Recipes for Living John Adams

Often I tell my friends that I am the most ordinary guy they will ever meet. Life has been one huge learning experience for me. In every instance, I seem to reflect on it from the viewpoint of what it has taught me. What I am dealing with at the moment is that my dad at 86 died last week on July 3, 2002. He died within a ¼ mile of where he was born. He graduated from high school two miles from where he lived. Sixty-four years ago he married a girl who lived about six miles from his home. His remains were buried ½ mile from where he lived on the Century Farm that he owned, so Dad's roots went deep and he didn't ever go far from home.

Dad had six by-passes in 1984 and an aneurism in 1985. After these major health problems he got to live another 16 to 18 years because he took really good care of himself. His cardiologist and Dad had a good doctor-patient relationship. The doctor told Dad that he almost died a few days after his by-pass, but the doctor talked him out of it. He often said to Dad, "You can't die because I've got kids in school and that's expensive." It was probably about a year ago that he said, "All my kids are out of college, and you're still around."

There are many things about his death that I am thankful for. Dad died at home Wednesday morning. As long as I can remember, my parents had the same routine. Mother got up at 4:00, Dad stayed in bed until a little later. When he got up, he always made the bed. On Wednesday morning Mother got up at 4:00, Dad at 6:30, and Mother heard a thud. She went into the room and found that he had made the bed, put on and buttoned his shirt, put on a pair of socks, his pants, and dropped. He was unresponsive when Mother tried to rouse him and she called 911. We believe that he never knew what happened.

That would be exactly the way he wanted to die. I'm so at peace with that. He got his wish. I'm going to miss him terribly because he was really my rock. I have been close to both my parents in different ways. I may be more like my mother, but when all the chips were down, I could count on my dad. There are lots of people who can't say that. I assume that everyone, who has a good mother and father, idolize their parents. That may not be true at 15, but by the time we reach 53, I believe most people re-evaluate their priorities, attach what they value and detach what they aren't so proud of.

My brother and sister are twins, 6 ½ years younger than I. We were all together at my parents' home to celebrate their 47th birthday on June 30 of this year. That was the Sunday before dad died, so we couldn't ask for anything better. Dad's funeral was on Saturday, July 6. The service was conducted by Kay Singley of Moulton, who has pastored in southern Iowa for about 20 years. She was born in Appanoose County and still lives there, so she has an understanding of the culture and of my dad.

Dad was opinionated. He did his own thing. I think what influenced his life a lot was that his mother died when he was 15 and he had to stay on the farm and work with his dad. If that left him with some ideas about life, I think I benefitted from it, because when I turned 21, I was on my own. It is not that I was unsupported-my parents weren't distant from or deserting me-but I was free to make my own decisions. I knew they always backed up what I said, but without giving me a lot of advice. There is a basic personal freedom to that. Parents who do that allow their children to be who they are without telling them who they must be. I think that was what I appreciated most of all about my parents.

Dad's was just the most recent loss in my life. I have had many and from each one I learned something about life. When I was in third grade I had two very good friends-a pair of twin boys. There were two grades in that classroom, and the older students helped the younger ones. I helped one of the brothers with all the subjects every day, and we became as close as third graders can become. The very last day of school, as we were getting on the bus, saying goodbye to everyone, he gave me a big old bear hug, and said he loved me. About six weeks later he was riding his bike and was run over and killed by a driver on a graveled road. I remember it vividly. I had been away at church camp and as we were returning, we stopped at the grocery store in Plano. The old fellow who owned the store said, "Did you hear about the little boy that was run over?'' Of course we asked who it was, and he said, "Gerald was killed."

Now that I am an adult, it is hard to describe that loss from the point of view of a child eight or nine years old. I suppose you could compare it to a sibling loss but this was something different. With siblings you have normal differences. This was more of a love that I've never quite replaced. What I learned from that was that even though we love somebody so much and they love us in return, it can all vanish instantly. Some of those losses are not ever repaired or healed. The void is never filled, and we have to admit that.

