Ending up where everybody knows your name

 Growing up, I wanted to be somebody.

As the joke goes, maybe I should have been a little more specific.

But you know what I mean; I wanted to do something important, be somebody important, be significant in a way that people would remember me for generations (if not longer).

Part of it was, sure, I wanted to be famous. I wanted people I didn't know to know who I am. I wanted people I didn't know to talk about me the way I talked about people that I knew were famous. I wanted to walk into a place have people whisper to each other, "Do you know who that is?" while I was too cool to notice, trying to act like a "regular guy" even while the maître d fawned over me, the waiters and waitresses made sure I had everything I wanted, the chef came out to offer me his not-listed-on-the-menu-but-he'd-make-if-for-me special.

But I didn't entirely want to be famous just for the sake of being famous (like a teenager I saw on an episode of Dr. Phil who said her goal was to "be famous,'' but when asked how she had no idea - she just wanted to be famous). I actually wanted to do something to deserve being famous. Even when I was going through my dreams of being an NFL quarterback or an NBA power forward or a major league baseball relief pitcher, at the end of that I still wanted to be a writer who would write books that would be in libraries and become required reading for future generations.

I was always enamored with the written word. I remember when my brother, David, taught me how to write my name, I held that piece of paper dearly, believing that - like Steve Martin's character in "The Jerk" when the phone books came out - once your name was in print, who knows who might see it and what opportunities might come your way?

To be honest, I have experienced a rather curious form of underserved fame. I apparently look like some vague character actor, and it really gives people fits. Particularly, it seems, Black people or college kids of a certain age who like certain Syfy or horror films. I can't tell you how many people who come up to me and say, "I know who you are!" They can't think of who they think I am but are convinced I'm an actor. One time I had a college student valet at a hotel in Greenville, S.C., who was so excited to park my car because he "loves my movies." (Although, in retrospect, maybe he does that all the time, hoping to get a bigger tip).

One time, years ago, we were at a Sheila E concert (which means mostly old people who remember the 1980s-90s) in Birmingham and a guy walked by me and said, "I know who you are. I'm a movie buff; I've seen all your films." I tried to tell him he was mistaken, but he refused to believe me. During the intermission, he came over to shake my hand and ask if he could have his picture made with me.

Another time, several years ago, my wife and I were vacationing in Antigua at a small, out-of-the-way all-inclusive resorts, and this guy comes up to me as we're walking to dinner one night and said, "I know who you are. I won't say anything, because I know you're trying to not be noticed. But I love your work." And, again, even as I try to tell him he's wrong, he refused to believe it. He kept saying he would respect my privacy but wanted me to know that he knew.

A woman at the drive-thru window at my local McDonalds wouldn't give me my debit card back until I told her who I was. I told her I wasn't who she thought I was, that she could look at the name on my card and see, but she refused to believe me.

As I said, this goes on frequently, at the most unexpected times. A security guy working a jewelry store in the Grand Caymans was so certain he followed me all over the store, but just couldn't think of “my” name. Finally, as we were walking out, I leaned close to him and whispered, "Go home and look at the Bruce Willis movie, "The Fifth Element." He got so excited, saying, "I knew it! I knew it!" (There is a character in that movie that I admit I do look like; I've even used a still shot as my picture on my Facebook page). I didn't say I was in the movie, I just told him to go watch it. Whatever conclusion he may draw is his own fault.

Now, the funny part is that people can't think of the name of the actor that they think I look like. The nice lady in the deli at the local grocery store went through the whole thing with me, and I said, "I know. I look like Brad Pitt." She, of course, said, "No, not Brad Pitt .." to which I always act hurt and say, "Just once, can't someone say I look like Brad Pitt?" For a long time after, when I’d go in she’d see me and call me "Mr. Pitt!" My youngest son went in with me one time, and she said, "Look - it's Brad Pitt junior!"

Being mistaken for someone famous - while fun - is not the same as actually being somebody famous.

However, the older I get, the more I realize in today's celebrity-driven culture where everyone, as Andy Warhol once said "will be world-famous for 15 minutes," it takes courage to be willing to be obscure and ordinary.

That sounds funny, of course. No one says to their kid, "You can grow up to be ordinary!" And I'm not saying we should strive to be ordinary. But I do think it's too easy to feel I am worthless because I'm not exceptional - and of course, by definition, everyone can't be exceptional. As a friend of mine likes to say, "50 percent of everyone you meet is below average." (I was afraid to ask him which side of that ledger he thought I was on.)

