M.O.B. 4 Life

Two weeks ago campus turned upside down for two days as we celebrated the annual Little 500 Go-Kart Race. Over the years I’ve been hit or miss interested in Little 5. I’m not a huge racing fan and grew out of the “need” to drink for three days straight that the event represented during my college days.

This year, however, the MOB descended on campus in great numbers to offer our support of Car #5 – Green Lightening Racing. In addition to the driver being the younger brother of our two buddies Green Lightening Racing is also the unofficial Bennett Car. It was good to see so many MOB back for the event and to catch up with everyone, but there was more at work than a reunion of old friends.

As my buddy Todd mentioned in his post Car #5 the convergence of the new and the old MOB was a monumental event and illustrated the certainty that the spirit of SJC is alive and kicking. As the MOB alumni returned and shared their stories, we interacted with current MOB and heard some of their stories. In this age of individualism and independence there is still a need for people to gather and support one another – and that is very much a part of the MOB experience.

In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret about what makes the MOB special. It isn’t about where you physically lived on campus, what you studied, or where you partied. The central tenant of the MOB worldview is loyalty and friendship. It’s about belonging to something bigger than yourself and having a group of people who looked out for one another – that’s it – loyalty and friendship.

Once upon a time at Saint Joe these communities existed in every dorm on campus (and on college and university campuses across the world) – Bennett, Noll, Merlini, Gallagher, and even Siefert. Now the reality is that times, as the saying goes, have changed and the overt communities have seemingly dissolved. But I think if you look hard enough you will realize that the spirit of unity just might still be present at SJC. The dorm based communities may no longer exist, but there are new affinity groups to which people belong with similar fervor. This gives me hope.

For critics of this millennial generation to quickly write them off as self-centered and disloyal would be a mistake. The current college students have what it takes to bring back tight-knit communities, now it’s just a matter of doing it.

Good luck to the MOB: The Next Generation.

Yee-Haw, eh?

I always hoped that if I met a cowboy it would be someone like Sam Elliot. You know the reluctant hero from all those westerns, someone quiet, grizzled, and meaner than dirt to anyone who looked at him-except an old yellow dog who he’d love more than the bad guys he’d shoot. Well I haven’t met that guy yet (I still have high hopes), but I have met some cowboys. A few years ago I even met a Canadian Cowboy. My buddy Greg is everything it means to be a cowboy—I mean a real cowboy. Sure he lives on a farm with horses, drives a truck, and has a huge yellow dog, but he’s more than that. Greg is a cowboy at his core. He’s got guts and seems to have an unwavering compass that helps him stay the course and sift through some of life’s trickier twists.

Last year I received a book from Greg called, Cowboy Values by James P. Owen. The book is great and could have been written by Greg himself. In the book Owen takes a critical look at the culture of the American West and the role that the cowboy traditionally played in the formation of that society. Owens paints a beautiful picture of the American Spirit and idealizes in the image of the cowboy. In his examination of our staple heroic icon Owen identifies seven Cowboy Values that he says are fundamental to the cowboy way of life.

The one that I continue to return to is the very first value: courage.

When Greg sent me Cowboy Values I was at the very beginning of a new chapter in my life. New responsibilities and a fear of the unknown were heavy on my mind, and more than once Greg (and others) worked to help me keep things in perspective. But of all the advice I received during that time I continue to return to the lessons about courage in Cowboy Values.

Owen writes that Courage is not just something you either have or you don’t, like everything else it grows. It grows from:

• Acknowledging fear and confronting it head-on
• Accepting risk, change, and failure as part of life
• Persevering despite the odds
• Standing up for what we believe
• Enduring hardship and adversity without complaint
• Being willing to make tough choices
• Living the life we want

As I reflect on these pearls of wisdom I find myself staring in the face of my fearful youth. They all seem so simple and evident when written down in bullet point. Even know it’s hard not to think, “Well yeah, of course that’s what it means to have courage.” But putting words and thoughts into action is another matter entirely. Think about it – the 10 Commandments, the 8 Fold Path, the 5 Pillars of Islam, the Beatitudes, etc. are all simple lists of how we should live and yet the application of these divine bullet points have eluded humanity for ages.

And so here we are faced with bullet points.

