These past three weeks I have written about a family matter of 1950s origin. It concerns my father’s work as the secretary of a union local and his encounter with a couple of legendary figures, John F Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa.

My renewed interest in this episode of family history was sparked by the recent release of a book and a Netflix movie about Hoffa’s disappearance and presumed murder. The book, In Hoffa’s Shadow by Jack Goldsmith, was of special help to me since it affirmed a couple of key points I believed to be true based on my mother’s fragmentary recollection of what happened when I was too young to understand the full implication of my father’s close encounters with the famous and the infamous.

Oddly enough, I must commend the self-quarantine restrictions of the Covid-19 lockdown for helping me add a little more substance to the residue of mother’s memory. My antidote to the boredom of isolation was scouring family memorabilia horded in cardboard boxes confined to the closet in their own form of social distancing.

Among the many treasures saved over more than a century of family history were three newspaper clippings, which supported mom’s account of dad’s participation in a reform movement that brought him into contact with a Senate investigation committee, of which Kennedy was a member, and an open conflict directly with Hoffa. Dad won. And he outlived them both, passing away at home, peacefully in his own bed and the age of 68. Kennedy and Hoffa did not do so well.

There was another interesting find among the paper ephemera that is providing me with the content of this week’s message. It was an invitation to a birthday party for my older brother. In 1946 he turned two years of age and the invitation was sent to a couple of our cousins. It would have been a pretty common affair and of little concern to me more than seventy years later except for one little side note my mother penned to my aunt.

In addition to the time, date and place of the party, my mother thought it necessary to let her sister-in-law know that there was a local outbreak of polio in the small town where my parents were living post World War II. Mom promised that no other children would be invited to the party as she had wished. This was something of an enticement for the other family members to make the short trip from where they lived so that they could be together one more time before my folks left Oklahoma for good in pursuit of the sunny promised land of California.

Social distancing during the summer months when polio outbreaks were common though unpredictable was not mandated by the state or federal governments. It was something people did on their own back then to protect loved ones from infection. Mom’s note on the birthday invitation indicates how she put the cautionary measure into practice, shunning non-family members but holding close to blood-kin as a safe way to fulfill the need for social support sans masks.

Covid-19 has brought fear into the lives of people once again just as polio once did, spanning a lethal tide of death and disability over several decades, not just a season or a year or two. The development of a vaccine changed all of that to the point where people today probably never give a thought to being afflicted by something prior generations regarded with abject fear.

Today Dr. Anthony Fauci has emerged as something of a folk hero for daily reporting on the nature of the Covid-19 threat in terms people generally understand and trust. But his celebrity status pales in comparison to that of Jonas Salk, whose team of researchers produced the first polio vaccine used in the US in the mid-50s. It is said that when President Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Salk a medal in a Rose Garden ceremony, that the leader of the free world teared up when making the presentation, which is something he did not do just a few years before when he announced the defeat of Nazi-led Germany. This gives us some sense of the magnitude of Salk’s discovery in delivering relief from a terrifying though unseen enemy.

I can remember lining up at school (likely as a first grader) to be vaccinated. I promised myself not to cry like the other babies in my class, simply because my best friend was standing next to me and making taunting comments about the criers. I remained brave through the entire process, being more fearful of shame than the needle. And as I recall this was an annual process as Salk’s vaccine had a short-term benefit. Better was the eventual use of an oral vaccine discovered by Albert Sabin and his research team. Not only did this eliminate the trauma of standing in line waiting to be poked with a long, silvery needle, but the new delivery method was that of a sugar cube, which was no more traumatic than having dessert.

I share this story with those who fear that life as we knew it just a few months ago will never reappear for us again. Such a mindset seems to me to be too much the result of watching programs which dramatize various projections for a zombie apocalypse of cataclysmic proportions. If any of these modern day prophesies prove to provide a foretaste of life in permanent lockdown, then it would be catastrophic since I am anxious to see how well Tom Brady does as quarterback of the Tampa Bay Bucs. And it would be tragic if the US women’s soccer team achieved payroll parity with men by both of them earning zero, meaning not playing.

I am a believer in the efficacy of science to deliver us from the current evil. We just need the politicians, mainstream and social media mavens, and our beloved late-night talk show hosts from getting in the way by exploiting peoples’ fears. Let the Salks and Sabins of the world do their work. We need to be encouraged with leaders who model patience and have some faith in the wisdom of an ancient king who comforted his people with the certitude that “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

So will birthday parties, World Cup glory (with pay equity) and possibly a playoff berth for Tampa Bay.

