to what your beloved is thinking and feeling and needing.
A second married woman said “compromise.” Her husband contributed “devotion.” Total commitment to protecting and nurturing the relationship trumps everything else.
The third married man said “mutual-respect.” He hyphenated the word to conform to the game’s one word rule. His wife agreed: “respect.” She said, “We admire each other’s talent, knowledge, creativity, and pursuit of excellence. We are equally yoked in our own little mutual admiration society.”
The young unmarried couple was invited to participate: “Surely you don’t want to just be voyeurs—what do you two value most in your relationship?” She said “support.” They encourage each other and give each other a soft place to fall when life gets messy. He volunteered “awareness.” Pick up on the vibrations, the heart-sounds, of your beloved.
The eight values overlap. Taken as a whole they may give a pretty clear profile of real love—not the feeling of love, or the idea of love, but the dogged practice, day in and day out, of the behaviors that make love last.
March 15
Some of my friends e-mail me stories, corny jokes, or political commentaries that are just not my cup of tea, but I cannot bring myself to tell them to stop so I just grimace and touch the delete button. For some reason I opened one today. I am glad I did. It made me smile and think.
It seems a volunteer greeter who worked in the registration area of a large hospital sometimes showed up ten to fifteen minutes late for his shift. However, when on duty, he greeted everyone with a friendly, bright-eyed, hospitable smile. Everyone agreed he was a tremendous asset. One day the director of volunteers invited Sparky to join her for a cup of coffee. After praising his work ethic and chipper spirit, the manager asked: “I’m just a little curious. About half the time you show up a little late. I know you retired from the military. What did they say to you there when you came in late?”
Sparky answered: “They said, ‘Good morning, Admiral. Can I get your coffee, sir?’”
Some of the people I admire most are the rich and famous who have a servant heart. I think of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, some of the richest people in the world, who now are giving much energy and much of their fortunes to bless the world’s poorest and sickest. I think of Jimmy Carter who for over thirty years after finishing his presidential term has been volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, building houses for people who otherwise could never be homeowners.
Two quotations come to mind, the first from philosopher and Rabbi Abraham Heschel: “When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
The other comes from Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted, and behold, service was joy.”
March 16
A little over a century ago, the National American Woman Suffrage Association held its national convention at Louisville’s Seelbach Hotel. It would be another decade, though, before the Nineteenth Amendment granted all women the right to vote.
Did anyone then foresee that in less than a century more than half the students in many seminaries, medical schools, and law schools would be women? Who foresaw that three United States Supreme Court justices would be women? The “Rules for Teachers” one hundred years ago illustrate how far women have come:
1. You may not marry during the term of your contract.
2. You may not keep company with men.
3. You must be home between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. unless at a school function.
4. You may not loiter downtown in any of the ice cream stores.
5. You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have permission of the chairman of the school board.
6. You may not ride in carriages or automobiles with any man except your father or brother.
7. You may not smoke cigarettes.
8. You may not dress in bright colors.
9. You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
10. You must wear at least two petticoats.
11. Your dresses may not be any shorter than two inches above the ankles.
12. You must sweep the floor once a day, scrub the floor with hot soapy water once a week, clean the blackboards once a day, and start the fire at 7:00 a.m. to have the school warm by 8:00 a.m.65
How much freedom for women is going to be enough? As the grandfather of two little girls, I only want for them what I want for our four grandsons—the freedom to become all they desire and all they have the ability to become.
March 17
When thirty-three Chilean miners were entombed in 2010, one of the first stories leaked about them was a light, funny moment. One miner, not knowing whether he or any of them would survive, created a makeshift blond wig and pretended to be a well-known Chilean philanthropist handing out $10,000 to each miner on the day they all got rescued.66
I thought of what Randall Patrick McMurphy, imprisoned like the miners but in a mental hospital, said in One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest: “I haven’t heard a real laugh since I came through that door. Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing.”
We could call it McMurphy’s law: humor keeps us from losing our footing. Humor, when life gets as dark as a cave or a mine or a mental hospital, helps keep hope alive. If we are serious to a fault, life can get to us, even drive us crazy, especially when the odds are overwhelmingly against us.
Norman Cousins, admitted to the hospital with a potentially terminal diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis, watched Marx Brothers videos and Candid Camera videos as part of his effort to mobilize his salutary emotions. He believed that he could enhance his body chemistry’s healing work. He “made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic affect” and gave him at least two hours of pain-free sleep. Cousins survived his illness. One thing he said he discovered from it was that “hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors.”67
Hope and humor act like a tonic, releasing endorphins, our body’s own pain-reducing, immunity-building substance. Someone said: “You have two legs and one sense of humor. If you’re forced with the choice, it’s better to lose a leg.”
March 18
The number of centenarians in the United States was under forty thousand in 1990. In 2014, more than one hundred thousand of us have lived one hundred years or more.
I enjoyed reading a New York Times article: “Secrets of the Centenarians”68 on how some centenarians answer the question they get asked most: “What is your secret to a long life?”
Mae Anderson, 103, of Great Neck, New York, said:
I think not looking into the past and just living in the present is a very good thing, because picking up certain things from the past—what you should have done or could have done—is not going to help you.
