Rule 13 – An ordinary man can lead an extraordinary life and leave an extraordinary example.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “God must love common people; He made so many of them.” When you think about it, those are the people that shape your life. It’s not the war hero with a bronze statue on the city square or the dead president whose portrait hangs on the wall of your local library. It’s not sports figure whose name is printed on the jersey you wear or the pop singer that recorded the song stuck in your head this morning on the drive into work. No, the people that made an impact on you, the individuals that shaped you into who you are, for good or bad, were most likely everyday common people.

They were probably your mothers, fathers, grandparents, older siblings or some old couple that lived across the street. Some seasoned employee that trained you on the first job you had out of high school; the grumpy but secretly kind custodian at your elementary school. The people that influenced you were more likely to be farmers, housewives, factory workers, or store clerks, than celebrities or some great personality of renown.

While I’m fond of throwing out quotes from famous people, I’m quick to admit that I learned a lot more from old guys that I grew up around like “Uncle Demps” Briley, Vernon Buntin, Donald George, Odie Johnson or George Martin than I ever did from Winston Churchill or Albert Einstein. Chances are, you’ve never heard of these everyday folks, but they all taught me some valuable lessons, and I will remember all of them for the rest of my life.

That’s the kind of guy that Bud Wilson was. He was just an everyday guy, making a living, trying to do right by his family, his friends, his God. While he was well known in his circle of friends, he wasn’t famous. As far as I know, he never set a record, unless it was for the longest conversation in the parking lot after church, and we never called Guinness to get verification.  

Was he perfect? Absolutely far from it. Some of the most valuable lessons Dad taught me involved how NOT to handle a given situation. But he showed me love, he showed me humor, grace, passion, honor, work ethic and a simple faith in God. If you have just a few of those coupled with that last one, you’ll get by pretty well in life. Dad did that for me; in fact, Dad did that for a lot of folks.

For me, he was my father. For others, he was a childhood friend that became a lifelong friend. For still others, he was the young man that helped old folks put out a garden or a crop and much later, the old man that imparted respect and wisdom into the lives of young people that needed trust and guidance. In all that, he was an ordinary man. He was a farmer and a factory worker that never finished the fourth grade and while he could look at a steer standing in a trailer and guess his weight, Dad could barely write his name. He was good at making money, but not particularly good at handling it; that was a task that fell to my mother. But he could secure a loan for a hundred acre farm with a smile and a handshake, because he had a reputation for being so solid and trustworthy.

The past twelve rules I have written about have been the culminated in this one. Because Dad lived by these rules, spoken or unspoken, he made an impact. Because he was a good friend and a good father and a man of faith, people still remember him, now ten years after he’s been gone. Because of his example, I’ve been changed; so have others.

James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.” Because of Bud, because of Dad, I learned that you don’t have to be high and mighty to make a difference. If you’ll just be true to God and yourself, He will take you mighty high. Thanks Dad…I love you.   

Rule 12 – Friendship is one of the most precious things you can offer someone.

There is an old saying that goes something like this- “If you want to have a friend, you’ve got to be a friend.” If anyone ever exemplified that principle to me, it had to be my dad. Bud was the kind of guy that had friends everywhere. He was loved by many, because he loved many. I told my mother several times while he was living that when it came time for his funeral, we would have to get a pretty big place for the event. When Dad passed, mom mentioned my remark and said, “Don’t be too disappointed if there isn’t a big crowd. Bud was nearly eighty, and a lot of his friends are sick or have already passed away.”

Mom need not have worried though. I stood in a receiving line with my brothers for twelve hours straight, hearing stories about my dad, seeing people that had driven from all over to pay their respects. The exchanges were often pretty loud and irreverent, with plenty of jokes and laughter. But that was exactly as it should have been, because that’s exactly the way Bud lived. By the time the funeral visitation was over, nearly seven hundred people had signed the guest registry, and many more told me later that they came by, but simply couldn’t find a parking place or get in the door.

An old boss of mine once told me that the main thing that will determine how many folks show up at your funeral will be whether or not it rains. While I understand the sentiment, I also know that when a man has friends, they honor him in life and in death. They remember him after he’s gone with fond recollection, if he was a friend to them.

