A Little Help, Please?

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Well, Mr. Saavik, are you going to stay with the sinking ship?” -Admiral Kirk

“Permission to speak candidly, sir.” -Lieutenant Saavik

“…Granted…” -Kirk

“I don’t believe this was a fair test of my command abilities.” – Saavik

“And why not?” -Kirk

“Because, there was no way to win.” – Saavik

“A no win situation is a possibility every commander may face, has that never occurred to you?” -Kirk

“…No sir, it has not.” -Saavik

-Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

My life’s going great. Honestly, it is. I have a good job, good friends, good family… My needs are taken care of and I really have about all of the material wants that I want. I’m healthy, I drive a nice car and live in a nice house in a nice town. I’m spared most of the horrors of the world, including, but not limited to, chronic disease, war, hunger, poor sanitation, oppressive governments and illiteracy.

Yet, I feel powerless. I feel like I’m in a no-win scenario, where no matter what I do or what actions I take, I lose.

You see, right now I have a lot of close friends and family suffering. For one friend and some family members, it is extended unemployment. Being let go is one of the most humiliating things a person can go through. If that isn’t enough, being consistently told “No” interview after interview compounds on the feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. Then you start to run out of money. That makes one wonder if they are going to lose their car, their house, their entire way of life.

I have colleagues who are suffering with drug addiction. No matter how much you try to mentor, reach out, offer encouragement or accountability, they keep denying that they have a problem. You slowly watch them kill themselves, as at first their bodies give way, then their ability to function and then losing their job because they cannot work any longer because their addiction engulfs their life. Then they can’t pay for drugs, so they turn to crime, jail, criminal records and the like.

I have friends who care so much about the people they serve but get paid next to nothing and are dealing with being disrespected and disregarded right now. These are some of the wisest, loving teachers I know, but to the ungrateful students they serve, they are just one more annoying talking head that can be dismissed by the glow of a cell phone screen.

I have a church coming to grips with the reality that some of its most trusted leaders have been violating children and seminarians for a long time. Then there were others who covered for them. Some of my friends are priests. They are being labeled “child molester,” “faggot,” “freak” or any other of a myriad of unfair and unjust labels. These are men who have dedicated their lives to serving their fellow man, only to be piled in to a group of heretics that have committed some of the most gross and grievous of crimes. The church that I am trying to serve, the God I am trying to proclaim is being muted by men who never should have been allowed to roam the streets, let alone wear a collar.

Then there is the church that is unsustainably in debt, wondering how they are going to pay the bills and dealing with buildings in a near-dangerous state of disrepair.

No matter how great my life is going right now, I can’t help them. I can’t make people hire my out-of-work family and friends. I don’t have the money to support those who love students who don’t love them back. I can’t make students love their teachers. I know enough about drug addiction to know that the odds are better that my colleague will be dead before 30 before he turns to find help. 

As far as the predator priests that have irreversibly harmed the most innocent of children? Beyond adding my voice on social media to the millions of others who are just as mad as hell as I am, I don’t know what to do about that, either.

Kind words and encouragement seem to be the only thing I can offer to those who need so much more. Those are inadequate.

I guess my point in all of this is that there are real people in the world around us with real problems. They need help. So, if you are in a position to help them, do it. If you a parent and are told by your son or daughter’s teacher that they are a disruption in class, discipline your child. If you are a victim of sexual abuse, come forward and tell the authorities what happened so that it doesn’t happen to somebody else and these low-lives can be thrown in jail. If you have money to give, give it to somebody who really needs it.

This week, please, pull your head out of your self-centered ass and wake up to the reality that there are those around you who need YOU.

Maybe, just maybe, if we have a few more people who can give, we can actually start to make a dent in the very real and very tragic problems that those around us face.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

Accountability

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“The best kind of accountability on a team is peer-to-peer. Peer pressure is more efficient and effective than going to the leader, anonymously complaining, and having them stop what they are doing to intervene.”
-Patrick Lencioni

To say that I have been disappointed with people this week would be an understatement. Perhaps it was a situation that happened professionally, a situation involving roommates, a situation with my healthcare professional and, of course, a certain Grand Jury report coming out of Pennsylvania. It hasn’t been a good week and I don’t like writing about bad weeks.