Let’s review.

I am on a quest to validate at least two of the things my mother told me when I was a young boy. One of these is not about having a guardian angel, which is another story she told me. It was meant to help assuage my fear of the dark. It didn’t work.

The two things she told me of current concern are 1) that my father appeared before a Senate investigating committee on which then Senator John F. Kennedy was a member, and 2) he survived a direct confrontation with the infamous former president of the Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa.

My renewed fascination in these tales of family history was sparked by the publicity surrounding the release of last year’s Martin Scorsese movie, The Irishman, which purported to tell the story about how Hoffa was murdered, and the far less publicized – but far more factually accurate – release of Jack Goldsmith’s book In Hoffa’s Shadow.

From Goldsmith I learned that there was a Senate investigating committee formed in 1957. Chaired by Arkansas Senator, John L. McClellan, the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management included John F. Kennedy as a committee member and his brother, Bobby, as legal counsel. It is possible that this is the committee mom meant in her tale of dad’s testifying at a Senate hearing since the McClellan people did investigate the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union of which dad was an officer in Union Local 37 in Los Angeles.

Goldsmith also mentioned Hoffa’s attempts to expand the influence of the Teamsters Union by organizing the shops his truck drivers served by either delivering or picking up product from those shops. Bakery and confectionery workers were prime targets as their own union was contending with an internal conflict that weakened their power and bargaining position. Hoffa, the true focus of the McClellan committee and Bobby Kennedy’s vindictive inquest, was offering a solution to their troubles. Dad, as part of a reform movement within the baker’s union, stood in opposition to those efforts.

Goldsmith’s book lent credibility to my mother’s veiled comments about dad’s career. This prompted me to do an on-line search about the existence of the McClellan committee’s records. The search results directed me to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) website and my solicitation of help of the NARA staff. Their initial response was favorable but then the shutdown came as a result of the Covid-19 virus and my quest was put on indefinite hold for the duration.

Last week I wrote about finding three vintage newspaper clippings among my mother’s keepsakes. This occurred as part of my attempt to put my self-quarantine hours to good use by sorting through family photos and documents. Two of the articles reported on dad’s participation in a Federal court case, which involved the successful ouster of James G. Cross from the presidency of the Bakery and Confectionery Worker’s Union. This affirmed mom’s claim that dad did go to Washington, D. C. to testify, but not about his possible appearance before a Senate investigating committee.

Hopefully the NARA records will eventually provide some further clarification on this point. If dad did meet with the members of the Select Committee, then his testimony should be a matter of record and kept safe in the NARA files. Time alone will tell.

The third article was about Hoffa’s attempt to bring the divided factions within the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union into the Teamsters Union. The article contained a surprisingly pleasing account of how Hoffa was contacted at the San Francisco airport and told that his proposed meeting with baker’s union officials scheduled to take place in LA had been cancelled. Consequently the merger never took place.

Here’s the thing. In mom’s account dad is the one who placed the phone call to Hoffa at the airport and told him that “There’s nothing for you here in LA.” This statement is not in the newspaper article, so I cannot push it as labor history with any certitude. But mom was right about the basics: Hoffa did try to bring the various locals of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union into the Teamsters Union; he was getting ready to fly to Los Angeles for a meeting with union officials to broker a deal; and he was contacted at the airport with the message that there would be no meeting.

Dad’s personal involvement with this venture is affirmed, however, in this newspaper article written by Harry Bernstein, the labor reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Bernstein did not acknowledge our family legend of dad telling Hoffa there was nothing for him in LA. But he did quote dad about his opposition to the baker’s union being absorbed by the much larger and more powerful Teamsters Union and why. The quote for the record states, “I certainly am not interested in spending months and months trying to get our union out from under a dictatorship, and then having it go into what amounts to perpetual trusteeship.”

Growing up we had our own vow of silence about dad’s work in the union. And he by nature was not one to boast about anything he did. Mom, on the other hand, was proud of his honest endeavors on behalf of the union membership and thankfully did yield to her gift for gossip by letting us know of his leadership in a reform movement as a stalwart defender of the union’s independence.

I wish dad were here now. Maybe my senior adult status would allow him to open up to me man to man about these two episodes, which occurred some sixty years ago. And who knows, maybe there were other stories of equal magnitude concerning his impact on labor relations. It would be nice to know about his many achievements.