Friendship may be one of the biggest blessings we get in this life, and one of the most underrated. You can live in a million dollar home or under a bridge, but friendship makes life worth the living. Catching that ten pound catfish or making that hole in one doesn’t have the same joy when there’s nobody to share the experience. Likewise, a when tragedy strikes, there’s nothing as valuable as a friend to put their arm around you and share your tears. Dad was good at that, and I’m so glad he taught me how valuable friends are in life. We all have a friend in Jesus, if we will accept Him, but in this world, it helps to have a friend that “wears skin.”

One of the positive things that have come out of the social media craze is the ability to connect and reconnect with friends. As we middle aged folks have taken over Facebook, we have found people that we haven’t talked to or seen in a long time. While I’ll have to admit that it’s not always a positive experience, (sometimes you’d rather not know what kind of drama is going on in someone’s life) I also think it’s great that we can connect and reconnect with old friends. Even folks that we may not have been close to back in school have become our electronic penpals. (It’s amazing what a few decades of maturity and humility does for some folks, huh?)

While my children were growing up, we tried to help them foster friendships. That’s not always easy, because as children grow up, they often grow apart. But one of the things I always told my kids was this: Some of the best friends you’ll ever have, you haven’t met yet.

Let that one sink in for a moment…there are friends ahead of you that you haven’t met; people that will really mean something to you. How many are there? Well, my friend, that is all up to you. If you want to make a friend or two tomorrow, you have the opportunity. If you want to shut the world out, you can do that too. It is up to YOU.

I can hear someone say, “What if there is no tomorrow?” Well, that’s the best part. If you believe in Heaven and have made preparations for it, the opportunity for building friendships never has to end. You have an eternity to make new friends, and I’m pretty excited about that. When I get there, I know there will be lots of folks that will be very interesting to have as friends.

When it comes to the riches of this world, they say that you can’t take it with you. But friendship is different.  I’ve got several friends on the other side of eternity that I want to catch up with. They don’t have a Facebook account over there, so I’ll just have to make plans to catch up in person. Likewise, my friends and family over there are making more friends. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it; the circle is not only unbroken, it is ever expanding.  Somewhere over there, I have a father and a son that are making new friends. I can’t wait to be introduced.  

Rule 11- Kiss your kids, even when they’re grown and tell them you love them often.

I grew up in a family that was into public and non-public displays of affection. My standing joke has always been that if we weren’t Southern, we would have probably been Italian. When we meet and when we say goodbye, there is always a lot of kissing and hugging. Some might think this awkward or odd, given that I have two brothers, putting a lot of testosterone into the mix of the immediate family. But there is no doubt, where the public affection came from…it came from my dad.

Bud was the kind of guy that would hug and kiss anybody…and I mean just about anybody; even friends that were big, burly grown men weren’t immune. Over the years, I’ve heard many friends mention my dad’s kisses with a fond recollection. It was accepted; people didn’t take it for something it wasn’t, because friends understood it was just Bud’s sincere way of showing you he loved you. And Bud loved people; he loved them a lot. The Bible says, “Greet your brother with a holy kiss.” That was one scripture that Bud took to heart.

That tenderness was especially present in with his family. After I was a big grown man, with kids of my own, I could expect that every time I walked in the door at his house, Dad was going to give me a big wet kiss, right on the lips. That might embarrass some folks, but not me; I was proud to have a dad that let me know he loved me. He would tell me in actions, but he also told me in words. I can’t say that every word Bud and I had was tender and loving; in fact, we spent plenty of time arguing about stubborn, stupid opinions we both had about politics and religion, when most of the time, none of it really mattered. But I also remember his gentle smile, a good hug, a big kiss, and an “I love you, son” thousands of times. I will never forget that my father loved…loves me.

That’s probably one of the most valuable inheritances you can leave your children. I hear many adults struggle with low self esteem and personal disappointment, often because their parents could never say, “I love you”. That sort of emotionally stunted behavior is often a generational curse, passed down through the line of a family, because someone, somewhere decided that they were too shy, reserved, or scarred to share their love with another human being…even their own child.

If that’s where you are, I encourage you to break that curse. Because a curse is exactly what it is. It stunts people, not allowing them to reach their full potential because they may feel unworthy of love or praise. Here’s an important thing to consider as a parent, so important that I’m separating it to its own paragraph and putting it in capital letters, so you get the impact:

YOU ARE THE REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD IN YOUR CHILD’S LIFE.