I’d much rather be writing about awesome stuff, but I can’t bring myself to ignore some very raw and very troubling realities that exist in the world right now. So, I will take this time to highlight some of the lessons learned, even if they have been hard lessons.

In one particular situation, I learned about a scandalous action taken by somebody that I don’t know well yet admire a lot. This individual is an authoritative figure in a position of power. I had casually asked him how he got to where he is, and quickly found out that it wasn’t honestly. Long story short, he shared with me that he was not forthcoming with his employer while applying for his current position. The employer still doesn’t know. I was appalled.

I will admit that I am naïve. My thinking, by default, is that people are honest and that they have earned what they have. Those that haven’t – those that take advantage of “the system,” the less fortunate, the less privileged – don’t get very far with me. I guess what really surprised me most was that I really admired this individual and got caught up in what he was able to do. That he got there dishonestly was very, very deflating. Maybe its even like finding out that your childhood hero is really a self-absorbed asshole.

I really wanted to get a hold of this guy’s boss and tell him exactly what he told me. I was very close. OK… I still am. I sought after the advice from some of my closest friends and confidants because I was so conflicted. I felt injustice. I felt unfairness. I felt anger.

The advice I got was not what I wanted to hear. The easy thing to do to handle the situation would have been to drop the bomb on his boss. Maybe things would have blown up, maybe nothing would have happened, I don’t know. Pretty sure this guy would know who ratted him out, so I would have to deal with that, but somehow, I rationalized that would still be better. Maybe it is. I guess I still don’t know.

My friends and advisors have quoted Matthew 18:15: “If your brother sins against you, go and confront him privately.” Get him to take responsibility of his own actions and to hold himself accountable to them. If he doesn’t, “take one or two others along.” All of this is supposed to be done before going to the Church… or the authority over your “brother.” That, of course, means confronting somebody on their wrongdoing. This is not easy, is uncomfortable and I’d really rather not do it. Of course, if roles were reversed and I made a mistake, I would rather somebody bring it to my attention before bringing it to the attention of my employer. I’m not free of error, either.

I feel like accountability is needed in the world right now. The situations I’ve been involved with this week demand correction. Things happened that shouldn’t have. My desire to have justice served, however, may be just as unjust if I have it my way. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty and everyone deserves a chance to right their wrong.

I guess I’ll see this guy myself. I don’t know how to do that yet, but I’ll figure it out. Ultimately, I need to hold myself accountable to my own standard of accountability.

There are a lot of leaders in the world who need to do the same thing, too.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

The Future

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“It means your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one.”
-Emmett L. “Doc” Brown

Sorry for not writing last week. Things were busy and I ran out of time.

Time. Do we talk about anything else more than time?

When we are at work, everything is about time. We set deadlines, meet schedules, project delivery dates, observe holidays and set what we do by when it needs to be done.

Anniversary dates, birthdays, holidays… we always seem to be planning towards or reflecting back on these days.

Our anxieties and our fears rarely ever focus on the now and present but rather on what will be at some time in the future. Our pain our suffering and our traumas never seem to be about what happened that day, but on some event in the past that we can’t change. It may have been years ago, but these feelings were set based upon what happened to us in a past we cannot change, and our anxieties today are felt based upon on a future we cannot predict.

Yet, we all have the exact same amount. 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week and 52 weeks in a year. 8,760 hours from now you will be back at the exact same time on the exact same day, just like everyone else, and just like everyone else, you will have no more and no less. You can’t change it.

I must admit, I think God was pretty smart not to allow us to change time when He spun the universe in to existence. Part of me is pained to say that; There are plenty of things I would change in my past if I could. Another part of me, though, recognizes that I never would have done half of the things I did if I knew what I would have to go through.