It was a time in my life that I felt loss in a graphic way. I never did really have a way to process it. In their attempt to protect me, adults kept saying, "It'll be okay." But even at that age, I knew it would never be okay. I find it so ironic that the last memory I have is his hugging me as though he was saying goodbye. It is still in some ways quite emotional. I finished high school with his twin brother, was in band with him, played football with him, but we didn't become close, and we never talked about Gerald. Somehow Harold understood.

Another lesson I learned was that, even though we can't live in fear of it, any time anyone can be taken from us no matter how unlikely that seems, and I can't care about them and not tell them. That refers not only to the people you love but the people you respect and admire. I've met so many different people-they come and go in our lives, and every one has something for which they could be praised and appreciated. Many I've worked with for brief periods, and I know that if I am going to say anything personal, I'd better say it and not let it slide.

Either I have had losses that have impressed me, or I've hung on too much. They have been bench marks in my life. I went to school in a consolidated district with different centers, so I started to school in Seymour and was there for kindergarten through second grade, to Jerome for third and fourth, Promise City for fifth and sixth, then back to Seymour for seven through 12. There was only one girl that I was with every single year. She was in every class I was ever in. She'd been sick since about third grade and died of natural causes in June after we graduated from high school. She had achieved her lifetime goal, which was to graduate from high school.

There was even another. When I was a sophomore in high school, there was a girl who was a friend. We weren't close friends, but the summer when we got our drivers' licenses she would come over and we became buddies. She died in an auto accident in August of that year. I think of her sometimes and the fun we had that summer. I have realized that we don't have lots of life-time friends, so it is best to enjoy one another, have a good time, but know that they move in and out of our lives. I firmly believe that every one of us has our time in the sun. Friendships have an ebb and flow, for whatever reason, and we are given the opportunity to enjoy them. Many times friends are separated and we think we will stay in touch, but usually we don't so, enjoy what you have. Laugh as hard as you can, cry as hard as you can, and don't worry about tomorrow.

I continued my education at Indian Hills Community College and graduated in 1969. I went on to I.S.U. (Iowa State University) and graduated in 1971 with a BS degree in Ag Business.

I worked there 14 years, part of the time as manager. I discovered that you will be a better boss if you've been an employee and vice versa. One Wednesday afternoon the boss approached me with kind of a funny look on his face and said, "We are closing up Friday." I thought he meant we were closing for two weeks or the summer but he meant forever. We were not consulted. It just happened with one telephone call. I was out of a job and the door was closed. I had about 2 days to get my personal belongings and go home.

I learned that there is a difference between business, the public sector, and the entrepreneur. They are all doing the same thing-generating income for themselves, the stockholders, or whomever-but they have a somewhat different slant on business in general. It is not fun to experience but it has been interesting to see those different perspectives. The philosophy is that you have to strike a balance between your personal interest, your employer's interest, and the public interest. My first boss taught me, "When you go out to sell something, you represent the company. When you come back and talk to me, you represent the customer." You have to cross over and see both sides. That is not easy. We all have human interests.

For eight or nine months, I worked in a factory. That gave me a new perspective. I never did understand the concept of quitting in the middle of a job just because a bell rang. You didn't come early or stay late and that was an attitude I'd never had. Ironically, losing my job at Kaiser helped me get a job at a later time, because in 1986 I started working for Indian Hills Community College in their dislocated worker program. I got the job because I had been one. That, in turn led to my job with I.S.U. Extension in July, 1987. The emphasis was essentially crisis intervention with rural families, which could mean town or country. The project ended in 1997, and by that time the focus had moved from farm crisis to community crisis. Family farms no longer supported the family. There was a time when I was interviewed by the Washington Post. The only quote of mine they used was, "The light's on in the kitchen but no one is farming." They felt that it summed up the trend which had gone from families obtaining their whole livelihood from the farm, to one or both spouses maintaining the farm by seeking other employment.

