Drum Beat

More than one hundred years ago, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears however measured or far away.” Michael Jackson danced to a different beat. It is the choosing of a different drum beat that caused him to be an American icon.
I cannot accept Thoreau’s words without question. Some beats are not worth dancing too. There does come a time, however, when we have to make up our minds about the drum beat that we will follow.
Whatever drum we choose, it must preserve our integrity. One way of looking at integrity is asking how we would like to be remembered. What do you want your best friend to say at your funeral? How about your children? Your grandchildren? Your spouse? Some of us have spent time trying to define what we want to do. We know what we want to accomplish. The question is: Have we determined what we want to become? Your doing will flow from who you are. Your character determines your legacy.
It is also important to listen to a drum which keeps life focused on important things. It is possible to live our lives for things that don’t really matter. Jesus said, “I must do the works of him who sent me while it is still day, for the night comes and no one can work.” We are to work at the important things while it is still day. The life of Michael Jackson can teach us that price tags of life can and do get mixed up. A home is more important than a big house. Friends matter more than success. Physical and emotional health is greater than the stress found in climbing the ladder of success.
If the drum beat you listen to preserves your integrity and keeps you focused on what is important then I say, “just beat it.”

Skin Horse

This is an excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit by Margarey Williams:

"The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs on his tail had been pulled out to make string bead necklaces. He was wise for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

'What is real?' asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. 'Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?'

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you, then you become Real.'

Real is not just living but living life being loved and loving.

Serve and Dance

One day I am going to take my wife dancing . She wants to learn how to do "ball room" dancing. The only problem is I can't dance. Really, I have no rhythm. The beat of the music gets lost somewhere between my brain and my legs. So either I am one (or two) steps behind or in an attempt to not be caught off guard I jump to soon. I really want to do this for her because it is something she wants and as a "good" husband I want to serve my wife. I am not always good at that either. I don't always lift her up. God has called me (and every person in a relations) to strive to make the other person the person that God desires for him/her. The only problem is that I can get needy and put myself first. I notice when I do get focused on myself that my life gets out of rhythm.
So two things I need to learn: dance and serve. What if at the end of our lives the person speaking over us said, "He served and he danced." Not a bad way to live or die.