From The Storyteller
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Hello All: This month's smile is personal, and I hope each of you can relate also. So grab on to your rope and smile. Blessings. Doug
Rope Unlike many, Joe considered OSHA to be his friend. Businesses sought him out because OSHA requires safety lifelines on pipes and towers hundreds of feet in the air, and Joe was one of the few who did that kind of work. His job required him to know both what OSHA required and how to properly install it. His only safety gear during those initial installations - a harness tethered to a beam. Yes, wearing the harness was required, but the thing Joe felt kept him safe was simply being naturally surefooted, and a two-foot length of rope. Joe held that rope in one hand every time he stepped out on one of those “pipes” hundreds of feet in the air. He said that holding that rope gave him confidence that his surefootedness would be there to help him finish the job safely. Joe’s explanation started me thinking about what I'm now calling my “confidence ropes”. My first thoughts quickly focused on two possible “confidence ropes”. The first, from my younger years, was rooted in physical “abilities”. The second grew as I aged and achieved some recognizable “status” in the communities in which I lived, first as a lawyer, and then as an ordained United Methodist minister. Naturally writing this story got me thinking more deeply about what it means to be surefooted, and what my real “confidence rope” is. I realized it was not rooted in my “abilities” nor my “status”. My "confidence rope", the one I've been holding on to all my life, is knowing I am loved for who I truly am, mess-ups and all. I can smile without being able to explain how I know I’m loved, or who is doing this loving. While I “think” I know the answers to those questions, I confess the complete answers really are above my pay grade. So for now I simply smile because - knowing is enough. Moral: Knowing and thinking are different. |