If I knew what would happen to me at Rolla, I never would have gone to Rolla. If I didn’t do that, however, I wouldn’t have the friends I have today. If I knew what would happen to me in my first two jobs after college, I might have passed. Yet, if I did that, my career wouldn’t have started here, I would have lived away from my family and never started helping out with the Holy Trinity Lifeteen youth group. (To say nothing of the fact that I learned a tremendous amount of priceless knowledge which helped me get the job I have today) If I knew what would happen to me before starting Depression treatment, I wouldn’t have started. It has been a tough, long road that has brought incredible healing but only by going through hell and back to get there. If I knew that the government was going to shut down my pilot training because of a medication, I would have saved $5,000. Yet, I cannot deny the joy I did get to experience the short-lived time I had in the sky.

Yeah, God must have known what he was doing when He decided that we shouldn’t be allowed to see our future or delete our past. Our futures are best made not knowing the outcome. We are stronger, wiser and probably even happier for not knowing. As for the past? That’s a little tougher. While it’s probably best to make sure we are making good decisions for our future so that when the future becomes the past there are no regrets, some elements are beyond our control.

Do you feel like you are in the middle of something you never would have started if you knew what would happen? Keep going. Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

Get to It

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
     But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
     Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
     On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
     That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

“Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
     At least no one ever has done it”;
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
     And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
     Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
     That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

“There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
     There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
     The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
     Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
     That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.”

-Edgar Albert Guest

Tonight, the quote is long and the commentary short. I have a few big things going on in life right now, just like the rest of us. I’ve been overwhelmed.

I start my week again tomorrow. It will be a struggle to sit down and get to work on something that has drug on for months and will likely drag on a few more. It’s tiring; trust me, I know.

With whatever you have going on in life right now, big or small, get to it. Just buckle in with a bit of a grin, and the first thing you know, you’ll do it.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

Broke

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.”
-Murphy’s Law

On Friday, my computer broke.

What was supposed to be a fairly simple task for my boss (I was going to send something in to Technical Support) turned in to an all-day affair that ended up corrupting my computer, screwing up my database installation and otherwise making for a pretty crappy, frustrating day.

I read online forums, read the official support sites, found some technical blogs that explained in detail what the error message I was seeing meant, but none of the solutions fixed the incredibly annoying errors that were causing my computer to go on the fritz. It was also a brand new computer and I was getting to the point where a reformat was needed. This was going to make me very unhappy; I just set it up the way that I wanted to.

I spent hours inside of the Windows registry, learned all about administrator-level user accounts that were “hidden” to the user and all kinds of security rules set at the domain level. I still have no idea what any of that stuff means. After hours upon hours of clicking buttons and changing settings where I really have no idea what I did or what the implications are for doing so, I finally got it to work. At 6pm.

There is something excruciatingly frustrating about dealing with something that simply doesn’t work. Perhaps it’s better said by saying that there is something excruciatingly frustrating about not knowing why something doesn’t work. Either way, it makes for a bad day.

Here are some common examples:

Turning the key in the car and nothing happens.

Powering on your computer and nothing happens.

Flipping the thermostat to “Cool” and it never drops in temperature.

Of course, there are other more personal and more serious examples, too:

Being on chemo for six weeks and the tumor gets larger.

Watching a loved one go to AA or Rehab for several months, only to watch them relapse.

Being on Depression treatment for months and still not feeling any better.

Having interview after interview and never getting a job.

Studying all night and getting a “C” (or worse) on the test.

I can think of very few things in life that make me angrier and unsettled more than not having the answer to why something simply doesn’t work that should.

You know, towards the end of a Gun’s Quote, I try to impart some wisdom about what to do with the dilemma experienced above, usually something about how I ended up solving the problem or dealing with the feeling. Tonight, I find myself without any.

I guess that’s because sometimes the answer is that you can’t do anything about it. You’re not going to get the lost time back from dealing with the stalled car or the broken computer. Sleeping in a hot house just sucks. There are no words or advice for someone suffering despite following doctors’ orders to a tee.

Sometimes, things just go wrong and don’t work. We can prepare, create a Plan B, come up with alternatives, but sometimes things just don’t work.

So, I guess my only advice is to plan, prepare, do what you can, and ultimately accept the outcome. Be grateful for when things go right and try not to get too caught up despairing when they don’t. At the end of the day, our best efforts can result in the best outcomes or in something totally different. It doesn’t change the fact that we gave our all.