Courage involves things that we want: guts, a label as tough and capable, and even sometimes fame and glory. On the other side of the proverbial coin courage also requires us to taunt our fears, flirt with hardship and adversity, and sometimes even accept failure. This side of the coin is not so easy for us to accept. But as Greg reminded me, without the risk of failure (and past failures) you’ll never be able to fully appreciate the great things that do happen.

I tend to take myself a little too seriously sometimes and add to that my general passion for life and what I think is right and wrong – and there’s a recipe for inner turmoil. At a time when my courage seemed to be faltering Greg reminded me in a no-nonsense way that life sometimes just sucked and there were only two things you could do about it – let it beat you down (the easy way) or keep on going (the right way). Put in such simple terms there really wasn’t much of a choice for me and I simply chuckled and kept going.

The courage, optimism, self-reliance, authenticity, honor, duty, and heart of the cowboy is an ideal that made the American west a place where heroes were real and people looked out for each other. These are all traits that each of us strive for in our daily lives and we need look no further than our shared culture to find examples of these values in action today.

When I married Katie last October Greg became family. It seemed so natural that this Canadian Cowboy would join the ranks of my heroes, a group made up of EMTs, nurses, soldiers, actors, firefighters, teachers, USAF pilots, AmeriCorps Members, plumbers, farmers, and many more. Without his advice, support, and the occasional kick in the ass I wouldn’t have weathered the storms so well. I don’t know if I can ever say thank you enough—but I can say that I’m a better person for having this Canadian Cowboy in my life.

I’m still holding out to meet Sam Elliot in a bar someday, but I guess that will have to wait.

http://www.cowboyethics.org/

Frayed Ends

When you sit down and really think about it there is a lot of noise banging around inside our heads. Most days it makes my head hurt just thinking about the many people, products, causes, etc. that try to demand our attention and support. As Americans we are inundated from an early age with so many options of what we can do it is no wonder that so many feel as though they are drowning in a sea of possibilities.


As a member of a generation raised on possibilities, I cannot escape the reality of making choices. Many choices. Difficult and mundane choices that may or may not significantly impact our lives, but must be made regardless.


Part of the problem, as I see it, is boundaries. When children show an aptitude in a particular area (academic, athletic, artistic, etc.) they are encouraged to continue developing a love for or literacy in that area. On the surface, this sounds great - but more often than not encouragement quickly becomes overwhelming pressure.


Last week I was asked to assume a leadership position in a local volunteer civic organization that focuses on service and community improvement. After some serious thought I decided that between work, advising the college chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and my involvement in two other volunteer organization that a leadership position was not the right choice--at this time. When I explained this to the incoming President (who was trying to recruit me) you'd have thought I kicked his favorite puppy. He pulled out all the stops and laid down a guilt trip that would have made any Catholic School Nun or Jewish Grandma proud.


I stuck to my guns and remain simply a member at large in the club.


But this incident got me thinking. In my current position it's not uncommon for me to interact with some of the best and brightest students on our campus. Over the past three year's I've told a number of hyper-active college students that it's ok to say "no" once in a while.


We all have a breaking point and part of our "highest education" is learning where that point is and respecting it. I'm not talking about pushing boundaries in order to grow, rather I'm talking about the point at which we are so busy trying to be everything for everyone that all of our projects suffer. Then we become nothing to anyone.


At some point in the growing up process we must learn where our limits.


Please understand that I am not advocating complacency. We are perfectly capable of pushing our limits and growing to achieve things that we never imagined possible -- that's an essential part of the human condition. But such achievement means a great deal of work, vision, and drive. Those who do achieve such feats of accomplishment, though, already understand what I'm writing about. In order to say yes to one area of life we must sometimes say no to others. This choice is not easy, but it is necessary, and the sooner we come to grips with that the better off we will be.


In the end it comes back to balance. We can encourage, but it can quickly become pressure. We can achieve, but it too can become a drug. We can embrace all, and feel vastly lonely.


We possess the power to choose. While this can be a frustrating blessing, it is also a sacred curse, one that our forbearers fought and died to secure on our behalf. The right to choose our own path in life is something that we seem to take for granted. When we speak of our rights, our choice, or our opinion we use words like "God given" and "inalienable" implying their certainty. But our ability to choose has come at a steep price and we must honor that price with action.


We have been given a great inheritance, but with that great gift comes a challenge, for we must learn to live with the choices we make.