Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Monday February 12, 2007

I often speak with men and women who are certain they are failures. On the other hand I often listen to men and women who are certain they are grand successes. Most of the lectures I have heard on success over the last forty five years are kindly described as mere exuberant excursions into ego centrism. "I am wonderful and here is how I became this grand way, just emulate my plan, which you can purchase for gobs and gobs of hard earned money, and you too will discover the joy of being wonderful and live above the peasants who refuse to buy the ancient secrets of success contained in my book."

A wee bit sarcastic? I am sorry, I meant for it to be enormously so.

I reread the story a truly successful man and it warmed the cockles of the old heart. (Okay, so I am getting ready for St. Paddy's Day). This man was born a mulatto slave, his mother was a black slave, his father an unknown to us, white man. He hailed from the state of my ancestor's Virginia. He took the name of a man his mother married, another slave. After the Civil War, actually the War of Northern Aggression, he worked as a salt packer in the salt mines, later a coal miner and later as a houseboy for the owner of the mine. The lady of house encouraged him to get an education and this changed his life and the life of hundreds of thousands of others over the years.

This man, born a slave caught the ear of newspaper moguls, the attention of presidents, and influenced the Up From Slavery movement of those times. He was caustically criticized for his views and was accused in print by the left of his day as a 'white man with black skin.' The books written by W.E. Dubois, some were hardline socialist attacks on the work of today's former slave, were read by a black populace that owed their ability to read the books to the Tuskegee Institute and its president, spokesmen, the heroic, maligned, Booker Taliaferro Washington. It's true that many of his ideas would not be acceptable today, but he took the world in which he lived and made it better. That's a high calling for any man, former slave or otherwise.

So, back to my piece on success, though I really did not depart, only an aside to lay the foundation for a better grasp of today's quote, from Booker T. Washington:

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."

As I listened to the wailing of a friend I have known since childhood days, I thought, 'this poor man has no idea how high the mountain he has scaled to get where he is, he is comparing himself to others who in all probability would not have survived a similar childhood.' In spite of a drunken father, a mother who served time in a state prison for hitting the father in the head with an axe while he was passed out, (She deserved a medal) because the father had molested the four year old sister, ad infinitum, my friend of all these years has been married for 49 years, raised a family all of whom are college graduates and love Jesus, is far more successful than many who would sneeringly look down long noses at him. Ole Booker T. was right on with today's quote.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit.

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