Ten Helpful Hints On Remembering Names
Dr. Dennis Ginoza October 9, 2009
How many of us, after we have met someone for the first time, after a few seconds, have forgotten the name? This is a common problem. Remembering can be fleeting. On the other hand, remembering can be just another formed habit, in a good way.
Dale Carnie says, in selling a product, first sell yourself. He also emphasizes, a person’s name is, to that person, the most important thing.
How many times have we corrected someone who mispronounced our name. For some it can be irritating, even offensive. Or, if you can’t remember a person’s name, to avoid embarrassment, often one may avoid contact with that person. I have seen this happen.
Name remembering is an art, it requires a conscious effort, and it is has to be worked on.
I learned early on, when I was a junior in high school, remembering names can become second nature. As a student body treasurer I was given the responsibility to provide change for the students eating at the school cafeteria. By the year’s end I about knew the name of all the students.
Let me share some tools that I learned, hints, that might be helpful. Before I continue, let me cite a case in point. One August, when I was performing my first wedding at that church, as I was performing the ritual, the mother of the bride was sitting next to her sister from Iowa. This sister said to the mother of the bride, “I know your pastor. I went to school with him.”
At the reception after the wedding, she stood at the door and said to me, “Do you remember me?” I said, “Yes.” I said, “Nelda Palmer.” Then I said, “Don’t you ever do that to me again.” Luckily I remembered her name after over 30 years. I had by that time developed certain tools for remembering. Let me share them here.
1. Make remembering a priority. A priority means, that’s the first thing you do. You don’t move on to the next task until the first is done. Priority means, intention, a high purpose, and a task performed. Or simply said, “Do it!”
2. Repeat the name. When you are introduced, say the name out loud. If it’s Joel Van Arken, say, “Joel Van Arken, good to meet you.” Or if the name is, Caroline Schmidt, check the spelling. It could be Carolyn, and Schmidt may sound like Smith. Repetition is the tool for learning.
3. Look for an association. Names can often be linked with something common or something easy to remember. One day I met a homeless man named Steve McQueen. How can one forget such a name? Steve McQueen is the actor. Homelessness is a situation. And this Steve had long hair. Here are some associations, John the photographer, Joseph the marine, Guilford the blind man, Elmer the joker, Gelene a true friend, Mildred an exceptional teacher.
4. Put the name in a context. A context is an experience or a particular situation. One Sunday, a visitor Jan came to our church. She sat in the left section of the sanctuary, in about six rows back. She was placed in a context. Her attentiveness also caught my eye. The ball field, the doctor’s office, walking a dog, at the street corner named Maple Street, or within a story—these are all examples of a particular context.
At a church on my first Sunday, people came to greet me after the worship service. A woman said, to me, “I won’t tell you my name; you won’t remember anyway.” I said, “Tell me anyway.” First she said, “No.” I insisted. She said, “Frances Anderson.” I haven’t forgotten her name since.
5. Remember the name for what it is. Some names stand alone. Or they are like a stone among many stones, blending with everything and easy to forget. How many Jacks and Jims do you know? Take the names Marllyn, Marilyn, Marlene, and Marilynne. You just have to spell them out, hold them up in their own space. How about Bonnye, Bonnie, Connie, CJ, JD, OK, Rapha, Gary (a girl), Yolande and Yvonne, Jurgen, Carrillo (nick name), Don Pepe, Johniken (a girl). Remember the name on its own merit and put it on your memory shelf or file.
6. Play with the name. In every game, you remember the rules after you have played
with them, used them, and experienced them. Learning takes three forms, visual,
audio, and kinesthetic. Names can be put into a light moment. “Let’s see, aren’t
you Luke or are you John. Oh, there’s John, ah that’s Luke.” What’s your name
again?” Especially at weddings, church gatherings, parties where there are many
names to remember, people understand you can’t easily remember their names.
Names sink in when they are felt, looked at, walked with, and played with.
Where were you when John F. Kennedy was assassinated?
