Providing a Pattern

By Bobby Neal Winters

We are now in a time of year when students will begin graduating from school. I am now an old professor. I’ve come a long way personally from the backwoods of Oklahoma to my life here among the shimmering spires of southeast Kansas.  

Life’s been good to me so far.

The question arises: Have I learned anything?

I mean, not from a book, but from life.

What advice would I give to a younger self?  What would I tell my kids and grandkids if they actually listened to me?

I’ve made lists before. Longish lists.  Tongue firmly in cheek for the most part.  But more seriously, I have one thing I would like to suggest.

Take up a discipline.

I don’t mean a career.  I mean take up a practice that you do on a regular basis--every day, every week--and keep at it.

Take it seriously.  By this, I mean to keep at it.

It doesn’t have to be something that is hard.  In fact, if it is too hard you won’t keep it up.  It is better to start with something that is easy.

Like going to church.

You get up in the morning; you put on some nice clothes; you go and sit for an hour; you come home.

Easy.

Even if you don’t believe in God; even if you don’t listen to the music; even if you don’t listen to the scripture being read; even if you don’t pray; the discipline of this will organize your week.  It will mark your time.

And, while I am at it, another discipline you can practice is prayer.

Set a time every day and pray.  Again, you don’t even have to believe in God.  Think about the people in your life and think about the good things you would like to happen to them. 

It doesn’t cost a dime. No one has to know about it: it’s better if they don’t. In particular, pray for the people who annoy you. Every day, as a discipline.

Or you could exercise.  This might be the best entry point to the practice of a disciple for young people. Daily exercise.

You know me. I love walking.  Every day that weather permits. Mostly around my neighborhood, but lately I’ve been doing an orbit around the Kansas Technology Center. The weather has just been so nice.  At lunchtime, I throw a sandwich down my throat and then I walk to the KTC and back. No dogs and very little traffic to dodge.  If it’s convenient for you, you should try it.

I kind of tipped my hand when I said it was a good entry point for young people because here’s the thing: Once you’ve instituted one discipline, it is easier to institute another.

If you go to church every week, you can piggyback something else on that: calling your mother; calling a sick friend; mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbor.

If you pray every day, you can tack on reading a chapter from the Bible or the Koran or Ayn Rand (shudder).

Once you learn to institute a discipline, you can try out different things.  Learn a language? Learn woodworking (be careful!)?  Associate with groups of people who are interested in the same thing.

You can change yourself; you can connect with others.

It’s best to learn this when you are young so that you can benefit from it your whole life.

Here is the tragedy.  I am pretty sure no young person--or at least so few as to be statistically insignificant--ever started a disciple because they were told it would be a good idea.  Those who do do so because they see others doing it.

Those who are interested in sports in school have a leg up, as it were.  But because of structural constraints, there is a bottleneck there.

So this is to you old guys who read my column. If you want a young person who is near and dear to you to take up a discipline, take up one yourself.

Go to church; pray; exercise; read; make sawdust from one by threes.  And try not to be a bore about it. Provide a pattern for the young ones to see and have in their minds.

They might remember it and follow it when you are gone.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )