Pep Talk: "Into The Batter's Box"

Spring has sprung. Renewal's in full bloom. Easter, Passover and their calls for renewal and thanks. The boys of summer preparing for a baseball marathon. Hope springs eternal. Even for naive Colorado Rockies fans like your scribe.

 

"Aaahaaachoooo!" Oh yea, sneezing like crazy too. Anybody else get that tickling feeling inside the nose this time of year? Wow, I move from the normal three-sneeze staccato to chortling convulsions of a half dozen or more. The rebirth of trees and flowers swells eyes, triggers sneezes and has darling wife suggest, "Take some medicine!"

 

A new season, when many take inventory. What to give up? What to cherish and be grateful for its presence? A person, place or thing?

 

Transformation. Defined as "To make a great change in appearance or character." For whatever reason, the cranium of this simple dude from Missouri wanders to a story read recently about a man in Boston who had a vision. The time was 1902, and the New York native had tried his hand at law and newspaper publishing but found each unfulfilling.

 

Through studies at Boston University's Theological School, the aspiring minister was assigned work in a struggling mission on the city's South End. He was struck by the appalling conditions facing immigrants who found themselves in a new country with no jobs and often desperate for food, clothing and shelter. Considering today's immigration issues, it could be suggested a century later, "The more things change the more they stay the same."

 

Edgar James Helms challenged the status quo. Using burlap bags, he went door-to-door in Boston's wealthiest districts asking for donations of clothing and household goods. What's the old saying? One man's trash is another's treasure?

 

Goodwill Industries was born. It differed from many charities of the day, emphasizing that donated goods could be sold for profit with the proceeds used to pay the workers who helped refurbish those goods. Clothing and household goods of the fortunate recycled, and lives of the poor transformed through learning how to repair and sell the discarded stuff.

 

More than 110 years have passed. Helms' vision has expanded into a four-billion-dollar nonprofit organization that continues to sell gently used goods and hires people of limited employability. Awesome. It started with a dude having a vision. A thinking shift. Let's allow it to be a wonderful lesson for us. Where in our lives is it time for a similar shift?

 

Spring has sprung with a call for spiritual renewal and giving thanks. The exodus from a season of winter, certainly environmentally and, why not, personally? The sacred sports hymn of "Take me out to the ball game" resonates nationwide.

 

This week earnestly step into the batter's box of life. Regardless of what pitch comes our way, let's take a big swing at never growing weary of good will toward others. We won't always make contact or get a hit. But with Helms' as our shining example, the effort might result in a home run.