7. Make a list and review it. The more you go back to a name, the longer it will
stick with you. Remember Nelda? She was in my Sociology class. I had been in
her home. She was in a college play and her picture was in our Yearbook. I often
would return to my early college days and my yearbooks. It’s like dropping a
sinker on a line deeper and deeper into the depths of the water. The water is a
metaphor for our memory bank. Get it? I have old address books of people I have
met, lists in my daily calendar, and, in the church, a running list of people who are
first time visitors. Notes in the margins are little reminders also. February 17,
1994, Marvin and Elaine were in our home for a visit. That was the day the
Northridge Quake shook San Fernando Valley. We felt it in San Diego. Notations
are made on the blank sheets of the mind. Like inkblots, they can remain with us
for a long long time.
8. Write it down. Carry a 3 X 5 card in your back pocket or your purse. Elton
Trueblood, a Quaker writer, philosopher, and theologian, once reminded us at a
gathering in Richmond, Indiana, “If you have an idea, write it down, or it will lost
forever.” This is a simple task, but who carries a 3 X 5 card in your back pocket.
Or if you had one, who would remember to take a second to write it down. Just
remember, our minds play tricks with us. We can tell ourselves, “Self, don’t
forget this.” Then it’s gone. The mind is fluid, like a flowing river. Drop a hat in
a river and it will not stay in the same place. Such is the mind. Write it down.
9. Make it a habit. Habits are like a string of threads that you roll in a ball. They are a continuous behavior that follow a sequence. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: they are the first three books of the Bible, and John, the fourth book . Remembering becomes second nature. A habit is sequential like learning and reciting your a b c’s.
10. A name is not just a name. It is a person. It is a living being, an individual of
importance, unique, different, and God given. Dibbs was a little boy who was
intelligent, observant, but shy. He never participated in class. He always sat at the
edge of his class. He never spoke until he was four years old. The story of Dibbs
appeared in a book. Spenser, Colton, Chelsea, James, Andrew—they are all little
children that need to be loved. How can I forget them. Learn the name and know
the person.
Finally, just remember, the mind is an incredible memory bank. It has a capacity to remember, categorize, analyze, create, and explore the unexplored. I remember a speaker who told us, “One pastor in Texas could remember every name of the members in his church. They had a thousand members.” The prophet Isaiah emphasizes, “He shall know you by name.”
If I can give you one more clue, it is this. We remember in pictures. When we tell stories, when we are in conversation, when we describe an experience, when give details of an object, an event, a place, or a person, we are using words to describe a picture in our minds. If I were to ask you, please describe the kid of car you drive, you will do so from a picture in your mind. The mind is an incredible gift, just remember to use it.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Visit On An Iowa Farm
Visit on An Iowa Farm
By Dr. Dennis Ginoza October 8, 2009
I heard it said: “My grandfather owned a farm, my father had a garden, I have a can opener.” This is telling of our times.
My father was a gardener. He raised the best string beans. In his two gardens, he planted carrots, broccoli, cabbage, sweet potatoes, eggplant, pumpkins, beets, and of course, string beans. All the preparation was done by hand with picks, shovels, rakes and hoes. He fertilized the soil with chicken manure from hens that provided eggs.. We three sons helped him haul the horse manure from the nearby stables. In retrospect, he was a superb gardener realizing the necessity to feed his family living in a village along the hills of West Maui. As my professor in seminary who was an agriculture missionary in Africa would remind us, raising food in many world regions is labor intensive.
In the early 60’s, traveling through the Mid-West, a common site was small family farms, many just a mile or three apart. As one traveled the rural roads, you could see a barn, a silo, and cattle feeding in fenced in areas or larger pasture lands. The cattle were for marketing or cows raised for milk and its related products. The farm equipment such as tractors had open seats, for the most part, and in time, one would see the progression to closed cabs.
A recollection I have is when my father-in-law wanted some eight track tapes with Hawaiian music so he could listen to it as he worked the fields. Lightly, with a chuckle, I thought, farming is not so hard anymore; it’s mixed with leisure and comfort. Iowa, where I spent time, was a changing farm scene. And that brings me to this present day.
A few days ago, I stepped into a new era in farming. For me, this was a giant step as we live in a day where milk comes in a carton or plastic container, beef and chicken soups sit on shelves in the supermarket, fresh meat are displayed in giant cooling systems, and fresh vegetables and fruits are neatly laid out in racks for easy reach and purchase. Do we have any idea how farming has changed. Most of us have no idea.