Sometimes, things just don’t work. (And maybe you should go a little easier on yourself; it may not be your fault.)

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

Rescue

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“What would have happened if I didn’t initiate my own rescue?”
-The Gun

So, it has come to this… I’ve run out of quotes that I’ve collected over the years and now I get to quote myself. This blog has reached a new low. Haha!

This past week I found myself rolling the above statement around my cranium. I’m not sure why.

It was written down in my journal which I have been writing on-and-off again over the course of the last 10-or-so years. The above quote came on Day 2 of Covecrest, a Catholic summer camp that I helped chaperone that year. (2009) During white-water rafting, I got tossed out of the raft. The cheesy, somewhat fear-mongering video we were made to watch before setting out on the water clearly explained what we were to do if we were flung in to the water. Lay flat on your back, like a board, with feet pointed downstream. Attempting to stand up could get your ankle caught under a rock and snap your foot off like a twig in the current, especially if another person or raft had the misfortune of running in to you.

Floating along, a person would throw a yellow rope towards you which you were supposed to grab. Then, you would be pulled back to a raft or on to shore.

So, here I am, lying flat on my back, helpless, waiting for somebody else to throw me a line a save me.

Did I mention I have no idea how to swim?

Eventually I heard somebody shouting “Swim! Swim!” I turned around and saw the yellow rope behind me and to my right. Didn’t even notice it was there.

I did manage to doggy-paddle towards the rope, grabbed a hold, and got pulled back in to the raft. Had I been content to lay there on my back, helpless, I would have just floated down the river and drowned.

Then I found out my guide intentionally flipped the raft. (I’ll leave the part out about how I visualized punching him in the throat. I like being on top of water, not below it.) He explained that this was a “safe” rapid to fall out of the raft because the river was so deep. It would give all of us an “opportunity” to practice the back-floating procedure and look for, swim towards and grab yellow rescue ropes. Now having that experience of what we needed to do in case something went wrong, we could now proceed down the river and in to the, err, “unsafe” rapids.

I guess there are countless times in life which you find yourself out of your raft and in the river. There are sharp rocks below you, rapids in front of you and other rafts careening towards you. In order to survive, you need the help of other people. That said, people can throw you dozens of ropes and it will do nothing unless you make some effort on your part to get to one of them.

We have to accept help from other people, yes, but we also have to swim our way to them. We have to initiate our own rescue.

I’ve been pulled out of many situations that were ugly, thanks to the efforts of my family and friends. I still had to ask for the help. I still had to be honest with them about what was happening in my life. I still had to accept that help. In most cases, I had to pursue that help. Nobody is going to going to offer you something if you are not willing to accept it and, more often, willing to ask for it.

I never punched that guide in the throat. (OK, let’s be honest… he was jacked, tatted and knew how to throw people out of his raft without dunking himself. I wouldn’t have gotten far…) As a matter of fact, I was thankful I got tossed. He knew the river was bigger than me, the current was bigger than me and the rocks were bigger than me. I learned that I needed to be a part of my own rescue in order to truly be saved.

In the rivers of our lives, the same holds true.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

Ctrl+Z

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Oops, I did it again…”
-Brittany Spears

My favorite keystroke combination on my computer is Ctrl+Z. Easily the thing I use the most every day and likely will be used half a dozen times tonight while writing this Gun’s Quote.

For those not immediately aware, Ctrl+Z is the keystroke for “Undo.” Hit it once while typing a Word document, and whatever it is you just did disappears. Type the wrong number in Excel, Ctrl+Z goes back to whatever you had before you screwed up your formula. Accidentally delete the wrong file, Ctrl+Z resurrects it from the Recycle Bin. When I’m programming or doing graphics at work, Ctrl+Z is my lifeline to undo whatever dumb thing I did in the first place.

This week, I found myself playing the role of a philosopher and pondering how something so ubiquitous on my computer has no equal in my life. In other words, I can undo a mistake I make on a computer, but no such reversal exists in life itself.

If I’m making dinner and I burn something, it’s burned. At that point, I’m ordering pizza.

If I Tweet something that is in error one way or another and somebody reads it, they can’t unread it.

