Post Birthday Blues (a.k.a. "People Will Be People")

Thankfully, the birthday hype is over! All in all, Monday, July 27, 2009 passed with little fanfare. The baseball game we attended was fun and the Minnesota Twins won! Life goes on and the next truly siginificant birthday event will not occur for another 25 years. In the meantime, I return to everyday life. That is the subject of this blog posting.

I begin by posing the question, "Do we set ourselves up for disappointment if we expect someone to make an honest effort to modify their behavior?" This question is solely based on my experiences as a father, brother, pastor, apartment manager, corporate IT manager, co-worker and significant other. It seems as though I have the accumulation of a half-century of experiences upon which to formulate my question.

In many of those areas of experience or expertise, if you will, the underlying force is complete lack of respect. Lack of respect comes in many forms and wears many faces. There is, of course, lack of respect for those in authority - parents, supervisors, managers, police and government. Usually such a lack of respect is founded upon a lack of respect for oneself. "Because I have absolutely no self-respect for myself, I will not respect you or anything that you consider important."

Another area of concern which I have encountered repeatedly is "absence of the truth". Unfortunately, this occurs in all types of relationships from business to family to personal relationships. Based on fear, all sorts of wild stories and excuses are presented as reasoning behind the failure to be open and honest. Mostly, these types of events are based on fear. For example, individuals fear retribution at work so they overlook employee misconduct or make up excuses for their own performance failures. In family relationships, there is a fear of rejection or anger by another family member. I will be so bold as to say that much of corporate America is built and continues to operate based on lies and deception.

Here I am reminded of the admonition and promise presented in the New Testament Gospel according to John. "Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." [John 3:20-21 NIV] I find comfort and confidence in the words written in the first chapter of this same book. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." [John 1:1-4 NIV]

In conclusion then, "the world is the world" and "people will be people". The prophet Malachi offers comfort and reassurance by reminding me that " 'I the LORD do not change'.... says the LORD Almighty." [Malachi 3:6a; 7c NIV] No matter what we face in this world, there is one constant. In the words of the great reformer, Martin Luther, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"!

~ DB Turnmire

Happy Birthday to Everyone!

During my youth, I was blessed with an uncanny ability to remember numbers, especially birthdays and phone numbers. "Back in the day", I was able to dial each of my siblings' phone numbers without use of a phone list or directory. Until my nieces and nephews started marrying and having families of their own, I could recite each of the birthdays and for a time, even the birth year as well.

Something happens to us as we grow older! Actually, many things happen to us as we grow older in the realm of mind and body. With each year, we accumulate more and more information which seems to clutter our minds and prevent us from processing the older information as quickly. As a result, even though I may still know each of those birthdays, I often am not reminded of them until I see the current date on the calendar. My memory difficulties may also be attributed to the fact that I am the family member who rarely sends out cards for birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. That is probably a missed opportunity to keep things fresh in my memory.

Another factor, however, is the sheer size of my family of origin. Just to crunch a couple of numbers, I am the youngest of eight children. Each of the eight children had at least three offspring with their original spouses. Two of us have four children and one has five. If you start to do the math, eight children with eight spouses and 28 offspring becomes somewhat unreasonable. It wasn't until the nieces and nephews started getting married that you now introduced spouses birthdays and, then, their children. Later, re-marriages with step-children were introduced to the mix. At some point, the task of remembering without visual aids became so daunting that I simply gave up.

So to the chagrin of some of some of my siblings, I can still remember the original spouse's birthdays but have no clue about the new spouse. If pressed, I could remember each of my nieces' and nephews' birthdays (and maybe even birth years) but their current spouse or children, I would have no idea. I am sure no one else even gives this a second thought but that's why I have a blog!

All of this came to mind because today is Jeremy's (my son-in-law) birthday and not being a card sender, I sent him a text message to wish him a happy birthday. Of course, I should write an entire blog about texting and how one day I said "I would never do that!" Today is also my brother Glen's birthday. Tomorrow is my brother-in-law Jim's birthday. For all the birthdays I remembered and all those I forgot, I am writing this blog to wish everyone a Happy Birthday! If on your actual birthday, I forget to send a greeting, call you on the phone or send you an "annoying" text message, please remember that today I thought of you and wished you a happy day.

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."
[Psalm 118:24]

~ DB Turnmire