The back drop of this day also is an earlier experience I had in Costa Rica as a Peace Corps volunteer. Earlier in Puerto Rico, then in Central America, I learned about the slash and burn system. Farmers used their corn seeds from the harvested crop for re-planting, then the field was slashed and cleared, and burned. Then the corn seeds were planted in an opening in the soil made with a tool, lucky if it was enriched with fertilizer.
Interestingly, the Iowa seed corn was introduced to the farmers by the development association I was working with. The new seed corn was not accepted easily for various reasons. Funny as it may sound, the farmers and their families did not like the color of the new seed corn. It was too light, not the deep yellow they were used to for their tortillas. Change, as we know, doesn’t come easily. What made the hybrid corn less appealing: every planting required new seeds to be bought. This was a start to make farming capital intensive, not labor intensive. Farmers didn’t have financial resources to easily make the change. As my seminary professor reminded us, this is the gap between third world farming and farming in the developed world.
Now, my day on an Iowa farm. I was invited to visit my brother’s-in-law farm. First his son Jason drove me to the site where huge, towering bins are built for storage, a dryer system that is computerized to test moisture and proper drying, a drop pit where semis unload the harvested corn, then the grain would be taken in underground plumbed lines to begin the drying and storing process. While one semi was unloading, another semi would be driven to the field to receive the additional loads for the process just described. Instructive and interesting—was my thinking.
As I sat in the combine with my brother-in-law, Bob Schager, I witnessed the wonder of modern farming. This was far from the days when a horse pulled a plow with a farmer guiding it down the rows for cultivation and far from picking corn by hand. The intensity of the work did not line a sweaty brow in the heat of the sun. If there was a sweat on the brow, the cause would be a bad weather day or declining market prices.
For two hours, I sat in a cab watching the harvesting of a large field of corn with more fields waiting beyond what my sight could see. As the combine moved, cutting and processing twelve rows of corn at a time, a computer screen displayed the moisture, 20% or 27%, and as I learned, that computer also had a GPS mapping system (Global Positioning System with information fed from orbiting satellites), which, would create a mapping memory. This memory would make possible an auto pilot system.
As the combine worked, Bob explained to me that the combine had three sensors which helped determine the level of the terrain so the chopping followed the ups and downs of the soil. Had the GPS system been working, the combine would have been on automatic pilot. This would have given him time to check other systems in the computer data for both the efficiency of the operation and the data collecting system, and whatever else it is designed to do. In another ride, I could tell you more.
As the combine was working, another piece of equipment, the grain cart (augur wagon) was driven parallel to the combine at a calculated speed and a workable distance from the combine. When the combine was about full, not missing a moment, hardly, the corn seeds would be transferred into the grain truck. All this was in a synchronized movement. The grain cart had in it, a computer system recording the weight of every load, data necessary for federal reporting. I could see in mind’s eye, two jets in flight, one a tanker refueling the other in mid-air with no time lost or stoppage of whatever was the required task. This, I saw happening in the corn field.
As I watched the grain cart, after it got its full load, it headed toward the waiting semi which would haul its load to the dumping pit by the waiting bins as described earlier.
What I witnessed in two hours was a giant step in farming. As I could see, it is designed for efficiency and productivity. This was not observed, but clearly this type of farming requires a well trained, clearly defined role of players making possible a harvesting system covering a larger farm, unlike the small farms I saw in the early 60’s.
Farming, from this limited explanation, clearly has changed. This change fits our time as manufacturing, production, labor forces, capital investments, agri-business and its management have global implications. Technology, as I have seen, makes possible new ways of putting food on our table. It is different and far from the day when the beans and carrots came from the soil just a few feet away from our dinner table.
Yes, I have a can opener, but more importantly, a new and fascinating understanding of an Iowa farm. Such was my day from the seat of a combine. The farm is the same, but the landscape of planting and harvesting is not.
One final thought: When I sit at the table and have my dish filled with fresh vegetables, a piece of meat, a baked potato, or a bowl of hot soup, I will remain thankful for the soil from which the harvest has come. Our link to the soil, to the falling rain, to the rich elements and to the working hand has not changed.
