THE FATHER OF LEARNING
Imitation, leading by example, is the superior method of education.
To qualify to be a credible father or significant mentor, it is a twofold process:
*PTR – proven track record.
*WOBI – worthy of being imitated.
Life presents many gifts to each of us. Life in itself is a gift enough. Just to be alive. “If you have breath, breathe” is a line that stuck with me from a movie.
Yet, life offers so much more than to just breathe. For me, the joy of having my children who are proud of me. This is more precious than life itself.
Today the focus is on the father of learning, imitation. My motivation, as I sit in my sacred place, is to find intimacy with my Abba Father so that I find the resources to work on my track record and my pursuit to be worthy of being imitated. To keep my children proud of me.
Two years ago, I promised to give a 100 dollar bill to a granddaughter if she would memorize and be able to tell me how she would apply Psalm 8 to her life.
I believe Psalm 8 has immense value in my journey to be a man who consistently seeks to live PTR & WOBI. “Want to” + self-discipline + intentional study + hanging with worthy to be imitated + forgiveness asking, are in my life success manual.
I close with a poem three of the Crowell clan have recently memorized.
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world and am free.
