the state in which it’s in today.  Each of is is a part of one Global Tribe.  We are one huge family.  Yes, many of us are not speaking with each other.  Yes, many of us are waiting for the other family member to admit that he or she is wrong.  Yes, many of us are turning our heads to the realities that are being faced by our family members.

Each of us has the potential to admit that we’ve been wrong and are part of the problem.  Once we admit that we have a global problem, we can commence with the global solution.  Selfish solutions from one country or one faith will not work in solving universal problems.

Each of us was created in the image and likeness of God. No one of us is more valuable in God’s eyes than another just because of a particular name, faith, family or net worth.  Each of us is a child of God and deserves to be treated with love, dignity and respect.  Together, each of us makes up one global family.  Each of us is a member of this family.  When one of us suffers, we all suffer.

Like a small paper cut can bring tremendous pain to us even when the rest of our body is healthy, any individual or groups of people who are in pain across the world bring pain to our global body.  Our global body is covered with numerous band-aids and many of our minor cuts are now seriously infected.

In a global body, amputation of an individual, country or faith is not a realistic remedy.  Love, compassion and understanding are the remedies to solve this body’s wounds.

Yesterday I spoke of reading comments made by Osama Bin Laden.  Today I issue the following letter, in hopes of furthering the previously stated desire to share my belief that all faiths and religions proclaim love for God and love of others. We cannot be a global community if we are each separated by faith, religion, creed, color, gender, or orientation. We must be willing to understand one another. We must put aside our differences long enough to hear one another. Only then will we be a successful global community.

Mr. Bin Laden:

If you choose to speak with me, you’ll be speaking with a citizen of the world who happens to have a mailing address in the United States. I am not a member of any government or political organization.  I am aware of the suffering, poverty, ignorance and helplessness that is going on in many parts of the world. I am also aware of the ignorance and selfishness that are running rampant in the industrialized, wealthy nations.

Ignorance is nothing more than a lack of knowledge, education and awareness.  I would like to bring education, love, hope, faith and prosperity to each of the world’s 6.7 billion humans.

You are currently influencing the minds of millions of your followers with messages of hatred and death.  You can be part of the solution if you’re still willing to use words of love and hope instead of airplanes and other weapons of destruction to get the world’s attention.

You have the potential and the ability to restore Islam as a faith of love and peacefulness in the minds of the ignorant who only associate it as one of hatred and killing.  You have the potential to refocus your followers to assist in solving the problems that exist in the world with their brains and their love.

You have the potential to redeem yourself by helping to create answers to the problems that you so deeply care about.

If you’re still willing to talk, I am willing to listen. I will seek to understand. Let’s bring people together with love in God’s name and put an end to the ignorance and hatred which exist only in the absence of God’s Spirit.

Sincerely,

Bob

Osama Bin Laden caught my attention in the newspaper last week. I’m requesting a meeting with him to discuss the following subjects and anything else that may be on his mind.

There is one Creator of the world.  Everything I know about that Creator keeps bringing me back to one word – Love.

If this Creator is associated with love, why does so much hatred exist?

Some of us don’t believe in this Creator because we don’t want to work too hard to come to really know and establish a relationship with God.  All relationships take work and because many of us are having a hard enough time working on relationships at work, school and home, we don’t have much left in our tanks to try and figure out this Creator who may or may not exist.

What better use of our time could there be than to learn how to sustain inner-peace, hope and love at all times?  Our minds, souls and world peace depend on that investment in ourselves.  Peace is established one mind at a time.

Many people who were born into a faith or who have developed faith later in life have come to know God because of a particular religion. I’ve come to know and love God through Christianity.  I am thankful for that gift on a daily basis.

That very faith has taught me that each person on the planet is my brother and sister. It’s taught me that it’s my responsibility to love each and every one of my brothers and sisters.

Once I chose to become aware of other faiths, and their predominance in countries and continents around the world, I now know that billions of great people around the world have come to know and love God through many other faiths.  My faith asks me to love each and every one of them.

How we come to know and love God is much less important to me than the love that we show to God and to each other.  People of differing faiths have much to teach each other as we work toward building our love and compassion for each other. As I’ve begun studying other faiths, that knowledge has helped me to increase and solidify my Christian faith.  The knowledge of other faiths has also allowed me to respect and appreciate our diverse paths that lead to the same outcomes:

• Love of God
• Love of all humans
• Unity with and dependence upon each other

I’ve yet to read a word about any faith or religion which does not proclaim love for God and love of others.

David Kundtz

Considered an inspirational nutritionist, David Kundtz provides soulful insights that remind us what matters most.