By Dr. Dennis Ginoza October 8, 2009
I heard it said: “My grandfather owned a farm, my father had a garden, I have a can opener.” This is telling of our times.
My father was a gardener. He raised the best string beans. In his two gardens, he planted carrots, broccoli, cabbage, sweet potatoes, eggplant, pumpkins, beets, and of course, string beans. All the preparation was done by hand with picks, shovels, rakes and hoes. He fertilized the soil with chicken manure from hens that provided eggs.. We three sons helped him haul the horse manure from the nearby stables. In retrospect, he was a superb gardener realizing the necessity to feed his family living in a village along the hills of West Maui. As my professor in seminary who was an agriculture missionary in Africa would remind us, raising food in many world regions is labor intensive.
In the early 60’s, traveling through the Mid-West, a common site was small family farms, many just a mile or three apart. As one traveled the rural roads, you could see a barn, a silo, and cattle feeding in fenced in areas or larger pasture lands. The cattle were for marketing or cows raised for milk and its related products. The farm equipment such as tractors had open seats, for the most part, and in time, one would see the progression to closed cabs.
A recollection I have is when my father-in-law wanted some eight track tapes with Hawaiian music so he could listen to it as he worked the fields. Lightly, with a chuckle, I thought, farming is not so hard anymore; it’s mixed with leisure and comfort. Iowa, where I spent time, was a changing farm scene. And that brings me to this present day.
A few days ago, I stepped into a new era in farming. For me, this was a giant step as we live in a day where milk comes in a carton or plastic container, beef and chicken soups sit on shelves in the supermarket, fresh meat are displayed in giant cooling systems, and fresh vegetables and fruits are neatly laid out in racks for easy reach and purchase. Do we have any idea how farming has changed. Most of us have no idea.
The back drop of this day also is an earlier experience I had in Costa Rica as a Peace Corps volunteer. Earlier in Puerto Rico, then in Central America, I learned about the slash and burn system. Farmers used their corn seeds from the harvested crop for re-planting, then the field was slashed and cleared, and burned. Then the corn seeds were planted in an opening in the soil made with a tool, lucky if it was enriched with fertilizer.
Interestingly, the Iowa seed corn was introduced to the farmers by the development association I was working with. The new seed corn was not accepted easily for various reasons. Funny as it may sound, the farmers and their families did not like the color of the new seed corn. It was too light, not the deep yellow they were used to for their tortillas. Change, as we know, doesn’t come easily. What made the hybrid corn less appealing: every planting required new seeds to be bought. This was a start to make farming capital intensive, not labor intensive. Farmers didn’t have financial resources to easily make the change. As my seminary professor reminded us, this is the gap between third world farming and farming in the developed world.
Now, my day on an Iowa farm. I was invited to visit my brother’s-in-law farm. First his son Jason drove me to the site where huge, towering bins are built for storage, a dryer system that is computerized to test moisture and proper drying, a drop pit where semis unload the harvested corn, then the grain would be taken in underground plumbed lines to begin the drying and storing process. While one semi was unloading, another semi would be driven to the field to receive the additional loads for the process just described. Instructive and interesting—was my thinking.
As I sat in the combine with my brother-in-law, Bob Schager, I witnessed the wonder of modern farming. This was far from the days when a horse pulled a plow with a farmer guiding it down the rows for cultivation and far from picking corn by hand. The intensity of the work did not line a sweaty brow in the heat of the sun. If there was a sweat on the brow, the cause would be a bad weather day or declining market prices.
For two hours, I sat in a cab watching the harvesting of a large field of corn with more fields waiting beyond what my sight could see. As the combine moved, cutting and processing twelve rows of corn at a time, a computer screen displayed the moisture, 20% or 27%, and as I learned, that computer also had a GPS mapping system (Global Positioning System with information fed from orbiting satellites), which, would create a mapping memory. This memory would make possible an auto pilot system.
As the combine worked, Bob explained to me that the combine had three sensors which helped determine the level of the terrain so the chopping followed the ups and downs of the soil. Had the GPS system been working, the combine would have been on automatic pilot. This would have given him time to check other systems in the computer data for both the efficiency of the operation and the data collecting system, and whatever else it is designed to do. In another ride, I could tell you more.