I want you to get that. When we call God our Father, it is no accident that God set up the family structure with an earthly father. He knew that our kids would need someone with flesh to act as a representative of Him in the lives of our children everyday. That’s YOU, bucko. You are the provider, the protector, the pastor and the priest of your household. You are the one that shows God’s approval, discipline and love. You are His arms, voice and face in the world of your kids. I’ve seen adults that had a difficult time accepting God as their Father, because their earthly father was abusive, cold, indifferent or absent. Don’t let that be your kid.

You kiss your kids, tell them you love them. Build them up and bless them. They will live up to…or down to whatever value you place on them. Don’t let them wonder about it when you’re gone. Show them your love now, show them God’s love now. Don’t be afraid of a big sloppy kiss; I’ve got a few of them waiting on the other side. Pucker up, Dad…pucker up, Son. I’ll be there before you know it.

Rule 10 – Never buy the cheapest, or the most expensive- go with the “happy medium”.

This rule I most often see demonstrated in the automobile world. I remember Dad saying this phrase a lot growing up, but honestly, I’ve seen him break the rule a few times, and almost always, he paid the consequences. By the time I came along, Bud had gone through the tough times that many of us go through, having to drive whatever we can afford. Usually that means some kind of lemon that someone else has already squeezed most of the juice from. But since I came along a little later in my father’s life, he had the ability to drive some pretty decent cars; but when he went cheap, it always came back to bite him.

I remember in the seventies, when gas went to a dollar a gallon, (what would we give to have that back?)  Bud bought an economy car. To his credit, he did buy a Mercury, the “happy medium” of the Ford brand, but he bought a Mercury Bobcat. For those of you that are too young to remember a Bobcat, and because they were such pieces of junk that almost none still exist today, I will tell you that the Bobcat was the chromed up version of the Ford Pinto, the target of seventies’ liability lawyers and comedians everywhere. Dad’s Bobcat did not last long around our house, because it became very apparent, very soon, that it was a pile of junk that couldn’t pull itself out of its own tracks. Lesson learned, Dad traded up to a Torino, paid more for gas, but rode in much more comfort with much more reliability.

Likewise, I saw him go the other way once, buying a top of the line Cub Cadet riding mower. He had always preferred to purchase middle of the road products, but the allure of that brand caused him to pay top dollar for a high end product. What he soon found out was that he paid a lot of money for pretty yellow paint, without a whole lot more to show for it. It was no more reliable to operate than lawn tractors that cost hundreds less, plus the parts were VERY expensive. Needless to say, he unloaded the Cadet and bought a Snapper that cost about half as much…and lasted for many years.

After these speed bumps, I heard Dad speak about the “happy medium” a lot; it was a well learned life lesson. It’s a lesson I think still works pretty well. If you buy junk, that’s what you get. From tools to toys, if you go cheap, you will pay for it over and over. Likewise, if Snap-On or Louis Vuitton calls your name, chances are that you are overpaying for life and working for your tools and toys, instead of letting them work for you. A lot of folks are deep in debt and working 60 hours plus a week, to pay for piles of junk, both cheap and expensive. In the end, it costs us the precious hours of our life. Nobody on their death bed ever says, “I wish I had worked harder and bought more stuff.”

What does this have to do with life spiritually? I think a lot. Jesus said, “If a man builds a tower, does he not first count the cost?” Paul said that every man’s life will be tried to see what it’s made of, whether it be gold and precious jewels or wood, hay and straw. The bottom line is this; live a quality life. Spend more time on the people in your life than the stuff in your life. Don’t be cheap, but don’t live to excess. Lay your treasures up in Heaven…because nobody takes it with them when they go. 

Rule 9 – “A deal’s a deal, even if it takes the hide off.”

This is one of two of Bud’s rules that are actually a direct quote, and I include it in these writings, because if it was something Bud lived by and repeated more than once, I felt it was worth exploring. Also, I think the concept lends itself to several life lessons about what it means to be a man.

The most impressive display of this rule that I remember was when a friend of Dad’s came out to the farm one day to see a prize Tennessee walking horse that Dad was very fond of. She was a stunning bay mare, with a white blaze face; the product of two Grand Champions. Bud took very good care of her, trained her, and had absolutely no interest in parting with her. His friend, however, had other ideas. He begged Dad to sell her, to name his price, constantly goading him about what it would take for the man to load her up and take her home. Finally, Bud saw that the man wasn’t going to quit until he named a price, so he popped off with a figure that was roughly the value of a decent new car at the time, which he figured was about twice was the horse was worth. The man whipped out a checkbook and wrote Dad a check.