If I insult or humiliate somebody, our relationship is tarnished, no matter how much I apologize.

Divorce doesn’t undo marriage; it destroys families. Abortion doesn’t undo pregnancy; it murders a child. Bankruptcy doesn’t undo debt; it leaves people who worked hard unpaid. I can think of literally zero examples in life of a true “Undo” function whereby one can go back in time and erase something that happened leaving no recollection or consequence for those impacted by the decision. Everything that you and I do has a lasting consequence, no matter how miniscule or earth-shattering.

Why is that?

I found myself asking the question this week after pondering my own set of mis-steps that I’ve recently had. No matter what, I can’t undo the past. I want to, I wish I could, but I don’t posses that power. That sucks!

Then, an analogy of an Oak tree came to mind. Assuming that you have good dirt and it gets regularly watered, planting an acorn is going to produce an Oak tree. Once that acorn sprouts, there is no going back. It will never be an acorn again. Once that tree is 20 feet tall, it will never be 10 feet tall again, unless somebody starts to cut it down. If somebody starts to cut it down, those same branches will never grow back.

How many times do we wish we could start over again? How many times do we wish we could “Undo” something? Why waste my time and energy contemplating that? It will never happen, just like an Oak tree will never be an acorn again. Yet, I do it all the time.

So, again, why doesn’t life have an Undo keystroke? Why can’t I Ctrl+Z my way out of some pickle I’ve found myself in?

I came up with two thoughts. I don’t know if they’re any good or not, but I’ll throw them out there.

The first is that it forces us to think through what we do. We are “incentivized” (for lack of a better term) to not screw up because we know that whatever decision we make is permanent. If we could undo every decision, we would certainly be much looser about our decision-making. Maybe we would actually end up making poorer decisions because we would stop thinking about them as hard in the first place.

The second is that it forces us to grow. We can’t erase our mistakes, but we can learn from them. We can use our new-found wisdom to help others avoid the same pitfalls. The flaws and fallacies in life prune and shape us in to being who we are. If we hurt somebody, we learn to be more empathetic for the next person we meet. If we fail a test, we study harder for the next one. We can’t start over again; we will never be able to go back to that acorn, but we can learn from our scars to grow taller.

I still wish I could undo parts of life, but I get why I’m not designed that way. Life’s experiences, good or bad, would have no meaning if we could change them at-will. I treasure the good experiences just as much as I loathe the poor ones. I can help somebody in my life by telling them about those bad experiences. If I erased them, that opportunity would be lost. In a way, I would be hurting others by selfishly choosing to help myself. That doesn’t sound too fair.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

Keep Trying

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Survival can be summed up in three words – never give up. That’s the heart of it really. Just keep trying.”
-Bear Grylls

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap…

“Does that hurt?”

“Yeah, that’s a little intense,” I would respond.

“OK, what about now?”

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap…

“Yeah, I can tolerate that.”

It was Day 1 of 30. The sensation of having powerful magnetic waves directed at my brain was surreal. With each tap, it felt like a ball-peen hammer was tapping on the INSIDE of my skull. I had never felt anything like it. It was kind of freaky.

“OK, what do you want to watch? We have Netflix, Hulu, YouTube…”

“Daredevil Season 2!” I exclaimed. I rarely watch TV. The possibility of getting caught up on one show that I actually liked was exciting, as if the possibility of feeling normal again wasn’t enough.

Feeling normal again. That would be nice.

Months ago, I found myself in my Doctor’s Office listening to results of bloodwork. The symptoms were simple but troublesome; I simply couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and when I did, it would be hours before I felt like I had enough energy to do anything. That would last for a few hours, then I would be tired again several hours before it was bedtime. All of the bloodwork results came back normal. Nothing was wrong.

The psychiatrist, the counselor and I all knew different. For reasons none of use really understood well, it seemed my body had adapted to the prescription antidepressants I’ve been on for years. Suddenly, they simply stopped working and I found myself with symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder once again. My motivation was gone. I didn’t enjoy the same activities that I once did. I didn’t seek out social situations I once had. I quit writing Gun’s Quotes. The subtlest of tasks overwhelmed me. Even my personal hygiene, embarrassingly, took a step back.