As the combine was working, another piece of equipment, the grain cart (augur wagon) was driven parallel to the combine at a calculated speed and a workable distance from the combine. When the combine was about full, not missing a moment, hardly, the corn seeds would be transferred into the grain truck. All this was in a synchronized movement. The grain cart had in it, a computer system recording the weight of every load, data necessary for federal reporting. I could see in mind’s eye, two jets in flight, one a tanker refueling the other in mid-air with no time lost or stoppage of whatever was the required task. This, I saw happening in the corn field.
As I watched the grain cart, after it got its full load, it headed toward the waiting semi which would haul its load to the dumping pit by the waiting bins as described earlier.
What I witnessed in two hours was a giant step in farming. As I could see, it is designed for efficiency and productivity. This was not observed, but clearly this type of farming requires a well trained, clearly defined role of players making possible a harvesting system covering a larger farm, unlike the small farms I saw in the early 60’s.
Farming, from this limited explanation, clearly has changed. This change fits our time as manufacturing, production, labor forces, capital investments, agri-business and its management have global implications. Technology, as I have seen, makes possible new ways of putting food on our table. It is different and far from the day when the beans and carrots came from the soil just a few feet away from our dinner table.
Yes, I have a can opener, but more importantly, a new and fascinating understanding of an Iowa farm. Such was my day from the seat of a combine. The farm is the same, but the landscape of planting and harvesting is not.
One final thought: When I sit at the table and have my dish filled with fresh vegetables, a piece of meat, a baked potato, or a bowl of hot soup, I will remain thankful for the soil from which the harvest has come. Our link to the soil, to the falling rain, to the rich elements and to the working hand has not changed.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
I Had a Feeling
”I Had A Feeling”
by Dr. Dennis Ginoza October 6, 2009
I have returned to an old stomping grounds, the state of Iowa. It is here where I went to school at William Penn University. Those four years gave me new experiences, interesting encounters with people from the Mid-West but also from the world, and helped me establish some roots in friendship. Foremost, it gave me a college education and the grounding to another phase in life.
In the course of the years, the roots have broadened and deepened. Today they are living relationships, some old ties, some faded ties, and they are cherished memories. Whatever their form, they are a part of me, some times like an old well that nourished me, sometimes they are a living well with fresh and new flowing water.
It is in returning to this Iowa soil, I have become more aware of these broadened and deepened roots. As memories, they cannot be forgotten. As new encounters, they are enriching and surprising.
The present tie is now with family for my wife is a girl who grew up on a farm in north central Iowa. This is now part of the living and growing roots. She has two sisters in Iowa with growing families.
As my wife and I began this trip, first a stay in Colorado, then stops in Kansas and Missouri, I had a feeling. I wanted to return to William Penn University in Oskaloosa, where, as a young boy from Maui, Hawaii, for more reasons than one, doors were opened for me.
Those years were formative years, a place where I felt I belonged, and a people I came to love. From here there were new ties made and job experiences that not only sustained me financially, but enriched me. I developed ties with people not only in Iowa, but in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Indiana. Some of these ties are today, living ties. The small college community became for me, a large family, better expressed, a collection of families.
They say, you cannot return to an old home. That is true, but only to a degree. Yes you can, but realize that things will not be the same. How can they be? The winds of change are constant and holds time for no one. If they do hold, they do so only as memories, tales, and legends. Yet, in a new form they have a reality.
In those early steps were intertwining threads of what I brought with me and new threads that created a kind of life tapestry. One of those was clearly my interest in and desire to learn especially in faith. Faith is commonly referred to as a pursuit of religion or understanding or meaning and God.
Other threads included interest in sports, especially baseball, in leadership and organization, travels to explore the world, simply to get to know people, different job experiences, and the pursuit of learning.
So I had a feeling. I called the president’s office of William Penn just to say hello. President Ann Fields’ door was open and we visited for 40 minutes: Penn Hall looked the same as I walked them over 40 years ago, but it was not the same campus. To answer more of the my questions, the president called in Marsha who had been at Penn for 29 years. Marsha gave us a tour of the new facilities—a new sports center called Physical Activities Center, impressive, modern, and envious; a new high tech building that takes communication and net working into the waiting decades. I was impressed. Old ties fade and get renewed.