I have come to realize that an awful lot of really important work, work that matters and has a lasting impact, is done in obscurity. The Apostle Paul said as much in when he told his young protégé, Timothy, "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs...."

I'm sure even as Timothy heard that, he may have thought, "Sure, but you're Paul! I want to be like you!" - not realizing, perhaps, that being "like Paul" might mean suffering shipwrecks, beatings, jailing, and all sorts of assaults that no one in their right mind would ask for.

While even the Bible has these stories of these great men of faith, there are all kinds of people who are just mentioned, briefly, almost in passing. I think of Joshua's partner, Caleb. Or the relatively unknown Barnabas of the New Testament that, while we've created a whole idea of who he was and what we think we did, we don't really know for sure. Remember that (for a time) famous book about the "Prayer of Jabez?" What do we know about Jabez, other than those few words? What is there to know about Jabez other than these 50 or so words that appear in the midst of 1 Chronicles. Timothy, Titus, Luke, Silas, Tychicus, John Mark – they are names in the New Testament that carried a lot of weight with Paul, but to most of us they are just "the other guys," guys not named Paul or John or Peter.

There are people all around us who are "in the trenches,'' so to speak, the ones who follow the well-known, the leaders, and faithfully do the work.

I know it is human nature to rebel against obscurity. We have that innate desire to be known.

In today's world, I think it takes courage to be willing to be over-looked, to work in obscurity, to find satisfaction in knowing you're doing your best (or at least trying to) and knowing that you are performing not for the recognition of those around you but for that audience of One.

"If I could,'' author Emily Bronte once said, "I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results."

The point is that while we may think we toil in obscurity, we don't. God knows us. I know this from the end of Hebrews 11, that famous chapter referred to as the "Hall of Faith." After a list of well-known names and stories, it says, "Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy." (Hebrews 11:35–38)

We are all well-known in heaven. Let us live with both the knowledge and responsibility of that fact.

It may not get you the best seat at your favorite restaurant.

But it’s nice to know we’ll end up in a place where the one person that matters knows your name.

Getting Together (face-to-face, not screen-to-screen)

 The message Sunday was on Worship.

It was a good reminder of what worship is and perhaps what it should look like, that it’s more than just Sunday morning, or just being in church.

But something that my pastor said got me thinking.

He pointed out how easy it is not to go to church yet still fulfill the elements of what most of us think as worship. We can scroll through our phones to find a preacher we want to hear. We can scroll through sermon topics to find one we think we’d be interested in. If we want to hear worship music (unfortunately often one of the most contentious issues in a lot of churches), we can pick the musicians we want to hear and, like with sermons, pick out the songs we’d like to listen to.

In other words, we can tailor our ‘worship’ experience suit what we’re in the mood for, or what we think we need to hear, or what seems to strike us as interesting or timely or maybe addresses an issue we’re currently facing.

To what we want.

But maybe not what God wants us to hear, or see, or experience.

Doing those things – listening to your choice of messages, music, whatever – are not in and of themselves bad. And certainly, it can be “worship.”

But it’s not all of it. Hebrews 10:25 says, in part, we are to “not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…” Or the way some of us learned it in the King James, “Forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is...”

Why? What’s wrong with going off on a hillside by myself to listen to praise music or the audio of a sermon? There are fewer distractions, and I can be surrounded by nature, where Paul says in Romans that “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen …”

Again, those are valuable tools in the worship toolbox (if there is such a thing).

But it isn’t enough.

There are practical reasons to “assemble together,’’ as Paul would say, not the least of which is the rest of that verse in Hebrews, which says we should meet together, “encouraging one another…”

We’re not meant live in isolation. Some of us do it better than others, and certainly there are times when almost all of us want to get away, to be by ourselves, to leave distraction behind.

But God said it in Genesis, that it’s not good for man to be alone. Indeed, being around people tends to energize us. There’s power in a group of people comping together, participating in the same thing together.

Think of a sporting event, where thousands of otherwise strangers will stand shoulder to shoulder, celebrating the same successes (assuming they are fans of the same team) or crying over the same failures. They’ll lift their voices with people they’ve never seen before – in fact with people from across the stadium that they’ll likely never see at all – and join in singing the fight song or some form of what we used to call “Jock Rock,’’ with songs like “Sweet Caroline” or “Living on a Prayer.”