David has enjoyed several careers, including 18 years in religious ministry and 20 years in the practice of psychotherapy, public speaking on stress and emotional health, and writing.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and schooled in Washington, Baltimore, and Berkeley, David holds graduate degrees in both psychology and theology and a doctorate in pastoral psychology.

He also spent several years in Idaho and Cali, Columbia, finally settling between Kensington, California and Vancouver, British Columbia. He is also an adjunct professor at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and is a member of the Board of Directors of GroundSpark.

David offers reflections, stories, and wise guidance that remind us to live in a state of awareness about the reality that always exists in front of our faces, under our noses, or just below the surface of every moment. He can be reached through his website: Stopping.com.

I make it a goal to learn new things every single day that will help me to improve as a human. I go into each and every conversation eagerly listening to the person to determine what it is that I can learn from this unique person with his or her unique perspectives.

I’m finding it hard to keep up with the lessons as I’m bombarded in almost every conversation with an ah-ha. Everyone has something to teach me.

A little over 20 years ago I got a new job for which I had zero prior experience – father. Because I was blessed to have my fantastic father, Oscar Felix Gregoire (another story for another day for those of you old enough to remember The Odd Couple), as a mentor for the first 35 years of my life, I used him as a model for my new, and most important, role.

When we find ourselves in over our head, we seek help.

My family was blessed to have a father who provided financially for our family. In those days, it was very common to have the mother stay at home and that’s exactly what my Mom did. Because my parents were products of the depression, they did not spend money frivolously. I learned that my Dad made enough money so that we were always well-fed (my childhood pictures show that I was perhaps too well fed!), well-dressed, sheltered and most importantly, loved. By example, I’ve tried to pass on these same gifts to my children. We learn from our parents.

My Dad loved music but, never stuck with his violin lessons long enough to play an instrument. Because of that lifelong regret, he made sure that each of his children learned how to play an instrument-whether they wanted to or not.  I’ve been playing the piano since I was 5 and progressed enough musically so that I was in a band while in college. My father took great pleasure watching his sons enjoy the gift of music in a way that he never could. I saw tears in his eyes as he watched my brother Bill sing and play in his band. He had tears in his eyes watching me too but, that was for another reason. Carolyn and I passed on the gift of music to our kids who both started taking piano lessons at the age of 5.  We learn from our parents.

Our family went to our Catholic church EVERY week and on holy days of obligation. I know that in many families it’s the Mom who is the more disciplined when it comes to matters of spirituality, God and faith. Our family had two parents who served as  strong spiritual mentors. My Dad never missed going to church.  It was not a chore that he did reluctantly. Sunday was my parent’s day to sleep-in (or that’s what I believed when I was young, innocent and naive!). After a good night’s sleep, prayer, exercise and bathing, my Dad would arrive at the breakfast table shining clean and smelling of after shave ravenous for a breakfast of bacon, eggs, juice, toast and coffee followed by church.  Life is good!  We learn from our parents.

He prayed each and every morning. I can see him jogging in place in his bedroom with his rosary beads in his hand jiggling up and down with each step. I could see his lips moving silently to the words of the Our Father. He never told me to say the rosary but, I saw him saying it and saw him going to church and figured that if these things contributed to this great man being who he is, then even though I don’t completely understand why, I’ll take his lead. Carolyn and I have been bringing our kids to church since they were born and are encouraging them to do so now that they’ve become young adults.  We learn from our parents.

Those were some of the great gifts that I learned from my Dad. How lucky was I??? I know with 100% confidence that he and my Mom always provided us with the best information that they knew and tried to pass-on the best habits that they knew – always by example.

When I graduated from high school and had to think about what was next in my life, I considered doing many things.  When I came up with the idea that I’d like to pursue medicine and become a doctor, my beautiful, all-knowing Dad talked me out of it for very good reasons (in his mind). Doctor’s don’t have a life of their own. They’re always on call. They’re forced to work long hours and can get interrupted at any time of the day, night or weekend. I don’t think that my father had completely envisioned future technological advances such as cell phones, pagers and Blackberry’s that would come to make every worker in almost every profession available to customers and employers every minute of every day.

My son, James, told us a couple of years ago that he’d like to become a doctor – most likely a psychologist. It’s not my job to tell him what his purpose is or is not. It’s his job to figure that out.  Carolyn and I are here for support and feedback if he wants it.  I needed to learn that from a new mentor. My initial parenting mentor – my Dad – wasn’t capable of teaching me that new quality.

Frequently, we need to seek new mentors because our existing mentors have taken us as far as they’re able.