As my father walked into house, ashen faced, still holding the check, Mom asked him what had happened. He just looked at her with a lost, almost hurt look and said, “I just sold my horse.” He then related how the deal had went down and how that he regretted ever pricing the animal. But when we mentioned tearing up the check and going back on the deal, he shook his head. “A deal’s a deal,” he said, “and you stick with it, even if it takes the hide off.” He helped the man load his horse and watched sadly as she was hauled away. The big check in his wallet meant little to him, but he stuck to the deal.

This lesson taught me a few things about agreements. In the time in which we live, agreements of various types, from business arrangements to marriage, don’t seem to mean very much to folks. People are always looking for a loophole, and nothing seems to last. A handshake means nothing; a promise means less. But I think we could all learn about a few valuable areas of life with this rule. They include:

Honor- There is something about giving your word to do something. When you break that agreement, you’ve affected your reputation with others. That’s not a light thing to mess with. It is important for your peers to trust you. If you can’t be trusted, you won’t be dealt with. Also, it affects your honor in someone else’s eyes: your own. What kind of man do you want to shave every morning? Do you want to be a man of compromise, or a man of resolve? Finally, how do you want your family to see you? Do you want your companion and your children to see you go back on your word, or do you want to leave a lasting impact with your sense of personal honor?

Prudence- This is a good, old fashioned word, but it means to use caution, or to have forethought. If you live your life with the understanding that you will abide by every agreement you make, one side effect is that you will be very cautious about the commitments you enter into. One bad deal will teach you a lesson. I can guarantee you that my Dad learned from his experience, and never again let someone goad him into pricing a possession that he didn’t want to sell. It’s important to carefully consider an agreement, before you find yourself in the middle of it.

A old man from the community where I grew up once told me that before he got married, he went down to the courthouse and got the marriage license, and everyday for a week, he would go for a walk down by the creek, sit down on a stump and study the document, asking himself if he could hold up to his end of the deal. Finally, when he was satisfied that he could stand by that commitment, they got married, and were together for life. That kind of prudence would make an incredible impact on the lives of many today.

Perseverance- Commitment like this takes what I call “stick-ability”…the mean to stick with an agreement or a person, when the going gets tough. Sometimes, almost always, if you make a deal of any significance, there is a period of buyer’s remorse. We’ve all experienced it; that time when you wish you hadn’t done the deal. But in time, if we persevere, we find that we can live with the outcome. We may always wonder, “what if” from time to time, but if you go there, don’t live there. It’s a pointless exercise that will only wear you down. If you’ve made a commitment, stick to it. It may cost us some “hide”, skinning our knees in the process of abiding with a deal; but skin grows back. Don’t look back, don’t try to say, “I could have” or “I should have”. Stick with the deal- if you don’t profit from it, you will learn from it.

Commitment like this is rare, and to some, it may seem out of style. But it’s still the best practice; and if it makes us an individual of honor, prudence and perseverance, it’s worth every inch of “hide” we pay for it.

Rule 8 – Be child enough to laugh and man enough to cry.

Bud Wilson laughed many, many times, and shed many, many tears. I have seen my dad go through the entire spectrum of emotion. I’ve seen him sad, mad and glad. Fortunately for me and those around him, you didn’t have to wonder how he felt- he let you know.

Bud would have never been a good poker player, because he wasn’t good at hiding his feelings. But contrary to traditional thinking, I’m thinking that this characteristic was an asset for him, rather than a liability. While most of us bottle up our emotions, playing our cards held tightly to our vest, he laid his emotions out on the line. Our family grew up with that, and it’s made me a more open person.

While that can open a person up for a variety of issues, it also means there are few surprises, for you or for those in your life. Your stress level is much less, and your blood pressure is more apt to be somewhere closer to normal.

Conventional wisdom teaches us that big boys don’t cry. But I learned from my father that you can be a “man’s man” and still shed a barrel of tears. Bud cried when he was happy and when he was sad. But he was never ashamed of his tears- he let them flow.

He’s not the only manly man that left an example of tears. Jesus wept over the loss of a friend and the rebellion of His people. The prodigal’s father wept for joy when his son returned to him. David, one of the mightiest warrior kings ever, said in Psalm 56 that God had kept track of his tears. One of these days, when we get to Heaven, the Bible says that God will wipe away our tears. But for the time being, while we are here, tears come in pretty handy. Feel free to use them when you need to.