Ultimately I am left with two realizations. First, mom’s version of events involving dad and the likes of Kennedy and Hoffa has been partially vindicated by the newspaper clippings she saved. And second that dad died peacefully at home in his own bed, unlike the tragic demise of two of the most powerful men he encountered during a long and satisfying career benefitting others.

All of us maintaining our place in self-quarantine are quietly proving a point. We, the majority of citizens, are truly conscientious about caring for our families, our friends, our colleagues and even our strangers. This last group includes those who shop where we normally shop, dine where we like to dine, sit in the same audience or congregation that benefits our souls and indulge in the recreational activities we engage in to keep our bodies healthy. We avoid doing these things now because we care about the people who we might otherwise meet and potentially affect in an adverse way.

It’s true that a few people, who represent a new version of anti-vaxxer mentality, currently dominate the news coverage of those being politically labeled and morally demonized for opposing the severity of the lock-down guidelines. We on the other hand, who represent a new version of the silent majority, trust our leaders enough to stay the course no matter our political preferences and temporarily immobilized social mobility. We believe, as did Carol Lynley’s character in the original Poseidon Adventure, there’s got to be a morning after.

If we are being denied access to the best places to hangout (which for me is the public library) then perhaps we need to implement a new exercise to our daily routine. This entails tapping our heels together three times, ala Dorothy when still quarantined in Oz, while repeating her Pollyanna-like workout mantra that there’s no place like home. This may work even if you don’t own a pair of ruby slippers. Just paint your Air Jordans a sparkly red and have at it.

For my part I have turned to one form of entertainment that suits my personal interests best and can be conducted within the confines of my small apartment. I am re-discovering moments of family history. This entails pulling boxes of photos and other memorabilia out of the closet for a renewed inspection of their contents. It’s fun to discover things you’ve forgotten, perhaps intentionally because hair styles have changed. It’s also priceless to rediscover those moments in life, which are truly precious. Then there is the unexpected find, hidden inside a long neglected envelope of a mere utilitarian appearance.

Last week’s message concerned my efforts to uncover more details about a protracted episode in my father’s career, which may have brought him into contact with such disparate historical figures such as John and Bobby Kennedy and Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa. The Covid-19 virus brought to a halt my attempt at locating pertinent information via the National Archives, where I hoped to locate Senate committee records which could validate stories my mother told me when I was a boy about my dad’s heroics. But sorting through the contents of my mother’s keepsakes, while I passed the time in compassionate isolation, led me to a white legal-sized envelope, containing a treasure of immense personal value; one pertinent to my search.  

Inside were three newspaper clippings from the now defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. This was one of the two major newspapers in the LA area when I was a growing up. Dad would not subscribe to the larger Los Angeles Times due to its anti-labor bias. He was during the period under scrutiny the Secretary of the Bakery and Confectionary Workers Union Local 37, purported to be about 5,000 members strong.

Unfortunately the articles are closely trimmed, eliminating the page headers, which could provide the publication dates for each piece. Their content, however, affirms that they are from the mid to late 50s as they report on events and people prominent in labor and politics of that time. It also helps to know that two of the articles were written by Harry Bernstein, the Examiner’s labor editor, who moved over to the competing newspaper, The Times, in the 60s. The articles provide some assurance that the stories mom told me when I was a boy are credible, but they do not totally validate her version of events.

One of her stories was about that connection between dad and then Senator John F. Kennedy. When the young Senator was elected President of the United States in 1960, mom said that dad once testified before a committee on which Kennedy served. Last week I wrote about my discovery in Jack Goldsmith’s book, In Hoffa’s Shadow, that Kennedy, as the Senator from Massachusetts, was a member of the Senate’s Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management formed in 1957.

My on-line search for the Committee’s records showed that they are on file with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The search also revealed that dad’s union was included in their investigation. And if dad did appear before this committee, then hopefully his testimony is preserved in the NARA files. I will just have to wait until the lockdown guidelines are lifted and the world re-opens to public participation before I can seek further evidence from this valuable source to substantiate mom’s boast about dad’s encounter with Kennedy.

Here’s the thing: The Bernstein article focuses on a lawsuit filed in a Washington, D. C. federal court, seeking an accounting for the use of funds by the union’s then President James G. Cross. The action also asked the court to compel a referendum vote on Cross’s removal from office should his mismanagement of funds be proven. Bernstein confirms that dad, as the secretary-treasurer of a reform movement within the troubled Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, did fly to D.C. to be part of that court hearing.

