Tom's Views

Back in 2005, I sought ways of becoming a more patient man, and to bear my hardships with more grace, humility, and acceptance. So a friend recommended The Book of Job, from The Old Testament in The Bible. “After all,” he said, “have you never heard of   the patience of Job?” Yes I had. But I generally avoided The Bible, being the non religious person that I was, and still am in fact.

However, I found a copy of the Readers Digest Large Print Bible laying around. I think I won it or something some years ago. So I pulled out volume one, walked down to my pavilion, and read, and read, …, and read! Wow, I must have missed something that first time through. So I read it again. Then, I went to the bookstore and purchased several other bibles, including the NLT Complete Reference Bible, and The Original American Heritage Study Bible. I also dug out a New American Standard Bible that I’d purchased back in 1992. I read the tale of Job from each of these, and I also looked for clues to better understanding the Book of Job in an Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Yet my interpretation of Job’s story stayed the same as when I’d first read it. That is: This story illustrates no patience on Job’s part! I mean, here’s a fable of a man, forced by God to endure great hardship. But where was his patience? He complained loud and bitterly the entire time, about the pains, the sores, and the losses of his fortune and family. Indeed, most of the book was him ranting and railing against his situation, and making the case to his friends that his condition was exceedingly terrible and how he couldn’t understand why God would do this to him.

Not that I would have behaved any differently under a similar curse. Yet I found it strange that my friend would offer up Job as this pinnacle of serenity, when I found him to be nothing of the kind. After all, he had no choice but to endure, because pitting his meager human powers against those of the almighty would obviously have been pointless. So, as I understood the book, Job did nothing voluntarily to warrant the hero status often assign him in modern culture. His hardship did not prove him to be a patient man.  While it’s true that he might well have been patient in areas outside the scope of this tale, this shows nothing of that side of him. 

Nonetheless, the Book of Job enhanced my patience with my situation a little, because through reading it, I came to better understand that I have it nowhere near as tough as he did. Sometimes, it’s beneficial to examine folks with more dire circumstances than our own, and Job’s were indeed far worse than any that I’ve ever suffered. 

But then, the story of Job is likely fictitious; no doubt written as it was, to exaggerate his troubles, to convey the baffling degree of God’s power to readers, and scare them into submitting to the church. That diminishes its credibility, and thus limits the amount of comfort I can draw from it.   Was the story written to illustrate a human’s capacity for patience, or to show how feeble man is in the face of God?  I don’t know.  But, it would have meant far more to me if we could know for sure that the smite against Job really happened, and that the pages faithfully recount the experiences of a real, flesh-and-blood man.  It would be helpful to know that it’s not just some ancient writer’s imagination gone wild, and that whatever heroism Job embodied indeed could be attained by mortals.  But unfortunately, I fear that Job was no more real than Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Mighty Mouse, or Bat Man.  So even if he did epitomize patience in the tale (which I believe he did not), it would be foolhardy to expect ourselves to be as patient as he, since in all likelihood, the tale was just that; just a tale.   

Tom Hesley

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Dear [Emmy],

So you’re blind and shy about   asking for help;   fearing the rejection that’s almost sure to come. Well, you’re right to feel anxious because most folks will indeed reject you; sorry to say. They’ll avoid taking you on afternoon mall shopping trips for that dress you want, and they’ll feel put out if you ask more than a few times a year for rides. They’re too busy with their lives to devote much time to you regularly; though we all need some routine devotion, and as handicapped folks, we need more of that than our fully-sighted peers. In short, and sadly: People just aren’t that helpful these days; the declining membership in service organizations like the Lions Club proves this.

But what people forget in this age of republican hype and spin, is that we must serve others frequently, to stay truly happy. Further, and ideally, in order to get the most thrill out of the deed, we must perform it altruistically — without expecting anything back. We need to feel useful; like we’re making a positive difference, and giving in this way to a person in need makes achieving this sense of being needed simple.

But it’s common these days for people to dismiss this chance to not only make someone else happy, but to please themselves as well. They’re so focused on their own needs, and obsessed over making sure that no one ever takes advantage of them, that they miss these real opportunities to feel good about themselves. They look down on folks asking for help, believing that they should either do it by themselves, or just live without it. To them, pitying someone is bad, and thus, compassion for another wastes their energies. They argue that putting their own needs first makes them happiest.  This is certainly true if we’re talking about the basic needs of survival, security, and to a lesser degree, love.  But beyond those mandates, people could spare much more of themselves to brighten the lives of the less fortunate, and less on getting ahead in life.

Yes, the people who continually reject your aid requests are mistaken. It could be that they’re the ones who are really blind, because they don’t see the remarkable gift that you’re offering when you request their assistance. They trash your request as an annoyance, when they should really treasure it and want more of it. This reminds me of a song from the group ABBA. It’s called “People Need Love,” and there’s a line in it that goes as follows, “People need the trust of a frail old man.” The authors really got it because people need to feel needed and to know that another is counting on them. They’re wrong not to see that, and so are you.

When you get afraid to ask others for help, keep these points in mind. You’re not imposing on them. True, you are asking something of them. But you’re offering something in return (though they should not expect that), that more than offsets any energy they’d use in granting your wish. You’re offering them a chance to be useful; something most all of us look for in some degree or other. It’s not your fault if they don’t get that, and there’s nothing wrong with you asking. If they say no, just ask someone else, and if you learn how to do this without anxiety, tell me how.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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