For a few hours, we forget the troubles of our lives and join together in something else. And if the game turns out good, that feeling of euphoria can carry us through the next several days. We don’t have to see those same people we sat next to or behind or sang with from across the stadium every day to remember the feeling. We just look forward to getting together and doing it again.

It’s almost an act of worship.

I go to a church of several thousand people. I don’t know all of them. While I feel confident most of us are alike – after all, we live in the same community, we’re almost all the same race, we share a basic concept of faith – I know there are differences, too.

But I don’t need to know them all to know that, when something happens, they’ll be there for me and I, hopefully, for them.

Because they have been. We’ve been through a lot as a church. We’ve been through births and deaths and disabilities and marriage and divorce and hospital waiting rooms and funeral home receiving lines and delivered meals and mowed lawns and rehabbed houses in neighborhoods devastated by disaster and dug wells for clean water in areas that didn’t have it and brought medical care to people who didn’t have access to doctors and … well, we’ve shared life.

As the hymn says, “through many dangers, toils and snares” we have already come.

Preacher and author Alistair Begg said it this way in a sermon transcript I was reading the other day:

“And you know what one of the most encouraging things is for me? It’s simply this: that since we’ve been in this building—since ’95, was it?—we came in this building and we said to one another, “You know, this’ll never really feel like anything in here at all until we’ve laughed together and till we’ve cried together.” And it’s starting to have a feel now to me. Not because of stuff that we have in it, because we don’t have any stuff in it. And that’s purposeful. ’Cause we don’t want to look at stuff, we want to look at the Word of God, and then we want to look at one another. And in seeing one another enduring the difficulties, in running to one another in the experience of loss, in receiving from one another the enjoyment of restoration, we’re discovering that our hearts are being molded together in the bonds of the gospel, and that God is doing a quite wonderful thing. Oh, we’re not perfect, we’re not even close, we’ll never be till heaven; but nevertheless, we’ve come “through many dangers, toils, and snares,” and the wonderful thing is that we’re all still here. At least I’m glad about it, and I think perhaps one of two of you are also. ….”

We live in a world where we can connect with almost anybody, anywhere in the world. Yet the more we’re connected, the more it seems we become increasingly disconnected. We find ourselves beginning to withdraw from real-world interactions. How ironic that in a time when the world is connected as never before, too many of us are feeling a real sense of isolation.

Ultimately, it’s real relationships with real people, people with skin on their faces rather than images on a screen, that can give you a sense of security, a place in this crazy world. You might make friends that, even if you disagree with them on some pretty major issues, will still be there for you – or you for them – when something goes wrong.

And its’s a lot more fun to celebrate when things go right with people who can celebrate with you, because they know you. You have shared what it took to get where you are.

Forsake not the gathering of yourselves together.

It’s an act of worship.

Know Thyself (but don't get carried away)

 Know thyself

Self-discovery. Self-esteem. Self-fulfillment. Self-expression. Self-knowledge.

Library shelves – if not entire libraries – are filled with books helping us as individuals to learn more about ourselves, discover ourselves, look inside ourselves to feel better about ourselves.

And a certain amount of self-awareness and introspection is healthy.

But I fear there is a huge difference between a ‘certain’ amount and the amount of introspection that many of us engage in, that our cultural know-it-alls tell us we need to do in order to be emotionally healthy and well-adjusted.

Simply sign on to Facebook to see how many “selfies” – pictures we take of ourselves – are posted. I was on a flight recently with a women’s college athletic team. The young lady across the aisle spent the entire two-hour flight scanning pictures on her phone – of herself. She zoomed in, cropped, turned, and did all the things we can do on our phones to see ourselves. I saw an article recently that said 30 percent of pictures taken by young people age 18-24 are “selfies.” In fact, “selfie” was the ‘word of the year’ recently, indicating how important and used that word became in today’s world. The very word reeks of narcissism.

For all our self-absorption and focus on ourselves, we seem to be chronically unhappy. Study after study says so. In a 2019 article published by the American Psychological Association, the percentage of young Americans experiencing certain types of mental health disorders has risen significantly over the past decade, with no corresponding increase in older adults. In 2022 Gallup published a book entitled “Blind Spot: The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed It.”

