Reflection #28 (Only 1048 to go!): On Giving Thanks

    Give thanks for what you have. If I were a different person, I might stop right there and close the blog, but being me, I proceed.
    On Thanksgiving, I gave each of my kids a wooden sign that said, "Be thankful". As I reflected on the complexity of that simple statement, I realized that our ability to do so is deeply interwoven with all that we are...our family, our friends and what standard we use to measure our blessings.
    Being thankful is really a choice that we can make or not make. A few years ago, I read a quote whose author, regrettably, I can’t recall. It read, “True wealth is not determined by how much we have, but by how little we need.”  We’ve all heard of the artist who, having been born without arms, learned to paint by holding the brush with his/her toes. When I was a youngster, a popular dancer on TV variety shows (the precursor to “American Idol” and “Dancing With The Stars”) was a man named “Peg-leg Bates”, for obvious reasons. I suspect that most of us would find such infirmities limiting; I know that I would.

    Also intertwined with the level of gratitude we feel in our life is how we determine whether our life has been “ successful”. This, I’m sure, is more likely to be done by old-timers like me.
    In my case, I'm inclined to be introspective, and retirement, along with my chosen activity...wood-scrolling, has given me the time to reflect.  One result has been to formulate an overly simplified view of success. Actually, I have concluded that "success" itself is a hypothetical construct*. (*Look it up)
    When I was a young man, “success” was defined by whether my group of 16-year-old athletes could put a ball in the basket more often than some other fellows group could. (Frankly, in retrospect that seems rather silly.)
    One of Frank Raispis’ favorite sayings is, “You pays your dime, and you takes your chances.” That’s Frank’s version of, “It (Life) is what it is”.
    A year or so ago, I saw an alum who had retired from an executive position in a corporation to work for the Chicago Food Depository. He saw that as being more important than simply accruing more wealth.
    More recently, Bob Gabric said that he isn't concerned about being acknowledged for his efforts as a coach and teacher because he wasn't doing it for the appreciation he might receive. He did it because that's what he chose to do with his life.
    All three of those men have lead very successful their lives. They do not measure their success by their wealth or the perceived success of others. They’re not in competition with anyone else; only themselves.
    Granted, being a better teacher, businessman or coach may have given them a measuring stick to determine their progress, but that was just a tool, not a goal.
    By the way, THANK YOU!

Reflection #27 (Only 1049 to go!): Short Story Made Long

Preface: This is the story of why Saint Ignatius' mascot is the wolf.
Parts 1 and 2 have absolutely nothing to do with mascots or wolves.

Part 1: My "bucket list"...sort of.
    While I have always loved teaching, there were things that I wished that I’d have time for...but didn't; e.g., playing the trombone, practicing tap dancing, reading all the "classics", and so on. I've often mused about the possibility that there may be people who might have been the world's best at some activity, if they had been exposed to it. Perhaps the world's greatest baseball player might have been born in the outback of Australia, but never had the chance to play...whatever.
    Might I have had some latent talent that would surface if I had the time to pursue it? It turns out, NO!
Of all of the grand schemes and aspirations that I envisioned, the only one that I stayed with was scroll sawing; i.e., cutting images of things or words out of thin pieces of wood to make objet d’art .    Having seen what some people are capable of, I'm pretty sure that I'm not only NOT the world's greatest scroll-sawer. I'm pretty sure that I'm not even in the top 50%, but I do love it. On some level, I think that I have the soul of an artist. (Disclaimer: Having the “soul of an artist” is not the same as having the “talent of an artist“.)
Part 2: Ornaments
    When I practiced my new-found hobby to make some Christmas ornaments for members of the Development Staff a few years ago, John Chandler asked me if I would make 100 for a subset (math-speak) of the Ignatius community. So each of the last 5 years, I’ve made Christmas ornaments for the school. This year's ornament is of a wolf gazing up at the star that announced Jesus' birth. Along with the ornament, I’ve included an explanation of the significance of the "wolf" to Ignatius.

Part 3: Finally...the answer to the Ignatius Wolf question
    On the crest of the Jesuits, there is the image of two wolves standing on either side of a kettle. The name "Loyola", as in Saint Ignatius of Loyola, is derived from a contraction of the Spanish words for "wolf" and "pot": "lobo y olla". The official explanation for their presence is that wolf stands for "nobility" and pot represents "generosity".
    Very early in my career, I heard that there is a "story behind the story". Why those symbols? Ignatius was raised in the Basque region of north-eastern Spain, which was primarily a sheep-raising area. The story goes that when wolves would come around and threaten the sheep, the shepherds would boil the innards of dead sheep. Since the smell of boiling sheep would be stronger and more alluring than the live sheep, it drew the wolves away from the flock. Somehow, that doesn’t make the wolves seem all that noble, but who am I to judge.
    There is also a version that says when the wolves went to the kettle, the shepherds would “smite” them with clubs. Personally, I doubt that version...but, hey, that’s me.