Dear Paul –
Happy 23rd Birthday, Third-Born Son! Mom and I love you.
Well, for a few months at least you’re living in a tony section of our nation’s capital, mixing with the intellectual elite, as often as not bedecked in a suit and tie…hey, wasn’t it yesterday that I saw you behind the counter in the Costco food court, having just arrived on bike from your Einstein Bagel’s shift?
So, Paul: for the time being, you’ve joined paths with that Impostor called Triumph. How will you stay humble as you go? May I offer some direction?
Talk weekly with your mom and let her offer up any lectures or scolds as she wills. Your mom is practical and grounded and honest – – so consider weekly phone calls with mom to the end of her days good medicine (and bonus, she’ll appreciate it too!).
In the same vein, monthly phone calls to Grandma.
Value clarity and frankness above other presentations of learnedness. Work hard at speaking things that are accessible to the well-meaning common man. As I’ve told you before, more E.B. White, Joseph Epstein, Charles Krauthammer, Marcus Aurelius…. Less Henry James. Being exposed to lofty and complex ideas is nothing to being able to render them plainly. And after the effort it takes to do just that, you’re tired, too tired to be proud. As part of this point, lose the deployment of ‘like” in any phrase. (You’re at the desperate spot where you should totally banish like; shouldn’t even use like as a verb.)
Be with the church and associate with the humble therein. One reason the church is great is that all kinds of rich people and all kinds of poor people meet together before their Creator. Singing beside, listening to the authoritative word beside, making plans to enter each other’s [majestic] [scruffy] life. In the church, the categories of status and success are questioned and confused, and, if done properly, you leave large and small gatherings with no grist for thinking yourself high and mighty. I think I once put this Paul Pastor poem in the family group chat:
For V. the Bag Lady, Great in the Kingdom of Heaven
You’d have to smell the potluck food she brought.
It likely turned. The lukewarm food bank cheese,
or last month’s beef gleaned from behind the store
would knock you back. Nobody said a word.
She moved in floral mumus like a queen.
She had no teeth. She’d squeak in from the rain
to shed her mildewed layers by her pew,
and make hot chocolate in cheap styrofoam.
Years later, I was hard up out at school.
Two jobs, bill due, and eight bucks in the bank.
Somehow, she heard. Her father had just died.
Left her ten grand. And she gave half to me.
I still can see her lift her hands to sing.
In them, I watched her lifting everything.
Regularly push yourself physically. I’m thinking of cardi-vascular exertion or hours of manual labor. There’s something about strenuous bodily exercise – the pain, spending time on the brink of exhaustion, experiencing weakness, being forced to rue poor diet choices – all this is good humbling impetus.
Appreciate .3 of compliments for 1.2 minutes and then leave them behind to never return. I went through a period in college deluged in compliments and even others’ prognostications of my someday greatness. Well, having had a front row seat to the life of Colin D Landry in the 30 years since, I’m ready to pronounce all those verbal bouquets as B.S. Here’s the thing, Paul. People are suckers for charisma and loquacity and wittiness, and you have those in spades. But part of your cleverness is, of course! realizing that these are superficial qualities, relatively unimportant. Also, we live in a flattering society…in fact, people can hardly imagine how one could be decent apart from a habit of people pleasing. Well, dang – don’t let them those flatterers put a net around your feet! All to say that when people are saying nice things to you: believe just a little of it, roll that little around your mind a couple of times and MOVE ON.
Don’t watch yourself, be fascinated with yourself. This hardly needs much explanation. Remember C.S. Lewis’ great observation that the humble man is not marked by self-deprecation but by the absence of self. That “C” in your middle name – Clovis was awesome at being awesome without knowing he was awesome. You remember the reference on his gravestone: “I must decrease; HE must increase.” On your birthday is the proverb: Let others praise you and not your own lips. [But then, see point above.]
Invest prayers and offerings (above your tithe) into church planting/ evangelization at home and abroad. To get your mind off yourself you’ll need to find somewhere significant to land it and some reliable force to take it there. As for the latter problem: where your money is there will your heart be. As for significance: the advancement of the Gospel has been the most important thing happening in the world for 2000 years, the Gospel the main course of the feast set by Lady Wisdom.
Get around serious people who are getting things done (and inevitably facing tall obstacles). The point I’m trying to make here is to make friends with doers rather than mere talkers and readers and consumers. Keep your eyebrows cocked around the jokesters, around the sneerers, around the podcasters. Look for certain people: Who is starting a business? Who’s getting married? Who’s making a kid with his wife? Who’s renovating a property? Who’smak[ing] one heap of all [his] winnings/ And risk[ing] it on one turn of pitch-and-toss? Who’s entering the mission field? Who’s gritting his teeth and refusing to quit? Who’s enduring many days of tedium – work, more work, sleep, work, more work, sleep – because he takes the long view?
Memorize Scripture through meditation. Not much more to say here. “How shall a young man keep his way pure?” The fear of Jehovah cleans up pride grime.
Keep your eyes open for that woman who enjoys your cleverness but is the farthest thing from being in awe of it. Who takes you with a grain of salt. (And who is organized!)
Stay humble, Son!
Love, Dad
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