Most Christians are familiar with the verse where Jesus said he can sum up the law and the prophets in a couple of sentences: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Unfortunately, the words from that verse that seem to stick with us are “buzz buzz buzz love noise noise noise yourself!”

I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t love ourselves. What I am saying is that loving ourselves is pretty easy. Even those of us who are not happy with the way we are seem pretty consumed with our own misery and insecurities and how we don’t think we match up to whatever the “ideal” is. We can be consumed with both how great we think we are as well as how lacking we think we are, and both are indications of an over-absorption with self.

That verse just quoted above is what we usually call “the Greatest Commandment” (followed by “a second that is like the first”) and it says nothing about loving ourselves.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. There is a real value in a certain amount of self-study. Scripture acknowledges this: we’re told to examine ourselves in 2 Corinthians 13:5; examine our ways in Lamentations 3:40; keep a close watch on ourselves in 1 Timothy 4:16; keep our hearts with all vigilance in Proverbs 4:23; look carefully at how we live in Ephesians 5:15, and to not think more highly of ourselves than we should in Romans 12:3. These commands require us to do some soul-searching and looking inside ourselves.

But not to the extent society says we should. Today, everything is about “how I feel” and “respecting my feelings” and “being real” (whatever that means). There is an entire psychological teaching called “SEL,” which stands for social-emotional learning, which is often used in our schools to teach kids about personal reflections, teaching them “self-awareness,” “social awareness,” “relationship skills,” “self-management,” and “responsible decision-making.”

That all sounds good. But if all this “self-awareness” is supposed to help us feel better about ourselves, why isn’t it working?

It seems to me (and other studies I have looked at) that this type of extreme over-kill of self-study reinforces our own natural self-centeredness and self-absorption, which I believe is the crux of original sin.

This may go against common theology, which puts “pride” as the gravest of all sins, because it leads to all the rest. But what is pride, if not excessive self-awareness?

There is an eight-verse transition in the book of Genesis that I’ve always thought was fascinating. In the last verse of chapter 2, it says “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Then in chapter 3 verse 7 it says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” In other words, they became ashamed.

What happened? Oh, I know Eve was deceived by the serpent and ate of the forbidden fruit, and then Adam went along with her. But how did they go from naked and no shame to naked and ashamed?

No one told Adam and Eve they were naked. No one told them to be ashamed. But with one simple act of “self” they suddenly became aware of their own nakedness, their own faults and flaws, and became ashamed.

Maybe – and this is just me spit balling here – but maybe original sin was self-awareness, thinking of yourself rather than God. I don’t think Adam or Eve had ever seriously done that, at least not thought of themselves as individuals apart from God.

And when they discovered they could do something on their own, without God, that changed the dynamics of everything.

I always wondered, did they ask God for forgiveness? I don’t see it anywhere in the story. I doubt they even knew the concept of forgiveness because it had never been part of their consciousness before. They’d never done anything that required forgiveness. They had never done anything to offend God. They may have never even realized forgiveness might have been possible.

(But God did. And in doing so set in motion the act of ultimate forgiveness that millions of us depend on for our eternal destiny.)

If Adam and Eve were how we were created to live, then perhaps the most important things we can learn about ourselves is the lesson in the Great Commandment: love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for focusing on self.

The second part of that verse – love your neighbor as yourself – helps us, I believe, to find our true worth.

Maybe I’m wrong, but if you are confident and happy with yourself, then love others with the same confidence in and happiness for them. See them as you see yourself – and encourage them to be confident and happy. Don’t make your self-confidence based on how you compare to other people (thinking more of yourself than of others); see others as being just as capable and worthy as you see yourself. Celebrate them like you would yourself.

If you have what we call a “poor self-image,’’ meaning you think of yourself as lacking and worthless and unlovable, and you want to overcome that, then start by treating other people the way you wish you could treat yourself, the way you’d like to see yourself. Look at them as if they believe they are lacking and worthless and unlovable, and help them get over that by encouraging them, telling them how wrong they are, reminding them of what they have and how worthy they are and how much you love them. I can be around people who tell me how much they believe in me all day, and no matter how I feel about myself I always walk away wondering if they might not be right!