A supporting, though unattributed article, states that dad would “go to Washington Monday reportedly to demand [the] resignation of James Cross as international president of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union.” The lack of dates on the articles prevents me from easily knowing which Monday was meant by this specific reference to his travels. And the whole thing only confirms that dad did go to D.C. to testify, but in a federal court, not to the Senate Select Committee of which Kennedy was a member.

Mom may still be right about dad’s appearance before the committee, but I need further proof, which will only come from accessing the NARA records. And this must wait until we all gain a new kind of immunity from the new kind of virus. In the meantime, we can only beseech Andrea McArdle to help us all self-proclaim from our self-quarantine by singing the anthem she made famous in the Broadway play Annie. We are in desperate need of her assurance that the sun will come out tomorrow.

Next week: The Hoffa Thing.

The Ides of April has a different meaning for me than the unpleasant apprehension it provokes in most Americans. Even with a generously delayed tax-filing deadline, April 15 induces a certain panic in the hearts and minds of most people, which is far more pervasive than any virus. For no one is immune and no one can remain asymptomatic when it comes to confronting the taxman.

For me April 15 is a date sadly noted for a far more compelling reason. It is and will always remain the anniversary of my father’s passing, now approaching 30 years in memory. I was with him when he died and the sightless gaze of his spiritless body mimicked our relationship. The silence in the room where I stood at his bedside affirmed how little I knew of the man who said little and revealed less about his life. What I did know is that he was a union man to the very marrow of his being and his singular pursuit of securing for his fellow union members a fair wage for honest labor brought him into a brief period of prominence and a confrontation with one of the more notorious characters in the history of organized labor.

The Netflix movie, The Irishman, with its focus on what happened to Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa, reminded me of a story my mom once told me about dad’s encounter with this infamous union leader. The extent of that story, or the extent of her willingness to tell it, is that 1) Hoffa was trying to bring the Bakery and Confectionary Worker’s Union, of which dad was an officer in Local 37,  into the fold of the Teamsters and 2) dad, along with his allies, took a stand against that maneuver.

There was one very distinct element of her story that I do vividly recall. She said that dad called Hoffa at an airport and told him not to catch his flight to Los Angeles for a meeting about the takeover. Dad’s defining statement during that call was to inform Hoffa “There’s nothing for you here in LA.” Hoffa consequently cancelled his trip and the Baker’s union kept its independence. Mom, on the other hand, worried that a bomb placed under our family car would be Hoffa’s definitive response.

All the hype surrounding the release of The Irishman, particularly its questionable reliability in terms of historic accuracy, garnered my interest. The Hoffa name has that affect given the story my mom told me all those years ago. Fortunately a little research revealed the nearly simultaneous publication of a new book by Jack Goldsmith entitled In Hoffa’s Shadow. In his book the Harvard Law School professor tells his own story, which involves a difficult relationship with his step-father, Charles “Chuckie” O’Brien, Hoffa’s one-time driver and close friend. Chuckie really did have the personal relationship claimed for the character of Frank Sheeran in The Irishman. He also became one of the FBI’s top suspects as a willing participant in Hoffa’s disappearance and likely execution.

Goldsmith’s book is a fascinating, well researched account of Hoffa’s rise to power and its personal impact on Goldsmith’s family. The reliability of his story impacted mine as well. First he gave credence to another one of my mom’s abbreviated comments about my dad’s career. This one involved his trip to Washington D.C. to testify before a Senate committee of which then Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy was a member.

Mom merely mentioned this episode in passing when Kennedy was elected President in 1960. I guess Kennedy’s new-found celebrity seemed to burnish dad’s reputation as a union leader of a reform movement. Goldsmith affirmed her vague comment with his account of Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan’s chairmanship of the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, formed in 1957. Senator Kennedy was a member of that committee and his younger brother, Bobby, was its chief legal counsel. Hoffa and the Teamsters were their principal target, but dad’s union, the Bakery and Confectionery Workers, came under scrutiny as well due the corrupt practices of its own president.

The second affirmation Goldsmith unintentionally bestowed upon my mother’s minimal comments about dad’s work was his reference to Hoffa’s tactics of organizing the various shops the Teamsters served, which at that time was any business that received goods or sent products by truck. This put the bakery and confectionary trades in his sights and, by mom’s account, the Secretary of Local 37 in Los Angeles – dad.

In one way we were very much like a mafia family. We were taught not to ask questions. It was a rule of our house to never ask dad about his work and he, in turn, never volunteered anything to us. But mom did manage to leak a modicum of information, probably because she could never keep a secret for very long. Still, she managed to divulge these two insights into my dad’s career without revealing the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Her brevity, not to be confused with discretion, had to be enough to satisfy any curiosity we may have had – at the time. Now is different.