The book of Proverbs says laughter does the heart good like a medicine. I believe that’s true. I’ve already written a bit about telling a joke and having a sense of humor, but I think that laughter does something deep within us; it taps into the child we still have inside. Dad loved a good practical joke, and when his mischief showed through with a hearty chuckle, somewhere in the twinkle of his eye, you could still see that little boy that once was.

It’s good to keep in touch with that kid in us. They keep us anchored and humble; they keep us from getting rusty and crusty. Also, it’s important to remember that no matter how old we are in this life, we are all children in God’s eyes. Jesus said that we need to be like little children to inherit the Kingdom of God. While I know that Jesus was speaking from an attitude standpoint, part of me thinks that it would be awesome if that was what Heaven was like. Can you imagine us all as little children, laughing and playing, with one big loving Father to watch over us? Sounds like Heaven to me. That’s what laughter keeps us in touch with.

Someone once said, “You might as well laugh as to cry.” I say it’s all right to do both- sometimes even at the same time.

Rule 7 – Take your kids to church instead of sending them to church.

Some of the earliest memories I have of my childhood involve going to church. Sunday school with Ms. Irene Creekmore telling Bible stories with paper cut outs on a felt story board, singing “Deep and Wide” with the rest of the kids in front of the church, church ladies fanning themselves with cheap paper fans imprinted with images of the Last Supper and the stately, baritone sermons of a white haired, grandfatherly pastor named Mose Bryum. I remember these and I remember something else; my dad sitting beside me in church.

Even if he had worked the graveyard shift on Saturday night, Dad would come in, get cleaned up, and drive us to church. Back then, jeans and t-shirts on Sunday morning were unheard of; children wore “church clothes” every Sunday, and Mom always made sure that our hair was combed, our ties were straight, and our shoelaces were tied. Dad kept our shoes shined, and would make sure we didn’t get them dirty by carrying us in from the gravel parking lot. Our feet never hit the ground from the car until we were inside the church.  

I remember his arm around me, his hand on my knee. I’d turn his hand palm up in my lap and trace the lines, calluses and scars I found there. I didn’t realize it at the time, and he probably didn’t either, but Bud was living an example of the love of God the Father, letting me experience that presence in a flesh and blood way, in a way that a child can understand. God says through the prophet Isaiah that He has “graven us on the palms of His hands”, and as I heard about God’s provision for me, I saw it in the landscape of my father’s hands. I will never forget that. He showed me that he saw worship with the church body as a priority.  It shaped who I am.

I think that’s important for a man to take that initiative because it’s our job to take care of our children, mind, body and soul. I believe one of the biggest problems we see in families today is the absence of a good, Godly man that is a living example of God’s love to his own children. Watch any talk show or news story dealing with teen crime or children out of control, and look for the common denominator; where’s the father?

Walk into most churches today, and you will see that the majority of the adults attending are women. Why? Well, part of it is the fault of church itself. Churches need to do a better job of getting men involved. I know back in the day, my dad and a lot of other men did the building maintenance, the cleaning and the landscaping. There were things to do; things to keep guys busy. Of course there are still things to do, but now, it’s just easier to hire some one than to look for volunteers. The trouble is, men need something to be involved with, or they lose interest.

But men are also inherently lazy, and if they think that the kids are being taken care of, they will let someone else do it. It’s easy to stay at home, go fishing, golfing, work on the car, etc., while the wife or the grandparents take the kids to church. But we have to make the effort guys- our sons look to us to know how to be men and our daughters look to us to know what to expect from men. They learn from us, and judge their own worth by the amount of time you take to spend with them. Don’t put it off- your children are growing up QUICK. I know you’re busy- we all are. But, it’s easy to lose an entire generation while we’re in the process of getting our own lives together.

So take the time guys. Get up on Sunday morning and take your children to church. Be the pastor, priest and protector of your family. Don’t wait until there are older. Don’t let someone else do it. It’s your job, your responsibility. Every child comes into this world as a blank page. Somebody will write on that page- guaranteed. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the page will get filled with something. Words of wisdom or garbage graffiti; something will fill them up. When the page has been filled, it’s too late to squeeze your influence into the picture. Are you going to do it, or let someone else?