In turn, you just might find yourself. Psychologists or psychiatrists or whoever it is that studies people always point out that the people who are involved in other people’s lives tend to be happier and better adjusted. Maybe it’s getting involved in a program that feeds and clothes and builds houses for other people; maybe it’s as simple as talking to a stranger and telling them how great you think they are. But it’s been proven over and over again that when you focus on other people and get engaged in causes outside yourself, you end up feeling happier about yourself, better about yourself, and what we call “well adjusted.”

Crazy, isn’t it? The less we focus on ourselves, the more in-focus we seem to become.

The disciple John often referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now, John may have thought of himself as being special in some way – and there are conversations he had with Jesus and the other disciples that could lead you to believe that – but I think John was simply saying what all of us can say; we are all the “people that Jesus loves.”

John, in 1 John, writes “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as he is.”

Looking to Jesus is not only how we learn who Jesus is, and what love is, but also who we are and who we are meant to become.

I can’t learn that by studying myself.

How Did You Die?

 A neighbor recently died. We weren’t good friends. I knew him in a “neighborly” way, meaning if we were both outside, we’d stop and talk, or maybe we’d check on something for the other if it was needed. I’d never been in his house, and he’d never been in mine, but we considered each other friends in the way that most neighbors these days do.

He’d had cancer about a decade ago and had recovered. But in the process, the treatment had weakened some bones in his jaw to the point that, finally, they broke. The doctors did surgery to replace the bone, but – and this I don’t know the exact medical stuff, this is just how I remember it – he’d developed a serious infection that the doctors apparently weren’t able to get under control.

He battled it a long time. Eventually he was so weakened he was put on a feeding tube, lost his ability to talk, was in pain, and finally passed away.

At his funeral, the pastor who knew him and stopped by often to talk to him, told of how this man had passed from anger, not understanding why this happened to him, to eventually hoping he’d handle this situation in a way that honored God and his family. Essentially it seemed he reached a point where he said (and these are my words, not his, but it’s the general idea), “God, I don’t understand. But I love and trust you. Help me to handle this the way You want me to handle it, to show the reality of knowing You.”

What the pastor did tell us was that my neighbors’ last message to him, written on a white board that he used to communicated, was “My life has been worth the suffering.”

I realize this story raises a lot of question about suffering and God’s glory and where were the doctors and so forth, but that’s not my point.

After all was said and done, my neighbor died well. He left behind children and grandchildren that loved him, that were with him at the end. He was preceded in death by a wife that he loved.

And, perhaps most importantly, he was ready to die. Not that he wanted to die. But he was ready for when it happened (as it will to all of us).

As I said before, I grew up on John Wayne movies. They weren’t all John Wayne movies, but similar in style. And often these movies had a character who died in a tragic yet noble way. You were saddened by the death, but at the same time inspired by it. You might even think, “That’s how I’d like to die.” Maybe not in a hail of bullets or whatever it was, but in a way that was noble, that you could be at peace with, that your family, even though heartbroken, would be at peace with.

I don’t mean to be morbid. I mean, I recognize I am in the last decade or so of my life. I don’t know how long I will live – who among us does? – but I recognize I am closer to the end than I ever have been.

As has been said by others, I don’t have a fear of death as much as I worry about actually dying. Who knows what happens in that moment of passing from this life to the next (for I do believe there is a next one)?

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the English historian Williams Mitford is credited with saying, “Men fear death, as if unquestionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good.”

Among the many words I have collected over the years is a poem by a guy named Edward Vance Cooke. He lived at the turn of the 20^th Century, born in the 1800s and died in 1932. It’s one of those things I’d call the “wisdom of the ancients,’’ although usually we think of the “ancients” as those from thousands of years ago, not just a hundred years.

But wisdom is wisdom.

So, I share this poem without further commentary and leave it as Cooke does.

How did you die?

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way

With a resolute heart and cheerful?

Or hide your face from the light of day

With a craven soul and fearful?

Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,

Or a trouble is what you make it.

And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,

But only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?

Come up with a smiling face.

It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,

But to lie there – that’s disgrace.

The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce;

Be proud of your blackened eye!

It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts,

It’s how did you fight – and why?

And though you be done to the death, what then?

If you battled the best you could,

If you played your part in the world of men,

Why, the Critic will call it good.

Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,

And whether he’s slow or spry,

It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,

But only how did you die?