Everyone wants what’s best for you – especially your parents. At some point in our lives, it’s you and I who have to determine what’s best for us – not our parents, not our bosses, not our teachers, not our friends. One of the problems we have is that there is too much noise to be able to hear ourselves think.  Because everyone seems to have advice for us and because there is always an electronic device attached to our eardrums – iPod, cell phone, Blackberry – many of us never get the luxury of any quiet time. Quiet time for what?

Quiet time allows us the following luxuries:

• Time to collect our thoughts about what is working in our lives.
• Time to collect our thoughts about the things that are not working.
• Time to listen to our souls speak to us and guide us toward our real passions and purpose.
• Time to allow our thoughts to slow down enough to listen to our most important mentor speak – God.
• Time to pay attention to our dreams. The dreams in our minds and the dreams that we experience during the night.
• Time to allow our souls to communicate with our Creator without any barriers or distractions.
• Time to decide what’s really important and what activities should be stopped or delegated.

Go into the chamber and shut the door behind you, and pray to your father who is in secret, the one who is innermost. But what is within them all is the fullness. Beyond it there is nothing inside. This is the place they call the uppermost. –Jesus

The answers that you seek are inside yourself.  The answers come to us when we’re silent enough to listen.

The experts advise us to surround ourselves with mentors who can lead, guide and advise us on our journey.  I agree with them.  I also believe that we have to know where we’re going in this lifetime and after this lifetime so that we can know whom to choose as mentors and where we’d like them to assist us in going.  Those answers have to come from you.

As Dave Matthews so smoothly sings to us, where are you going?

Allow yourself silent time on a daily basis to answer that question.

Once we figure that out, everything seems to magically fall into place.

Listen to yourself |  Listen to your soul |  Listen to God

Check out Bob’s interview with Oprah Network author John St. Augustine on Gregoire Today from January 14, 2010.

Bob’s Take Away

This book is a great wake-up call if it’s time for you to stop going through the motions of an unexamined life. Each story reminds us that the answers to life’s questions exist inside us and we can actually hear them if we’ll just slow down long enough to listen! Through the safety of someone else’s life experiences, I found myself riding a roller-coaster range of emotions as I experienced the highs and lows from John’s life and the lessons learned from each of them.

I was repeatedly reminded me of just how much impact our words and actions have on others  – even complete strangers- whether we realize it or not at the time. Experiencing John’s life moments alongside him was a very spiritual ride through the lifetime of a non-religious person. A joy to read!

About John St. Augustine

Called the new voice of America, author of the new book Every Moment Matters, John St. Augustine takes us on a journey of self examination, but more importantly a journey of self re-examination. how often have we gone through the process of evaluating our position and making our course corrections, only to fail to take in the moments that lead up to and from that position? St. Augustine’s new book is the perfect wake up call stop and remember that every moment matters. From the publisher: While running in the rat race, we all have the tendency to keep running, moving forward, go go going without any thought toward the moments wedged between. We focus our energy on how society measures our accomplishments with the acquisition of things, lots and lots of things all the while diverting our attention from what truly matters. John offers Every Moment Matters as the antidote for a way out of the maze of materialism, media influence, and monetary madness by teaching us to notice ordinary moments, to remember them, to relive them, and to live in the present while creating future moments that have depth, meaning, and purpose. Join me for this very special program where I have the special opportunity to meet and talk to John St. Augustine about his new book Every Moment Matters and his “relentless quest to squeeze as much out of being alive as possible.”(Dr. Mehmet Oz)

Cable Guy. Stickman. Bible Guy.

Those are a few of the names that have been given to me through the years by people who were describing me before I had ever opened my mouth and spoken with them.

Back in the early 1980’s, I learned how to play handball, racquetball and squash during a gym class in college. After graduating from school, I joined a gym that attracted some very good racquetball players.

Shortly after showing up at The Courthouse with my short-sleeve shirt and tennis shorts, a few of these fine athletes nicknamed me stickman before they had met me. I now understand that they gave me that nickname because my body resembles the stick figure that is frequently prominent on men’s public rest room doors.  I have a very average size body with 2 lean arms and 2 scrawny legs attached to my torso. To this day, those friends from the 80’s still yell out stick or stickman when they see me in public.

After about a decade at that gym, I joined a new club to focus on weight and cardio training so that I could hopefully shed the stickman nickname by developing the muscles on my limbs.  One of the husband & wife couples who worked out at the gym used to primarily keep to themselves while exercising.  One of the ways that they would communicate with each other about people at the gym is by giving the people they saw on a regular basis nicknames.  There was ladder guy (he drove up to the gym every day with ladders on his truck), Joseph and Mary (a husband with long, wavy hair, a mustache, and a beard and his Mother-of-God looking wife) and Cable Guy (a Jim Carrey-looking character who wore his leftover racquetball head bands and wrist bands to lift weights and run on treadmills).  Yes, I was that guy – this couple called me Cable Guy for quite a while before I introduced myself to them.

