Challenge! Inspire! Encourage!

If you would walk into my home and look up, you would see a hand-painted country sign - to go with the rest of the decor - that hangs from the rafter and reads Challenge! Inspire! Encourage! I remember picking this sign out of the many available at the flee market that day. Something about it demanded my attention. Something about it whispered to me - need a life mission, here you go.

Hmm, mission - is that like "Mission Impossible" or more like the "Jerry Mcguire" mission statement. Dare I compare it to the latter. My experience with men's work has brought me to an organization that is built on mission and service - The ManKind Project. I bring this up, not to promote the organization (although that would probably be a good thing in my humble opinion), but to tell you that my mission has directed me to a world of love, compassion, hope, inspiration, encouragement, and joy!

I digress - So, Leroy, my brother, his two sons, and I decided to take a trip to an indoor activity house called Ozzies (Leesport, PA). This place is full of great fun - rock walls, ropes course, laser tag, arcade games - everything you need to fill your day with senseless play...and maybe something more - maybe a greater sense of self?

Leroy was playing basketball and the rest of us were timing ourselves in the rope climb (my younger brother [cough,cough] had the best time of 11.5 sec]. Now imagine this; a rope wall, similar to the ones you see in the military commercials, about 12 feet high, then 4 horizontal wooden beams above that every 3 feet. At the very top, a cow bell to announce your victory.

I decided to pull Leroy from the sport he could play anywhere and bring him over to the wall of competition. Although his mouth said "yeah, this wall's no problem", his body disagreed. He got to the end of the rope wall and decided to come back down. I wasn't sure how to handle that...did I let it go and move on to another sport OR did I challenge him to another climb? Anyone who knows me will tell you what I decided to do.

So as he was preparing for his second climb, I had this sense of mission, this drive to help him succeed. I thought to myself, he's going to be a stronger young man once he does this...he's going to believe in himself even more. I needed to proceed. Once he got to the end of the rope, he started to hesitate. I got my brother and nephews involved in encouraging him, yelling for him to succeed - "Go Leroy! You got it! Don't stop!" He kept it up - he got to the first beam, up and over. He came to the second - "Go, Go Go!". He made it...to the third...finally, as he approached the fourth beam, he stopped. He was done. His arms shaking from pulling himself up. His brow sweating from the battle. There was no way he wasn't going to ring that bell, I thought. I took a breath, went into my heart and said "Leroy, take a breath, and with all you have, pull yourself up and ring that bell." HE DID IT! It was awesome. He had this look on his face like he just moved a mountain. On his descent, we all applauded and praised him for his win...what a great moment.

On the way home, after a well-deserved bite to eat, we talked about the climb. I'm not sure exactly what I expected him to learn but it came to me in one small statement..."You know what Greg, next time I need to climb that wall, it's going to be easier."

No Doubt.

- gt