 

 

 

What A Man Should Know

 For the last few months, I have enjoyed reading a column in The Free Press (thefp.com – a site I recommend, for what it’s worth) by Elliot Ackerman called “A Man Should Know.” The idea is that there are things every man should know (as the series title says) and his topics range from things like how to wear a watch, how to wear a tuxedo, how to propose, how to travel, how to form an opinion, how to say thank you – a wide range of subjects that, as a man, our fathers or an uncle or older brother should have taught us (but many didn’t, for a variety of reasons).

You could say these are superficial things, but they are things worth knowing, things not often passed on from fathers to sons.

I supposed most of what I know about being a man came from watching my father, although I can’t say I watched with purpose; neither did he teach intentionally. But a boy can’t help but watch his father, and it’s amazing, as I’ve gotten older, to see how often I see friends who turn out an awful lot like their fathers (and find myself doing exactly what my dad would have done).

It’s not always good. Sometimes we find ourselves repeating mistakes. I know a guy whose father left his family when he was young. He hated his father for that. Yet many years later he was about to do the same thing until, fortunately, he remembered what it did to him as a child. He changed his mind (and heart), and he is happy today with a great family life.

My other role model was probably John Wayne. His movies, anyway. The characters he played. A lot of actors, and characters in books, set the tone for what I wanted to grow up to be like.

Back when magazines were a force in our culture, I subscribed to Esquire Magazine. It had some really good writers and good stories, and there was, for a time, a column on “ethics,” written by Harry Stein. He didn’t preach as much as he just told stories of people who responded to difficult situations in an admirable way. He wasn’t overtly judgmental, but just let people who walked that fine line between right and wrong teach by their actions. I liked it so much, when he published a book that was a collection of his essays – entitled “Ethics and Other Liabilities” – I bought it, and go back to it often.

All of that is to say I’m always interested in help on how to live a better life. I like to hear life advice from older people, because there are things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. So many young men, in particular, are growing up without fathers in their homes, or maybe have fathers whose own fathers weren’t there, so there is a disconnect in teaching or even just being an example of “what a man should know.”

I have books like “Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men,” subtitled “An utterly invigorating guide to being your most masculine self.” Another is “A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines.”

By years, I’m an old man now. But I’m still trying to figure out what a man should know.

You want to talk old men? It’s one of the oldest stories in the Bible.

My friends and family say I am obsessed with the book of Job from the Old Testament. I don’t know if “obsessed” is the right word, but I do find it to be a book that answers so many questions about life for me. People always say it’s a book about suffering, but I find it to be so much more than that. Job, to me, has answers for almost everything.

For example, the story starts by saying “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.”

I have some understanding of fearing God and shunning evil (although I admit I haven’t always done both very well), but what does it mean to be blameless and upright? And shouldn’t a man know how to be “blameless and upright?”

Then I got to chapter 31. There are so many layers to the story of Job, so many themes to explore that I find fascinating (and – spoiler alert – will be writing about), that this particular chapter slipped by me for a long time. It comes toward the end of the book, when Job is defending himself against the accusations of his friends, accusations that seem smart and right but Job knows are wrong.

Anyway, he gets to Chapter 31 (not that Job knew he was in chapter 31), and it hit me: here is Job’s example of what it means to live “blameless and upright.”

He starts out with this:

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman…” Job is way ahead of his time. He lived – or the story was set – in a period well before the giving of the law to Moses. It seems likely that he lived between the time of the great flood and before Moses, possibly around the same time as Abraham.

Given the way we think of those times as being patriarchal, I see Job as almost a feminist. He never fails to mention his daughters, including giving their names at the end of the book when he doesn’t mention the names of his sons. And it makes a point to say his daughters were treated as co-heirs with their brothers, sharing equally in the inheritance.

And step one of Job’s “blameless and upright” life seems to be that he made a covenant not to lust. Eugene Peterson puts it this way in “The Message,” his paraphrase of the Bible: “I made a solemn pact with myself never to undress a girl with my eyes.”

Women have been sexualized and objectified for centuries, and there is no end to the problems this has caused both men and women. Yet here is Job, centuries ago, telling us, “Don’t lust,” way before Jesus said that same thing.

I don’t think Job is saying he doesn’t lust. He had eyes. But what he means, I think, is that he has decided not to dwell upon those lustful feelings. As a somewhat normal, red-blooded male, I can’t always help what I see. Job, I think, is saying “I can’t always help what I see and that first reaction, but I can move on.” Job says he doesn’t have to keep looking, to take looking to another step (undressing with his eyes), which could lead to yet another step, and maybe another … We are creatures that, I believe, have free will; we are free to decide what we will do with what we see. But it takes discipline, a “covenant” with your mind and heart, if you will, to resist.