I had a feeling. Now I wanted to visit the First Christian Church where I served as the youth director. No, it wasn’t the same. The external white bricks were gone. The wear of time called for a major renovation. But there were old voices never to be forgotten. The youth director and secretary were as cordial as I remembered people to be. I walked down the stairs to see some men playing dominoes. Surprise. A dad of a set of twins I worked with was there. Hello Walter. Then one man said, I married Carol, one of the twins. Another man said, “And I married Karen, the other twin.” De ja vu! Then I learned Linda and Jerry returned to Oskaloosa. That night I got an email from Linda: “Can we get together?” We were college friends. She now had her Ph.D.
It was at this church, one Sunday as Rev. Goins was preaching, I wondered and asked myself: “Will I ever preach like that someday?” It didn’t occur to me at that moment that one day, this church experience was helping me form my future as an ordained pastor. It has become clear to me that the hallways we walk one day will lead to our future.
Some time ago I read where Carl Jung had used the word, convergence. It refers to how some people happen to come together at a particular time and a particular place. I find that this is true with all of us. It is meant to work for a higher purpose: that is my belief. Or, it might for some, just be a missed opportunity.
The voices of the past can prompt us to do something at the very moment. That something is in our thought, it’s in the back of our mind, then one word pushes us to bring it to life. As I was on the phone with another Penn college friend, Diane, she asked me, “Are you writing more in your blog?” Oh! And here I am. So this article.
I had a feeling. The other day I went for a walk across the street. I wanted some fresh air and a little exercise. I jogged a bit. As I was walking, I wondered, “What will I encounter today?” Yes, I had a feeling. I walked into the store to just look around.
I came across a rack with movies for sale. It said, “Buy One, Get One Free.” I perused the collection. A baseball movie caught my eye. I pulled it off the rack and it said, “Amazing True Story.” I read on, it’s a story about Norway, Iowa, a small town high school team that has won 19 state championships. The coach, Jim Van Scoyoc led this team to this incredible height. Then he was fired. Will the new 24 year old assistant coach take this team to its 20th state championship? I caught my breath. Jim Van Scoyoc
was a classmate of mine at William Penn. Wow! And I remembered, our baseball coach wanted me to play on that college team, but I decided, I needed to put my efforts in my study. You don’t know how hard that was. I must have played softball with Van Scoyoc in PE; I’m just guessing. Now he is a legendary coach. I bought the movie for $9.99.
Some things in our lives leave us forever and we can never get them back. But some things will always be a part of us. They are our roots. Our roots became like threads that shape our lives. Feelings traverse time, passing generations, and old encounters, and in a strange way, they remain as part of us. In this short segment of time, it has brought me to reflect, to cherish, and to recollect not only where I’ve been, but who I am and where I am today.
I had a feeling. Feelings are a link to yesterday, but also with what one may encounter in the next moment.
by Dr. Dennis Ginoza October 6, 2009
I have returned to an old stomping grounds, the state of Iowa. It is here where I went to school at William Penn University. Those four years gave me new experiences, interesting encounters with people from the Mid-West but also from the world, and helped me establish some roots in friendship. Foremost, it gave me a college education and the grounding to another phase in life.
In the course of the years, the roots have broadened and deepened. Today they are living relationships, some old ties, some faded ties, and they are cherished memories. Whatever their form, they are a part of me, some times like an old well that nourished me, sometimes they are a living well with fresh and new flowing water.
It is in returning to this Iowa soil, I have become more aware of these broadened and deepened roots. As memories, they cannot be forgotten. As new encounters, they are enriching and surprising.
The present tie is now with family for my wife is a girl who grew up on a farm in north central Iowa. This is now part of the living and growing roots. She has two sisters in Iowa with growing families.
As my wife and I began this trip, first a stay in Colorado, then stops in Kansas and Missouri, I had a feeling. I wanted to return to William Penn University in Oskaloosa, where, as a young boy from Maui, Hawaii, for more reasons than one, doors were opened for me.