Enticed by the publicity surrounding Martin Scorsese’s questionable account of Hoffa’s execution and the in-depth reporting by Goldsmith for his book, In Hoffa’s Shadow, I did what any red-blooded American son would do. I went on-line to do my own research. This took me, by way of Wikipedia, to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) website. I honestly didn’t get very far on my own, but the opportunity to query a NARA staff member and solicit her professional help produced an initial favorable response about the existence of the McClellan Committee’s records. But then the shutdown came as part of the attempt to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which in turn paralyzed my effort at discovering further evidence about dad’s role in the Committee’s investigation and potentially his confrontation with Hoffa.

The occurrence this past week of April 15 on the calendar served as a sad reminder of personal loss of a kind, which is greater than any tax liability. The prospect of lifting a corner of the veil surrounding my father’s career in tandem with observing the anniversary of my father’s death was tantalizing, but apparently futile. The lock-down will pass. So if I am patient my search can resume whenever the backlog of NARA’s caseload allows. Until then I must content myself with what I know thus far thanks to the creative genius of others entwined in the Hoffa tale, as am I.

Next Week: An Unexpected Find

I would have faith to keep the path Christ trod

This week’s quote is the twelfth and final line from the poem I have relied on to discuss a collection of character traits identified by the poem’s author, Harold Arnold Walter. He was a divinity student at Princeton University, whose 1905 poem written to his mother as a Christmas present became the source of my pirated inspiration.

I learned about the poem when I found it nestled amongst songs of praise in a Christian hymnal. It struck my fancy as the content was something of an outlier; focusing on self and the internal qualities one hopes to possess like some virtuous miser. Its compatriots in that collection of songs were distinctly outward looking; songs of praise and adoration of another transcending one’s self.

Walter’s poem became a popular hymn thanks to the musical talents of Joseph Yates Peek, a Methodist lay-minister, but only after the content was altered by a Congregational Minister, Ralph Harlow, who claimed that the deceased Walter visited him in a dream, beseeching him to finish the poem.

My aspirations as a wannabe historian rejected Harlow’s alterations in preference for working with the original material. If I have shown the attribute of being faithful, it is only evident in my presentation of the poem as written, one line at a time.

Walter divided his poem into three stanzas of four lines each. With these twelve lines, he made what are in essence twelve pledges to his mother, each line highlighting a specific character trait and its significance in his life. Actually he specifically mentioned only seven traits, those of being true, pure, strong, brave, friendly, giving and humble. He also listed five commitments he would always undertake in how he lived his life. These five I have liberally interpreted as also requiring him to be optimistic, faithful, devout, persistent and now resolute.

Unless you’re Nicolas Cage citing HMS Resolute as holding an important clue in the discovery of hidden wealth (see his movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets), you likely have never used the word resolute in a complete sentence. It is a once popular word that has fallen out of favor, but that is the common trend with most aspects of character. Personality prevails in our postmodern world.

When we do use words like optimistic, faithful, devout, persistent and resolute there is an obvious overlap in their meaning. The more nuanced concept of being resolute, however, can be seen in Walter’s stated commitment to keep the path Christ trod. That path has one singular destination. We call it Calvary. Walter’s pledge entails doing the charitable services Jesus performed with the understanding that such actions can prove to be fatal.

Whether we literally become martyrs to the cause or simply make personal sacrifices in denial of self, there are potentially negative consequences to our actions, no matter how good and compassionate our intentions may be. Being resolute means pursuing the goal despite the cost. The life-long commitment means not to turning back, giving up or giving in.

I dwell on such things because I think character is key to a life well lived. And for me it reveals an exquisite irony. For while the pursuit of character requires constant self-examination in order to hold ourselves accountable to our pledges and commitments, the end result tends towards a life of service to others Internally strengthened, we use our gifts for the benefit of those we encounter be they family, friends, colleagues, teammates or strangers in need.

This is the path that Christ trod, all the way to Calvary and consequently an empty tomb. May you be blessed as you ponder the significance of this week’s Easter observances.

I would be strong to follow where He leads me

One of the challenges we face in life is coping with a sense of futility. No matter how hard we work or what we accomplish with our work, it is never enough. Goal setting is a must to be a competent manager of people, processes and events. But achieving the goal is a temporary state, leaving us with a dispirited sense of what now? It is especially troubling when you are young and have many more career years ahead of you.