Then Job goes on to say, “If I have walked with falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit— let God weigh me in honest scales…”

In other words, Job says I don’t lie, and I don’t deceive. That’s about as simple and straightforward as it gets. A University of Wisconsin-La Crosse study said 75 percent of adults tell zero to two lies per day. Another study said adults may lie every two to three minutes in regular conversation. Whatever the number, most of us know lying is wrong, but it comes so naturally to us that it’s easy to say something that isn’t true without even really thinking about it.

The third area Job addresses is saying “If I have denied justice to any of my servants …” He seems to be saying he did not mistreat the people that worked for him. He listened to them, and considered their situations. If they had a complaint, they were free to bring it to him and he would consider it. What a work place that would be!

Later still, Job says “If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless …” The right way to live, according to Job, is to care for the poor, to feed the hungry, provide for the homeless and hungry. I can’t say it any better than Job did when he said, “If I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or the needy without garments, and their hearts did not bless me for warming them with the fleece from my sheep, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint. …”

But that isn’t enough. We know from chapter 1 that Job was one of the wealthiest men of his country. Yet he makes a point here of saying his wealth was not his security; his identity was in his great riches. He says, “If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, ‘You are my security,’ if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained…” then “these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.” To put it in New Testament terms, he stored up his treasure in heaven. His faith and security were in his relationship with God. The rest … well he says it in chapter 1, “Naked I came into this world, and naked I will depart.” Job understood his wealth and prestige and power were all temporary.

Job then goes on to say we shouldn’t celebrate when bad things happen to our enemies, to people we know have done bad things, even if they deserve it. He said, “If I have rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him— I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against their life.”

When people wrong us – and they will – what is our reaction? I hear friends of mine today wishing God would bring severe, Old Testament-style judgement on the people they disagree with, particularly when it comes to politics or cultural issues. You can’t escape this attitude on TV, on social media, in protests, almost everywhere you look. It is only human to want to see justice, at least our version of what we think justice for those people should look like. And it’s so easy these days to be angry.

Research says that anger in the United States is at an all-time high, with many Americans experiencing daily anger due to various social, political, and psychological factors. Approximately 70% of Americans report feeling angry every day, with 31% describing their anger as “really angry”. This marks a significant increase in anger levels compared to two decades ago. And this increase in anger is connected to a rise in social violence and unrest.

But that’s not Job. I once heard it put this way: when we consider people who have done wrong, we should pray “God, bring them into a right relationship to You, and do it as gently as you can.”

“Do it as gently as you can” is not what most of us want. Yet that’s compassion, and love, and humility, and – to be honest, at least in my case – something I can ask for only when my heart has been changed by God.

Job isn’t finished with his description of the blameless and upright life. He goes on to say, “no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler—”

And “if I have concealed my sin as people do, by hiding my guilt in my heart because I so feared the crowd and so dreaded the contempt of the clans that I kept silent and would not go outside—” How many times have we not said something or not done something because we were concerned what people would say or think of us or even say about us? Isn’t this peer pressure? Job is saying don’t be afraid of what other people think; don’t be afraid of doing the right thing even when those in power or the majority are saying something else. Do the right thing.

And that’s where Job ends his defense of himself.

But it’s also what I think defines a blameless and upright life.

Treating women with respect. Always tell the truth. Treat the people that work for you and with you fairly and honestly. Take care of the poor, the widows and orphans. It’s OK to pursue wealth, but don’t make that your security. And use that wealth to take care of people, to feed the hungry and provide shelter for the homeless. Don’t gloat when your enemies fail or fall, and pray for their well-being. Don’t be afraid of what other people will think about you, do the right thing.

Jesus repeats all of those in the New Testament. Read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Jesus talks about lust and adultery, loving one’s neighbor, giving to the poor and social justice, the love of money … all these things that Job lays out hundreds of years before.

Norman Mailer, in “Cannibals and Christians,” said “Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.” The things Job talks about are the small battles most of us face every day. Ordinary things. But it’s the ordinary things, I have found, that are mostly likely to trip us up.

One thing that seems obvious to me.

These things in Job are indeed things “A Man Should Know.”