50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 41
November begins a month of Thanksgiving. Not a day. A month.
I like to treat Thanksgiving as a season, not an afternoon. A few weeks to notice what I am grateful for and name it. It braces me for December, which can arrive overstuffed.
This year I am making a list. What formed me in four years at the Naval Academy?
Do hard things.
I have heard it said that hard times make hardy people. The Academy made me hardy.
Almost fifty years on, it is hard to remember the effort. The strain. The endurance it took to get through a day, then a week, then a semester. Many of my classmates would say the same. Time softens the edges.
But the hard things were real. Some were physical. Some were mental. Some were academic: math, engineering, and science that would never have made my transcript at a civilian college. A few from this series:
- Open Doors. A plebe door stayed open. At all times. Even at night.
- Man Overboard. Attention meant correction. Correction happened in public.
- LOUDER. Reef Points, rates, and learning to make my voice carry.
- Stress Fractures. They don’t start as breaks. They start as murmurs.
- Running Past It. A run I could not get out of. I kept going.
- Just Keep Swimming. Laps with one of the first varsity women’s teams.
- Herndon. Climbing a greased monument to end plebe year.
I did those hard things in my late teens and early twenties. I did not know then what they were building. I know now. They gave me courage and confidence I have drawn on ever since.
Action shapes thinking.
Doing hard things taught me something else. I did not have to wait for a finished plan.
I learned to move first. Act, watch what happens, adjust. Each step told me what to do next. Course correct. Shift. Try a better next action.
- Sailing Directions. I was no natural sailor. I learned a different navigation instead: reading a room.
- OOD Trifecta. Three run-ins with the Officer of the Deck in one night. Each one called for a next move.
- The Decision. Debbie and I went to a staff psychologist to speak up for Kim. Forty-five years later, a letter brought the three of us back together.
- A No-Drop Life. At our 45th reunion ride, a classmate’s bike broke down. I tried to push the faster group ahead. The leader stopped me. We waited together. Wrong first move, better second one.
That is how you get out of a tough spot. I found plenty of them at the Academy. I found more in the Navy. None of them waited for me to finish planning.
Faith formed and forged.
My final gratitude is how my faith grew at the Academy. It was formed there. It was also forged there. Forged is the right word. Forging takes heat, pressure, and a hammer. The Academy supplied all three.
I lived at the edge of hard things. I learned by doing. But because of my Christian faith, I also grew in quieter ways: through reflection, listening, and meditation. The hard things and the action filled my days. Stillness shaped what lay beneath them.
- The Law I Couldn’t Keep. I tried harder and drifted further. A squad leader read Romans 7 to me. That night in my top bunk, my inherited faith became my own.
- Boston. Our floor janitor invited me to his church. They called me to the pulpit. I started timid. Their amens carried me.
- Janice and Joan. Two upperclasswomen who looked out for us. Officers’ Christian Fellowship gatherings, Joan’s guitar, and private prayer in the Jewish Chapel.
The doing gave me courage. The listening gave me roots. Neither alone would have held.
That is my list. Three gratitudes from four years: hard things, action and faith. I will keep adding to it through November.
What is on yours? Where did you learn to listen?
SPECIAL NOTE: I am deeply grateful to you who have supported my writing by reading and joining the conversation. Thank you for your accepting this invitation to my table (blog). I am so happy to see you here with me.
I love the book of Romans. So much richess there. I am glad to call you my friend!