For myself, I know that I am prone to depression after each success. The passion one feels in the pursuit is absent once the goal is attained. There is a definite high for me in working the process; intermediate steps change the conditions, which in turn require continued analysis and adjustments in tactics to fulfill the strategic purpose. Tension and stress can be ironic indicators of a vibrant life in all its exhilarating glory. Hence the definite low once the process is concluded and the stress is relieved. Emptiness follows.

I know of others who suffer the same fate, but for a different reason. All their hard work never completely solves the problems they’ve attempted to remedy. Not everyone can be cured or fed or housed or clothed and the task becomes an endless echo of rolling one’s mammoth stone up a steep hill. They can never solve all the world’s problems and reach a point of bliss in the ultimate completion of their work. There is always another mouth to feed or a homeless soul to shelter.

What is needed for psyches like ours is a change in focus, the development of a trait which finds contentment within itself. Persistence may be that trait. Not giving in or giving up is the antidote for the dispirited attitude which follows the realization that the hoped for destination is merely a way station on the path of life.

Persistence is what I have labeled this week’s character trait, inspired by the 1905 poem written by Howard Arnold Walter. His line about having the strength of will to follow another without fail is what I regard as the strength to persevere despite the difficulties encountered. The ideal is to allow persistence to be its own perpetual reward, transcending accomplishments as merely the evidence of a character trait immune to failure.

Walter’s poem was divided into three stanzas of four lines each and we are now in the third line of that third stanza. What he proclaims in this final act of his composition is to be faithful and devout, to which I am now adding the concept of being persistent. It’s a sequence of related parts, one building on another to craft a self-sustaining quality of dependability we all can emulate. But Walter, the Princeton divinity student held to one further feature we must acknowledge here. His faithfulness, devotion and persistence focuses on the God of the Bible; the One who is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful) and immutable (unchanging). Walter’s course was thereby set by the One who can see eternity and is never subject to our frail encounter with the fleeting nature of success.

Walter’s worldview represents a true change of focus in which purpose without end ensues.

I would constantly be in touch with God

Last week I wrote about the attribute of being faithful. The theme applies this week as well, but with a more poignant purpose behind it. The quote I am addressing this week is about the character trait of being devout, which stems from one person’s faithful devotion to God.

If you have been following this series of messages, then you know I am using the lines of a 1905 poem, written by a Princeton divinity student, Harold Arnold Walter. His twelve-line composition highlighted those traits he thought essential to a fully developed character. And since they were presented one per line, it seemed like a viable crutch to help me stay current in my writing exercises by prompting me to express my own thoughts, one trait per week. It didn’t work as there was a sizeable gap in time between lines eight and nine. But now we are back on track, fully devoted to finishing this series.

The traits I have written about thus far have included being true, pure, strong, brave, friendly, humble, optimistic and faithful. Now it is the quality of a devout spirit.

Our devotion can apply to any relationship. We can be devoted to others, who share our mortal nature, but we tend to reserve our concept of devotion to being solely or primarily related to our reverence to a higher power of whatever spiritual construct you prefer. Proof of this viewpoint, if there is any, can be found in Merriam Webster’s on-line dictionary, which defines devout as being 1: committed or devoted to religion or to religious duties or exercises or 2: expressing piety or religious fervor.

This is the perspective in the heart of the author I have relied on to supply the inspiration for this series of messages. His poem, which became the basis of a Christian hymn, was written as a Christmas gift for his mother. His devotion to her exemplified by the pledges made in his poem serve as an example that such a trait as being devout can be focused on another human. Moms seem to excel as the recipients of this type of adoration.

Such refined affection for a family member, friend, colleague or cause is how we learn what it means to be devout in any of our commitments to someone or something outside of ourselves. We practice on those we can see as the basis for forming our faith in and devotion to what we cannot. Constancy of purpose becomes the measure of our devotion in what I believe to be the pursuit of intimacy in a relationship. We need to be known as well as to know and the quality of being devout is the pathway along which this exchange takes place.

Staying connected with someone – despite divorce rates and the imposition of self-quarantine due to viruses  – is our ideal. Devotion has no obstacles as was once adamantly proclaimed … neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How ironic for me personally to resume my web log messages with a statement about being faithful. I started a few months ago to write a message each week based on a 1905 poem, which became for a time a popular hymn. The original poem, entitled I Would be True, consisted of three stanzas of four lines each. Each line promoted a specific character trait important to a Princeton divinity student by the name of Howard Arnold Walter.

