Delbert

Others often call me stubborn. Usually because I am just pushing through, or pushing off, something that would give them more pause in their own life. 

Like in last week's story, when Mindy broke my finger with a crowbar, and I just duct taped it together and go back to work. Where does that come from? 

The answer, at least in part, is Delbert. 

Delbert was my elementary school principal, but he was more than that. He was also a friend of the family, having grown up with my grandma's generation. So we were deeply connected before we even met. And even though we had a unique relationship, and I still count him among my friends, there is one moment that has always stood out to me. 

I doubt that Delbert knows how ridiculously often I have thought of this moment, of all the moments that we have shared. 

I was a young teenager, and they were working on relocating an old one-room schoolhouse to the grounds of my elementary school. Delbert, Herb (the head custodian), my dad, and I were primary volunteers on the project. It's where I learned to lay concrete block, at the tender age of 13. Delbert taught me. 

One morning, we were out working on the foundation for the building before we could get the actual structure moved. I was mixing concrete and laying block, and Delbert had moved on to building trusses. All of a sudden, he set his hammer down, walked over to where I was working (dad and Herb were moving materials or something, if I remember right), and told me he needed to go into the elementary building for a minute and he'd be right back. 

I acknowledged his statement and looked up in just enough time to see a blood-soaked rag wrapped around his thumb as he walked away. 

I never heard a whimper. I never heard a curse word. He had set his hammer down calmly and was walking just as calmly. But Delbert had hit his thumb with that hammer and busted it completely open. To my 13-year-old mind, it was a lot of blood. (A couple of decades later, I would bust my own thumb open with a hammer while laying some new flooring, and I can guess based on that that it was a lot of blood.) And he had just walked into the building, wrapped it in some bandages and gauze from the nurses' office just outside his own. 

Then, he came back outside, gave me a thumbs up, and without another word, went back to building trusses. 

That moment has stuck with me. It has inspired me to react to things the way that I do - as truly small things, so often, in the grand scheme of things. 

It may look like there's a lot of blood. It may be throbbing with pain. But it's not a reason to change your character, to get angry, to quit, to stop. It's a reason simply to take a breath, take care of business, and get back to it. 

I talk a lot about the things that are broken in me. They seem important to others, who can't understand why I'm so stubborn and not giving them the due that they deserve. Truth is, so many of the things that seem like a lot of blood to you are truly small things to me. Little hiccups in the grand scheme of things. I probably wouldn't talk about them at all if it were up to me. But I feel a certain sense of pressure from those who don't understand this moment in my story. This moment that has shaped the way that I respond to so very many things. I'm not being stubborn; it really is just such a small thing to me. The kind of thing you just walk in, put a bandage on, and get back to work with. 

It's one of the moments that makes me such a good chaplain, a non-anxious presence, the person you want by your side when things start to get hard. 

That moment that Delbert hit his thumb with a hammer.