Those years were formative years, a place where I felt I belonged, and a people I came to love. From here there were new ties made and job experiences that not only sustained me financially, but enriched me. I developed ties with people not only in Iowa, but in Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Indiana. Some of these ties are today, living ties. The small college community became for me, a large family, better expressed, a collection of families.
They say, you cannot return to an old home. That is true, but only to a degree. Yes you can, but realize that things will not be the same. How can they be? The winds of change are constant and holds time for no one. If they do hold, they do so only as memories, tales, and legends. Yet, in a new form they have a reality.
In those early steps were intertwining threads of what I brought with me and new threads that created a kind of life tapestry. One of those was clearly my interest in and desire to learn especially in faith. Faith is commonly referred to as a pursuit of religion or understanding or meaning and God.
Other threads included interest in sports, especially baseball, in leadership and organization, travels to explore the world, simply to get to know people, different job experiences, and the pursuit of learning.
So I had a feeling. I called the president’s office of William Penn just to say hello. President Ann Fields’ door was open and we visited for 40 minutes: Penn Hall looked the same as I walked them over 40 years ago, but it was not the same campus. To answer more of the my questions, the president called in Marsha who had been at Penn for 29 years. Marsha gave us a tour of the new facilities—a new sports center called Physical Activities Center, impressive, modern, and envious; a new high tech building that takes communication and net working into the waiting decades. I was impressed. Old ties fade and get renewed.
I had a feeling. Now I wanted to visit the First Christian Church where I served as the youth director. No, it wasn’t the same. The external white bricks were gone. The wear of time called for a major renovation. But there were old voices never to be forgotten. The youth director and secretary were as cordial as I remembered people to be. I walked down the stairs to see some men playing dominoes. Surprise. A dad of a set of twins I worked with was there. Hello Walter. Then one man said, I married Carol, one of the twins. Another man said, “And I married Karen, the other twin.” De ja vu! Then I learned Linda and Jerry returned to Oskaloosa. That night I got an email from Linda: “Can we get together?” We were college friends. She now had her Ph.D.
It was at this church, one Sunday as Rev. Goins was preaching, I wondered and asked myself: “Will I ever preach like that someday?” It didn’t occur to me at that moment that one day, this church experience was helping me form my future as an ordained pastor. It has become clear to me that the hallways we walk one day will lead to our future.
Some time ago I read where Carl Jung had used the word, convergence. It refers to how some people happen to come together at a particular time and a particular place. I find that this is true with all of us. It is meant to work for a higher purpose: that is my belief. Or, it might for some, just be a missed opportunity.
The voices of the past can prompt us to do something at the very moment. That something is in our thought, it’s in the back of our mind, then one word pushes us to bring it to life. As I was on the phone with another Penn college friend, Diane, she asked me, “Are you writing more in your blog?” Oh! And here I am. So this article.
I had a feeling. The other day I went for a walk across the street. I wanted some fresh air and a little exercise. I jogged a bit. As I was walking, I wondered, “What will I encounter today?” Yes, I had a feeling. I walked into the store to just look around.
I came across a rack with movies for sale. It said, “Buy One, Get One Free.” I perused the collection. A baseball movie caught my eye. I pulled it off the rack and it said, “Amazing True Story.” I read on, it’s a story about Norway, Iowa, a small town high school team that has won 19 state championships. The coach, Jim Van Scoyoc led this team to this incredible height. Then he was fired. Will the new 24 year old assistant coach take this team to its 20th state championship? I caught my breath. Jim Van Scoyoc
was a classmate of mine at William Penn. Wow! And I remembered, our baseball coach wanted me to play on that college team, but I decided, I needed to put my efforts in my study. You don’t know how hard that was. I must have played softball with Van Scoyoc in PE; I’m just guessing. Now he is a legendary coach. I bought the movie for $9.99.
Some things in our lives leave us forever and we can never get them back. But some things will always be a part of us. They are our roots. Our roots became like threads that shape our lives. Feelings traverse time, passing generations, and old encounters, and in a strange way, they remain as part of us. In this short segment of time, it has brought me to reflect, to cherish, and to recollect not only where I’ve been, but who I am and where I am today.
I had a feeling. Feelings are a link to yesterday, but also with what one may encounter in the next moment.
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