LIFE LESSONS
Walking in Your Shoes to Chase Our Creator's Craftsmanship Ben Pehrson From the springtime of my childhood when I still wore a onesie and could do nothing but lay on my belly, you would lay me opposite you in front of the chess board. And then when I was old enough to feign greatness in your oversized leather slippers and command my own pieces, you would kindly say something like, "Are you sure you want to make that move? If you do that, then my knight is positioned to capture your pawn, or my rook could move to a stronger position here." I was walking in your shoes and aspiring to Chase the King with you, and I've been doing that ever since in all kinds of different footwear. When we donned our work boots and built the rabbit hutch together in the garage, you taught me to design a work of art—no matter how practical its purpose—and see it through to its proper finish, recognizing that any job is easy if you have the right tools. You are so often the carpenter's square that helps me know if I'm building it straight. Oh, and don't forget to measure twice, cut once... "just a little bit better than perfect!" We were developing our crafts like the great Master Craftsman. Each fall when I put on my molded cleats or the screw-in studs on rainy days, you never missed one of my games, even though the coach would sit me on the bench most of the time. You would arrange a substitute for your classes and then work a strange schedule to make it up to the colleague who covered for you. All so that you could be there as my true coach, either to share in the victory of a scored goal or a perfect give-andgo combination with a long cross, or to put your arm around me after the game, strengthening my resolve to rise above my personal defeat and despair. I was learning to have a Long View on Life far beyond today's game, and to appreciate the importance of Whose Team you're on. Ready for Any Season With each season's first big snow when we would buckle our ski boots and step into our bindings, I showed the world that you're never too young to brave the steepest black diamond slopes, and I also observed in you that those you admire most are they who never grow old. Because the one who takes on New Adventures when wrinkled and gray proves that age is a Frame of Mind. When we loosened our laces during the late evening hours to complete our schoolwork—me with my writing assignments
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and you with your grades and lesson plans—you instilled in me a love for words and beauty and clarity of thought. I remember how you tirelessly edited my essays and poems and challenged me to command my ideas with creativity of expression and the sonorous sequence of semantic precision. You prepared me from a young age to enjoy my Lifelong Vocation in research, linguistics and translation. At fourteen I started wearing those specialty water sandals long before they became popular and they still had a double Velcro strap. They were ideal for keeping a good footing while scouting a series of whitewater drops along the algae-covered rocks. And it's appropriate that my friends called them my Jesus sandals, since it was in those water shoes that you taught me to serve others, taking turns as either the lead boat or sweep boat—or more often for me—as the rescue boat, darting about the group, looking for others in danger and in need of some coaching or saving. You taught me to sacrifice myself for others, facing death itself without fear, knowing the risks, respecting the power of the water, reading the river and charting our course through eddies and "rock gardens" to arrive safely at the end of a day's stretch. So much like life itself, scattered as it is with obstacles and dangers, navigating this stretch with our group, until we arrive at the dawning of a New Day just around the bend of history. When we laced up our hiking boots and headed to the trail, you helped me realize that I, too, have mountain blood. I was made for this—to wonder at the beauty of our Creator's craftsmanship. I feel most alive on overcast days when the filtered light reveals all the splendor of Creation's Palette, and my eyes can open to capture it all with a Wide Aperture.
