Never give up

May 12, 2013

While working at Eastern Arizona College I had the privilege of setting up and teaching Cooperative Education classes at San Carlos, Arizona and being associated with many fine people in and around the Apache Reservation. Udel Brown was a wonderful example of strength and courage. He was a member of the tribal council and responsible for interaction with individuals from the college as programs were established. One day I was discouraged because things were not going exactly as I had wished. He understood exactly what was going on without me saying a word. He told me to come with him to his office where he shared this analogy. He said, here in San Carlos, we look at things this way. You desire to have a class, or a project, or whatever. You plan on a certain date, plan on zero to one people showing up, plan on having problems getting in the room you have reserved, plan on having the books and materials delayed indefinitely, and the teacher not showing up. Then, when you arrive on the designated day, you have access to your room, the teacher is only fifteen minutes late, and you have one student, with no class materials, you determine the experience to be a great success.

Udel gave me a card titled the end of the trail. It was the size of a double business folded in half. In the center it read, “When dreams die there is no more.” Yesterday, I visited with my sister, Aunt Lynda. We shared a lovely visit in which she shared with me her thoughts about always having several computer screens in front of her, each with a different gift she had to share with people. She said that all her screens are blank now and that she has no idea how to get back to her dreams and life. Because I have shared so many of these dreams with her over the last fifty years, I know much of her thinking and will share some of her “screens” and mine with in an attempt to help me (and perhaps anyone else who struggles with their life plan) focus on what God plans for me in the coming years.

Each of her “screens” showed an altruistic goal, aimed at blessing the lives of others. Many times these goals, or the attempt to implement them, were taken as harmful by others. No guilt on anyone’s part; simply a fact. Rule number one, we can only initiate assistance to those in our circle with their permission. Rule number two; we cannot force others to listen, to read, to adhere, and to understand what we are sharing. Anything we give must be given in love and with the caveat that there are no strings attached.

Some of the things Lynda and I have dreamed over the years are embodied in the following:

·         Writing about our experiences.

·         Learning what makes us do and say the things we do and say.

·         Establishing teaching pedagogies that relate to the divergent ways in which people learn

·         Developing network of individuals with common interests such as home schooling, understanding our Savior, Jesus Christ, assisting the hungry, the needy, those who have a sire to reestablish their lives after incarceration, death of loved ones, or other trials of faith.

·         Establish compelling means of helping people generate self sufficiency through gardening, planting and growing fruit trees, overcoming financial tragedies, challenging and overcoming addictions, and many others.

Most of us are engaged in moving the mountains which clog our paths to achieving spiritual and temporal goals. Sometimes these obstacles seem insurmountable and we want to just give up and hibernate with the bears. You have all seen the poster with a stork attempting to swallow a frog. The frog is about half way down the stork’s neck but he has his hands firmly around the stork’s neck and the caption reads, “never give up.

May God bless us all as we strive to live our lives under his grace and ever watchful care.

Duane Jacobs, Father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin, and fond friend