The Vast Majority of Us Go to Our Graves Without Knowing Who We Are

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         The Vast Majority of Us Go to Our Graves
Without Knowing Who We Are

Friday, January 23, 2015
 

In 1959,  LK Jordan’s grandmother took a pair of scissors and cut the following editorial out of the Atlanta Journal and wrote the words “for Skipper” (LK’s dad had told him he was the “skipper” of the house when his dad left home to serve in the Navy in WWII) at the bottom.   These many years later, LK, and now we, can glean much wisdom from what one woman wanted to pass on to her grandson.  (Please note, in particular, the difference between “whistle stops” and “destination”)  

THE PLAN IS SIMPLE BUT IT IS WORKABLE
Pierce Harris, Atlanta Journal, March 6, 1959

Young people, just reaching out after life, are much more anxious to lay hold of the right things than many of us more mature people give them credit for being. 

A recent piece about rules for living keeps bringing in results. Several young people have come around to talk. One especially impresses me. He has a potential that might well project him into a field of life where his usefulness would mean much to many.

Right now, he is confused.  "You used a phrase some time back that fits me like a glove" he said with a smile.  "You said sometimes a man will have a lost feeling — like a dog at a country fair."

I remember that phrase but not in the connection in which he used it.  "That's me," he said.  "I'm in college, in fact will be soon graduating, but there are times when I feel just that." Then he asked for a formula that would give him assurance that his life would mean something — to himself and to others.

I gave him one that someone gave me long years ago. It did me good and I thought it might help him.  I will pass it along because it might even help others.

1.  "The good Lord has a place for you in the scheme of things." That very thought, if
accepted and acted upon, will make a man stand up to life.  "I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs." It encourages one to feel that he is not left out, but that in the plan of life there is a special part for him.

2.  “You can find that place.” The first puzzle question is "How?" Study the Scriptures.
Read biography. Dig into the lives of people who have "arrived" and you will see that it was mainly by knowing what were whistle stops and what were real destinations.

I say with assurance that a man can find his place and know for sure that it is his real place. I look back and see the whistle stops I once thought were the destinations. Baseball once looked to me like a destination. Then being an engineer on a train.  I even once thought I would like to be a clown in a circus. At the moment, they all looked like destinations. Now I know they were just whistle stops. Just don't get off the train before you arrive.

3.   When you have found your place, don't grumble because it is small, if it is small.
Discharge every duty as though there depended on your faithfulness the destiny of all humanity. Maybe you will never arrive at a large place as the world judges largeness.

Who can tell what a big place is? Impossible, just as you cannot tell who the "big preachers" are. Anyone who has a place, even a small place, and does his work in a big way, is a great person.  You should read  Kiplinger about "When earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are all twisted and dried . . . . " His  greatest line is "Each for the joy of working, and each in his separate star, shall paint the thing as he sees it — for the God of things as they are.”

Just remember these three simple facts. There is a place for me. If I try hard enough, I can find my place. And finally, if I will fill that place to the best of my ability, life will smile upon me and reward me for my work.

by Pierce Harris, marked for "Skipper" by his Grandmother Jordan

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