Three weeks ago, I was working in my favorite coffee shop writing spot and I noticed a friend who I went to grammar school with who also happens to attend the same church.  She stopped into the coffee shop to get some coffee and hot chocolate with her 10-year old daughter.  I waved at my friend and she gave me a big smile and invited me over for a quick hello.  She said that when they had walked into the coffee shop her daughter pointed at me and said, hey Mom, isn’t that Bible Guy? Because her daughter only knows me from church, she’s only seen me when I’m on the altar serving as a lector (carrying a large, red, Bible-like Lectionary).

So, let’s review:  To the people within my immediate community, I appear to many of them to be a Bible carrying, Jim Carrey-like Cable Guy whose body resembles that of a men’s rest room symbol! If I had not developed relationships with each of these people, that is how they would still see me.

How do we change the impressions that others have of us that are based solely upon our outward appearance? We have to get out of our comfort zones and open up and start revealing our true and complete whole self to others via communication.

We are a combination of mind, body and spirit.  What people see when they can only see us is our body.  When we begin talking with others, we start sharing our mind and our spirit with them.  By revealing our mind and spirit to others, we’re making it safe for them to do the same with us. We begin developing an understanding of each other that was hidden with our external facades – our bodies.

Our bodies hide the beautiful light that radiates inside each one of us.  It’s our eyes, our smiles and verbal communication that allows that light to be spread and made visible to each person within our sphere of influence.

What types of light to I see in others once they open up to me?  Love, compassion, consideration for others, understanding, humor and humility.

When we start revealing our true self to others, that action sometimes makes us feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. What will he think of me if I speak the truth about myself along with my likes and dislikes? is a feeling many of us might have.

I think that it’s just the opposite. When people begin to open up and start talking with me, I always feel much better about that person because I understand them better.  Any slightly negative thoughts or impressions that I might’ve had when they were not speaking with me magically disappear when I start to learn about who this person really is and how she became the person that she is today.  Each of us has an interesting life story that has lead us to this very day.  These unique stories that we share with others about ourselves gives people a much clearer picture of our background, where we are today and where we intend to go in the future.

Every look of sadness, anger or despair that is on the face of another human is there for a reason.  We just don’t know what it is–yet.

You and I were created in the image and likeness of God.  We have nothing to be ashamed of.  It’s our spirit and our soul that contains our eternal light.  Our body is but a place for our souls to dwell while on the earth.

One of the gifts that each of us can give freely is to let our light shine on those around us.

The more people that we speak with and develop a relationship with, the more we extend our reach into the universal mind and the universal spirit. We are all connected via the same spirit.  We were all created by the same creator. When we develop a relationship with others we’re forming a spiritual bond that gets larger and larger as we allow more people into our lives.

Have you given nicknames to people that you don’t know?  How about introducing yourself to them so that you can get to know the real person and so that they can get to know the real and wonderful you.

Are there people within your community – neighborhood, gym, church, school – that you’ve noticed for a long time who are still strangers?  Why not say hello to them?

Every fear is eliminated through communication with people who appear to be different than we are. People were all good at birth and are all good today deep down inside.  It may be the love shown by you towards them that allows their light to begin peeking out and shining on you and the rest of the world.

It used to be a holiday tradition for our family to watch Christmas specials together. On a daily basis, we’d scour the newspaper or TV Guide to find out when Charlie Brown Christmas,  The Grinch, It’s a Wonderful Life and other specials would be on television.

As our children got older, started working, began dating and left for college and boarding school, it’s become a challenge to get the four of us together to keep this tradition going. Recently it’s been very hit or miss and we’ve probably missed more than  we’ve hit the last several years.

On Tuesday evening, my son James organized our schedules so that we could watch a VHS copy of Charlie Brown Christmas together.  We had to watch it on an old television (non-plasma) that still has a VCR attached to it. My wife and I sat on our leather sectional with our son, daughter and my daughter’s very cool boyfriend and enjoyed watching and listening to each other laugh.

There are several reasons that it’s a good practice to re-read or re-watch material many times. One reason is that we only allow information that is pertinent and relevant to be processed. All of the other information is blocked-out as excess, useless information. Another reason is that as our life experiences change,  we react differently to the same information when we read it or see it the second or 35th time.