I admired the poem because it seemed out of place in a Christian hymn book. Virtually all of the other compositions were about praise and adoration for an infinite being defined in many ways stemming from his role as the Maker of the Universe. Walter’s poem/hymn was about self and listed the twelve character traits he no doubt felt essential for a follower of Jesus as the reconciler of that Universe to its creator.

I thought it advantageous to write about this list of traits one at a time, keeping me on track with my hope of maintaining some discipline with my intention of writing daily. Twelve topics conveniently provided to me through this poem would take me through three months, establishing a firm habit of committing time and talent (the latter being quite limited) in compliance with that imagined discipline.

My mission failed, however. I have not posted anything since mid-January. That is a lapse of about the same number of weeks as I had faithfully followed through the first eight messages written and posted, most without any obvious clerical errors. Now here I am writing again, but faced with the bigger challenge of sounding credible about the subject of faithfulness.

Perhaps I should begin with the honest statement that I have little of it myself. The evidence at hand attests to that fact. Second, I should also admit that I admire others who possess this trait in the same way I admire people with artistic talents; musical, lyrical and visual.

Walter wrote, I would be faithful through each passing moment. It provides an interesting contrast to consider as faithfulness is portrayed as being steadfast, while the moments are persistently pictured as being transitory. The implication is that circumstances, like the moments, persistently change as well and the quality which best addresses the good and the bad residing in those circumstances are best met with a faithful attitude. The resolve is not to change in character even when circumstances dictate that we change in the malleable aspects of our determination to be. It is an adjustment in our short-term tactics while remaining faithful to our long-term strategic purpose.

In these trying times, keep the faith. These are but our passing moments from which we should aspire to emerge faithful.

I would look up, and laugh, and love and lift

My weekly messages have been following the lead of a 1905 poem written by a Princeton divinity student, Howard Arnold Walter. The one-word title of each message has been based on a character trait specifically mentioned in the lines of Walter’s poem. But this week contains a subtle departure from the routine of the previous seven messages. The title this time is of my own making, since the poem has its own subtle departure from the norm. Instead of identifying a singular trait, Walter listed four actions to define the outward expression of his life; to look up, to laugh, to love and to lift.  

With this lilt of alliteration, we have what I regard to be the unstated virtue of optimism, hence the title. I base my decision on the simple premise that such actions, as the four stated here, require an intentional commitment on our part to first develop a positive attitude. Without this type of heart-felt outlook on life the many disappointments we encounter almost daily will overwhelm us before we even attempt to look up, laugh, love and lift. And while these four things can be done without any hint of sincerity, they lose their true purpose when they lack an honest enthusiasm. For while all can be faked, they will lack the power to generate a collaborative sense of trust between us and the people we seek to influence with our words and works of encouragement.

To look up likely had a double meaning for Walter. Up is the location we conveniently assign to the kingdom of God in the heavenly realms, which bear no relationship to the heavens of our solar system. Looking up for Walter would be to fix his thoughts and aspirations on the source of his optimism. It would also suggest the selfless nature of his purpose by indicating a hope beyond human manipulation. For some this smacks of pie-in-the-sky fortitude, a myth needed to assuage the miseries of life. For others like Walter, it is the process by which we discover the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for.

To laugh is not always an easy thing to do. Hard times can generally make it difficult to avoid sounding dismissive or derisive in our laughter. But our sense of humor need not fail us even then. One of the most pleasing and infectious things we can do is smile. This is not a laugh, but its origin is the same. And it provides a similar tonic with less noise.

To love, especially for someone like a divinity student, means the ultimate in self-denial and sacrifice. It’s most splendid definition was written by the Apostle Paul, who termed it the greatest thing in the world. His soliloquy, written to a small group of faithful in the Greek city of Corinth, is the gold standard by which we can know what it means to love. His list of love’s attributes is like an ethereal string of pearls. Love is patient, kind, truthful, protective, trusting, hopeful, persevering and more. In the Christian belief system embraced by Walter, love never fails.

To lift follows the other three virtuous actions. It is an act of service best performed when we believe in a positive source outside of ourselves, allowing us to laugh in spite of our circumstances and performed with the grace that comes from a self-denying love for others. To lift has the power of improving the physical condition of others at our own expense or to change their outlook by way of a kind, encouraging word. People need someone to help them cope with disappointments, which are pervasive in this life of ours. This relentless encounter with the demons of discouraging circumstances means that there is no end to the challenge of “lifting” the spirits of others, which fortunately has the retroactive process of lifting our own. This level of service can take us beyond the easier challenges of improving physical difficulties to the deeper challenges, when we consider what it takes to lift another’s hopes, dreams and aspirations. The burden is heavy, but the lifting is sorely needed.

