Tag Archives: benefactor

Benefactor

Benefactor: (n) a person who gives money or other help to a person or cause.

Dictionary B

  • The problem with autonomy is that it’s lonely.
  • The difficulty with collaboration is that it generally votes itself into a position of doing nothing.

So what is right?

When do we have an idea that is good enough that it needs a benefactor to fund it immediately instead of waiting for the greatness of the idea to bloom?

A good question.

I have had benefactors in my life. Even though each experience has eventually gone astray, I am still grateful for the generosity of those who believed in me for a very special season.

The reason that benefitting others eventually goes afoul is that when we try to control both the creativity of another person and the circumstances of life, we always end up looking foolish.

My benefactors were very excited about my gifts, abilities and talents–until they realized that “all good things come to them who wait.”

When their generosity did not bring forth immediate profit, they became impatient and started pointing fingers–many of which fell in my direction.

They left me too soon.

It’s not their fault.

Patience is where we possess our souls.

Yet most of our spirits are infested with the demon of shortsightedness.

 

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Baize

Baize: (n) a coarse, felt-like, woolen material that is typically green, used for covering billiard and card tables and for aprons.Dictionary B

Rich people own a lot of things.

I suppose that’s a rather obvious statement. But I would like you to stop and analyze what it really means.

It’s not that rich people own things they like or that rich people acquire things so they can enjoy them and share them with others.

No, rich people often just like to own things so they can prove they possess them, flaunt them and to establish their indifference to them.

Long ago, when I had even less integrity and brain power than today, I was invited to the home of a very rich man because he took a liking to me, saying he “thought I had great potential.”

Upon arriving at his palatial mansion, I was given the full tour, which was extremely extensive, with stop-offs along the way to reiterate to me in vivid detail how much each piece of marble in the floor cost, and how the wallpaper in this particular room was ordered from Italy from a family who were direct descendants of the Medici clan.

I produced an adequate amount of “oohs” and “aahs” necessary to let him know that I was in full groveling mode.

While dinner was being prepared, he asked me if I would like to play a game of billiards. (Yes, he called it “billiards” while I knew it as “pool.” But looking at my surroundings and smelling the fresh air of opulence, I realized that “billiards” was more appropriate.)

And the billiard table was equally as over-stated, expensive and elaborate as everything else in the house. Matter of fact, he told me it had been specially ordered from Russia, where of course, the best billiard tables are from, and that it was worth $50,000.

He handed me a pool stick which was made out of some sort of wood from the rain forest of Brazil, and said, “You break.”

I placed my hand on the table, shaking and nervous. The baize covering of the table was lush and thick, like grass. But it also felt a little bit…fragile.

Terrified, I wielded back and hit the cue ball, striking the eastern coast of it, while the tip of my cue stick slid across the table, leaving a three-inch rip.

Time stood still.

I couldn’t breathe, even though I knew it was necessary to do so.

My rich benefactor walked up, looked at the table, shook his head, and said, “That’s going to cost a pretty penny.”

My mind was racing.

Did he want me to come up with that gorgeous amount of money?

I also had this crazy thought of suggesting that some Super Glue might fix it, but caught myself before blurting.

He did not charge me for my transgression, but the dinner was tense, and I was out of there much more quickly than originally proposed… since he no longer deemed that I had potential.

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Array

dictionary with letter A

Array: (n) an impressive display or range of a particular type of thing.

He was my first child, which obviously made me a new dad.

I wanted to do everything right, but I wanted to go just a little beyond that so I could be considered by my son to be tremendous, but also noticed by the surrounding audience of humanity–that I was “Dad of the Year.”

So when he was about three years old I took him to the grocery store with me, toting him around, answering all of his little broken-English questions and finally arriving at the checkout counter, where much to my tickled soul, there was a huge array of candy bars.

Wanting to be the great benefactor and a father to be heralded for all time, I turned to my offspring son and said, “Take your time, but you can pick one of these to eat on the way home.”

It was so pleasing to my soul that I still tear up today as I remember his wide-eyed expression, gasp and reaching up with his little arms to hug my neck. Upon releasing his embrace, he turned to the candy–and a sick feeling sunk into the pit of my stomach as I realized, almost intuitively, that I had made a horrible decision.

First of all, the array of treats was much too large for his tiny mind to comprehend. Added to the dilemma was the fact that I had restricted him to one. So while the lady behind me in the checkout line tried to patiently wait, my three-year-old picked one candy bar after another and then changed his mind. Finally he came down to the five that he preferred.

Having the logic of a newly born human, he assumed I would revise my offer to include the entire array of his choices. In other words, Daddy, we’re gonna get all five, right??

I explained that he must narrow it down to one, but he did not understand the concept of “narrowing it down” nor the idea of “one.”

In a fit of despair, I grabbed one of his five choices and gave it to the checkout lady as he began to cry and whine for the four which had been abandoned.

Instead of being a blessing to my little kid, we spent the entire ride home with him screaming in tears, eating his chocolate bar as it melted on his face, which was hot with anger.

I don’t believe he ever remembered eating the sweet … and he certainly wasn’t very sweet in eating it.

 

 

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Aggravate

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAggravate: (v) 1. to make a problem injury, offense or situation worse 2. to annoy or exasperate

It takes two sticks rubbed together to create a fire.

At least, that’s what I hear. Having never actually used that method to generate the friction, I’m not certain it’s true, but I have no reason to question it.

I do get aggravated. When I calm myself down and think about what caused my aggravation, I realize it’s always one stick that I brought and another stick brought by somebody else.

The main stick I bring to create aggravation is always insecurity. It would be difficult for me to notice when I was being mistreated unless there’s a part of me that’s looking for it.

The people who aggravate me are individuals who bring their own insecurity my direction, and I begin to rub my stick of inferiority against them, resulting in fiery disagreement.

Why am I insecure? Here are three reasons:

1. I need too much. I have plenty, but rather than reveling in my abundance, I look over the shoulder of my benefactor to see if there’s more coming. What an idiot.

2. Part of me is not happy unless others have less. It hurts me to even write these words down–but there is a childish little boy inside me, who sometimes hopes that I end up with one more than my friends.

3. I believe in a God I don’t always trust. My prayers of politeness are not stimulated from my soul of belief. I am not always convinced that my “Father which art in Heaven” is willing to get off His throne and come to my house.

You put these three together and you have a stick up your rear that’s ready to be rubbed against somebody else’s inconsistency to create aggravation. And aggravation is the siphon that sucks all the fuel and potential out of human talent.

How can I stop feeling insecure? There is an old hymn which affords us an answer:

“Count your blessings                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Name them one by one…”

Every time I do this, I am nearly embarrassed by the bounty provided for me–by God, life, my friends and my own abilities. It chases away my insecurity.

At that point, it is very difficult for me to become aggravated because I have no stick to rub.

May I remind myself of this today … and begin the count.