As I watched Schroeder playing the piano, I thought about how many times that James (my son) has played those songs and what a phenomenal pianist he’s become.

I watched Frieda (the girl with the naturally curly hair) and remembered Emily (my daughter) playing that part in a school play.  In that same play, James was Schroeder. My 15 and 20 year old kids have really grown up.

The same issues that Charles Schultz wrote about in 1964 are the same ones that we’re dealing with today.

• Overly ostentatious lights
• The commercialization of Christmas
• Charlie Brown’s feeling like something’s missing from the holy day

Charlie’s quiet, blanket-sporting friend Linus unassumingly comes to his rescue and points out to him exactly what the real meaning of Christmas is-Christ.

Emily bought the It’s a Wonderful Life DVD for me as a gift recently so that we could watch it whenever we want. I’m so happy that she enjoys that movie as much as I do.  My Dad made me and my siblings watch it when we were kids and I will be forever grateful to him.

Last night, Emily let me know that the original cartoon version of The Grinch was on at 8AM.  We made a date with each other to watch The Grinch at 8AM and then watch It’s a Wonderful Life at 8:30.  What a great evening I was looking forward to.

At 8AM, my in-laws, Carolyn (my wife), Emily, Cosmo (our dog) and I settled onto the couch for an evening of family Christmas togetherness.

I used to enjoy The Grinch because of the animation, the songs, the Who’s, Boris Karloff’s voice and Max (The Grinch’s dog).  Last night, I had significantly different reactions to this familiar animated classic. I thought about how The Grinch transformed his life as a result of a single thought – maybe Christmas is not about the toys, trees and presents…… That thought caused his heart to grow 3 sizes. I thought about how often my heart grows in love or compassion at the realization of a new thought or way of thinking.

I noticed how The Who’s got up on Christmas morning and completely disregarded the fact that all of their gifts, decorations and food had been stolen. They immediately assembled in the center of Whoville and began singing Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze! Are we capable of disregarding everything in our life that is unimportant and focus on God and each other like The Who’s?  Yes, we are capable.

I really paid attention to the lyrics from Welcome Christmas (Fah who for-aze) and noticed these gems:

Christmas day will always be

Just so long as we have we

Welcome all Who’s

Far and near

I realized that we are all Who’s. We are all equal.  No single Who is better or more valuable than any other Who.

Just as long as we have God and each other, nothing else matters!  Can we bottle that thought and keep it with us for the next 364 days???

After that uplifting cartoon, we enjoyed 130 minutes of smiles and tears in It’s A Wonderful Life.  Here are a few of my observations from a movie that seems to get better each year:

It’s always best when we’re working together with God: George Bailey had very specific goals for his life but it appeared that God had other plans for him.  I thought to myself how many times that’s happened to me. Our will versus God’s will.

Love today: George had dinner with his Dad and during that dinner he told his Dad that he did not want to take over for him at the crummy-old building and loan.  That same evening his Dad had a stroke and died shortly after.  We never know when will be the last time that we’ll be with the people we love.

The tongue can be a very sharp instrument: I saw kind and loving George slap around his Uncle Billy after he’d lost the $8000 in cash. After that episode, George goes home and takes-out his financial problems on his beautiful wife and children. I thought about times when I’ve done the very same thing (hurt people with my words) and how sorry I am for each time that my words had hurt my wife or children.

Come to your senses quickly: In another scene, Mr. Potter tries to get George to come and work for him for $20,000 per year.  At the time, George was earning $45/week at the Building and Loan that he owned.  Mr. Potter was offering to pay him almost 10 times what he was earning!  For less than a minute, George was tempted to take the cash until he learned that the Building & Loan would no longer exist.

Rely upon God: When George’s is at the end of his rope, he does what the rest of us would do at that point when nothing else seems to be working- he prays, God, please show me the way. Why do many of us only reach out to God in times of trouble instead of maintaining a relationship on a daily basis?

How cool would it be to be able to see what the world would be like if you had never been born?  We don’t always realize how much we positively contribute to the world’s beauty.

I love George’s reaction to having his second prayer answered – God, please give me my life back!!! What was he thankful for in addition to his wife and children? The crummy old Building and Loan, the end cap on his stairway banister, his $8000 debt, the prospect of going to jail and his drafty, leaky old home. We tend not to appreciate anything until we don’t have it any more.

When the bell on the Christmas tree ornament rings and Clarence the Angel gets his wings, I think about living a life today that will be worthy of getting my own wings when it’s time.

Please send me your stories about your favorite parts of these or any other Christmas specials that have impacted you.

I am thankful for my family, the 15 degree weather in New England, my drafty, old home, my faith in God and for you.