“Oh, God,” I would say to myself. “Not again…”

We shifted around to different medications. We increased therapy sessions. We talked about Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, but I was hesitant. The prospect of shooting magnetic waves in my head reminded me of horror stories in the late 90s of people supposedly getting brain cancer with their cell phones up to their ears. Even the literature on the procedure bluntly stated: “The long-term effects of TMS treatments on the brain are unknown.” Not reassuring.

We tried one pill, then another. A third. A fourth. Nothing worked.

I’ll admit I was tempted to revert to the old lies I had to overcome when I initially started Depression treatment years ago. “This is just the way I am.” “This is just the way it is.” “Everybody has to deal with something in their lives; this is mine.”

Then, I read an old Gun’s Quote. Sunday, May 6, 2012, “Never Give Up.” That sealed the deal.

I have no idea if TMS is going to work on me. Statistically it should, but in the world of psychiatry there are no guarantees. The brain is more unique in each individual than the thumbprint, and that complicates things when it comes to tracking down and treating mental disorders. I’m going to try, though, and I’m going to keep trying. I’m not the sum of my symptoms.

There are going to be times in your life when you are faced with distress, difficulty and shear terror. Keep going. Don’t accept lies like “That’s just the way it is,” “I deserve this,” and “this is just me.” No, it’s not. You are worth love, respect, dignity and happiness. So, if you’re not there yet, get help.

 Then keep trying.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!

If you or someone you know is struggling with Depression, please call your local healthcare provider. If you or someone you know has expressed that they want to kill themselves, please call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline at (800) 273-8255 immediately.

Hope

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“The world will go to Hell on the backs of men who said, ‘it’s not my place.’”
-Joel Stepanek

The lights dimmed. The audience of a couple thousand silenced, including the 900 17-year-old men who had just stayed a full week at the University of Central Missouri. Then a trumpet broke the silence and goosebumps would rise on the backs of all who were there. The stirring sounds of “Taps” will do that to you. In the UCM Multipurpose building, after a week filled with a blur of activity – that once again was all-too-short – the reality that the 79^th session of Missouri Boys State was closing dawned on all who were there.

After the last note’s echo silenced, you could hear the sniffle, the occasional whimper and a pin drop. It was finished.

It was this year that I realized a number of things that were different from years’ past. This year, I was double their age. This year, nobody who attended Boys State was born in the 90s. This year, none of them remembered 9/11. This year, I would have spent more Junes of my life at Boys State than not. I have spent over half of my life on Staff.

It seems a little rarer these days; perhaps being an adult with a stable job just means I meet less new people and thus explain my life’s greatest joys a little less often. On occasion, however, I get to answer the question, “What do you do?”

“By day or by night?”

This always causes a puzzled look. Most people simply assume by the gray hair that I shouldn’t be the one to have two jobs. I quickly explain: “I’m an engineer by occupation, but I work with teenagers on the weekends and during the summer.”

The “teenager” comment catches almost all off guard. “Do you like that?”

“I’d rather spend time with teenagers than adults,” I would respond, “because teenagers are more open, yearn more for the truth and aren’t cynical about the future. They give me hope.”

My greatest privilege is being able to share with teenagers how God intended for them to love and care for the people around them. In the case of Missouri Boys State, giving these young men the tools and confidence to go forth and lead their communities is my greatest joy each summer. Helping young men understand that they have a responsibility – that they have a place – is an obligation that I take very seriously each and every third week of June.

The world is replete with examples of darkness and evil. We still haven’t figured out some of the most vexing issues of our day. Racism is real. Poverty is real. Human trafficking is real. We live in a time when we are confused by something as basic as gender and skew some of the most elementary tenants of truth. It may seem more often than not that the world is going to Hell.

Perhaps changing the lives of 900 men is a drop in the bucket of the overall population of the US, let alone the world. Even so, that’s 900 men who now know that it is their place to make better communities, better families, a better state, a better country and – dare I say – a better world. 

Hopefully, that’s 900 men who will never say, “It’s not my place.”

THAT gives me hope.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!