Walter was not a strong person physically. He died at a young age due to a weak heart. But this did not prevent him from setting an aggressive emotional regimen for himself. His was a daily habit of looking up, laughing, loving and lifting impelled by a sense of optimism, proved to be an impressive exercise for a person frail of body, but strong of mind and soul. His legacy is intact through his written word, another exercise, though one residing outside the poetic form of his own alliterative devise.  

I would be humble, for I know my weakness

If you are anything like me then the concept of humility, the quality of being humble, has forever been made unctuous by one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens. He achieved this less than stellar feat through the creation of his miscreant character Uriah Heep. In the book and in the many portrayals on film of the Dickens’ classic, David Copperfield, this most loathsome villain feigned humility, while all the while conniving to destroy his gracious employer, Mr. Wickfield, both financially and personally.

Heep’s actions were discovered to be all the more venal as the plot literally thickened (and sickened) through the revelation of his plan to marry Wickfield’s beautiful, pure, devoted and courageous daughter Agnes. Fortunately Dickens’ own sensibilities would not allow this to happen even in a fictional world and Uriah got his comeuppance in the end to the delight and satisfaction of us all. Still, I cannot help but envision a “humble” person as someone who presses their sweaty palms together and contorts their body when speaking like a snake in hot ashes.

If Dickens is not to your taste in wholesome entertainment, then you might still subscribe to the idea that we as a people also confuse humility with humiliation. None of us want to feel the shame of being called out by some pretentious person of self-anointed superiority. So we carefully construct our own persona of thick skinned, tough minded arrogance to prove ourselves invulnerable to the visceral destructive power of humiliation. In fact we are likely to take it to a different level entirely and regard a self-effacing person with contempt. Everyone knows that nice guys finish last and that tough guys don’t self-efface. They don’t eat quiche either, supposedly.

We are now seven weeks into a series of messages based on a poem written in the early 1900s by Howard Arnold Walter. He was a graduate of Princeton University with a divinity degree. His career goal was to be a missionary, but his poem was written while serving as a teacher in a university in Japan. His creation was a Christmas gift for his mother and reads like a son’s vow to live by the virtues learned at home and enhanced by his university education.

I am blatantly making use of his private communications with his mother (you can blame her for outing him by having the poem published) as the means to adhere to my self-inflicted discipline of writing and posting a weekly message. The poem’s twelve lines, each advocating a different character trait, have provided me with a readymade series of subjects on which to pontificate. Humility, or the quality of being humble, is part of this sequence, along which path we have already considered the value of being true, pure, strong, brave, friendly and giving.

Walter’s motive for being humble is unique. It is not based on the external benefit of helping others, like the previous virtues in his list, but on an internal awareness of a singular weakness. His discretion, perhaps, prevented him from naming that weakness or it could be that a more distinctive revelation did not fit into the rhythm of his poetic form. Its appeal to the reader’s imagination, in this case mine, for solving the mystery of the anonymous weakness is that Walter is quite intentional in stating that his need for humility is defined by a single negative trait. And the trait he had in mind was most likely the opposite of humility, which is pride.

It goes before a fall; another cliché we often employ in our explanations of life. It retains this easy reference status because we know it to be true. Our pride leads to our downfall, if only in the form of embarrassment incurred when we obstinately hold to an opinion or task, when the evidence indicates we should yield our grasp on our private reality and accept an alternate course in our thinking. The difficulty is that we hate to be proven wrong, so pride of place wins out and we willingly accept a lesser benefit as long as it is of our own making.

In my professional career I learned to endure a number of proud, influential people. My preference, though, was to work with those who listened before they talked, encouraged ideas to be shared that were not their own, and found a way to graciously defer to others in light of a more compelling idea and line of action. In other words I preferred working with humble people. The results were often favorable and when you are sitting in the executive director’s chair, favorable results are desirable. They tend to put money in the bank, burnish your image as a leader, and create goodwill among those who shared in an organization’s success. In other words, everyone is happy except for the Uriah Heeps of the world.

I agree with Walter that the goal of being humble is desirable. My aversion to the image of Dickens’ vile villain causes me to applaud this particular character trait by other names; modest, unpretentious, respectful and unassuming. I also accept that humility has little value in a world that praises celebrity. But for those who disdain the spotlight and want to pursue the less notorious road of promoting the common good with little personal glory or fanfare, being humble is the gold standard of a well-lived life.