At that time people were not only adjusting their lives and incomes, but somehow they were trying to make sense of it all. The impact that started then is still there today. My opinion is that agriculture-based communities are still struggling. Maybe that is the way it has always been. We all attempt to hold our parents' generation as our benchmark. We want to start economically where they left off, and in the first five years we are employed, we expect to have a home, two vehicles, and everything they had. It is a myth that is harder and harder to carry out in southern Iowa.

I have worked for the DHS (Department of Human Services) for the last 14 months and have had three termination notices during that time. That has reinforced the lesson I learned at Kaiser-an employer, for whatever reason, can decide you are no longer necessary. It nullifies the idea that hard work will always be valuable to somebody. For whatever reason, you can be gone. Lesson: Change can happen at any time. Don't get comfortable.

I remember seeing "Gone with the Wind," in which Scarlett said, in essence, "There will always be the land." In the 80s, farmers began losing their land and it hasn't stopped. People once felt that by the time they reached 60 to 70 years of age, they would feel secure and able to live in some form of retirement. In my work, I see them losing their farms. What a trauma! I told my dad over and over how lucky he was to have held onto his farm.

I consider that every person I meet or have met has a story to tell. Regardless of their economic status, almost without exception, each one has had pain, excitement, disappointment, success, and failure. I really believe that I have learned something from every person I have ever met, and I think that is true of all of us. We can all learn from each other. All we need is a little effort and time, which most of us feel we don't have.

That is the uniqueness of my job. I meet people every day who live a different life style than mine, who make decisions from different perspectives than mine, respond to situations differently than I do. I have gained a great deal by struggling to look from the other person's perspective, rather than imposing my perspective on them. I learned that from Extension work. In that setting I did have time. That was my job. One of my friends called me a "professional neighbor." I could take time with people, and I heard it all. It was not to be shared with anyone else, but I heard their stories and learned from them.

I discovered that you can learn more from being in a person's home for an hour than more time spent in other ways. I am not talking about being nosey, not sneaking a look into the bathroom closet, but being with them in their home setting or wherever it is that they feel the most at home. A guy might feel more at home in his machine shed than in the kitchen, or in the pickup than in the living room. That is where you get to know them.

People sometimes ask me how I can listen to all this stuff and not carry the person's problems with me. I have to do it that way because I can't do justice to the next client if I'm still thinking about the previous one. I have to give them equal attention. I see life as a blackboard that we have to erase every day. Learn the lessons, but don't be focused on them to the point of allowing them to interfere with the opportunities that will come in the next day or the next conversation.

I have had three illnesses that required hospitalization. All three could have been debilitating, and from two I could probably have died. They have had a significant effect on how I see life. Suddenly death was not something that would happen sometime in the future. It was not tomorrow or next week or in six months. It was as close as walking into the next room and I knew that I could die that very day!

That changed my life forever. It seemed like my senses were magnified ten times, and I became more aware of everything. After I returned home, I would stay awake as long as I could so that I could appreciate as much of every day that I had been given. I literally appreciated every step I could take without struggling. It became even more acute when the crisis had passed, and it remained with me all the time. I was excited when I could go to work. I wanted to cram as much life as I could into every day. There is also a struggle involved in requiring constant medical care, because it is a big hassle. People who have cancer treatment or any kind of chronic illness know this. It is a weight we always carry.

There are points in our lives when we notice a change. Conceptually, after a certain age we all realize that we will die. People we've cared about, people we've loved, have died, and we will also. Then we look at what we have done with ourselves, our careers, our families, our friends, and ask what we want to do with the people whose lives we touch? What I've learned is that today matters the most. It matters for the other people we can touch in our lives in whatever way. Have I given someone enough of my time and of myself today?

I want to tell people to appreciate their health and everything else that they have. My experiences have changed my perspective from "tomorrow could be the last day" to "today could be the last." The negative side of this is being satisfied with today. On the one hand, you want to be as productive as you can, but on the other hand, you don't want to be self-satisfied. Like many other things in life, the challenge is balance.

I have heard the phrase, "I know who you are but I don't know you." That is true with most of the people in our lives. My line of work has led me to go below the surface and know that deeper person. From our being together in doing this story, I know you in a way I would not have otherwise. I have seen what motivates you and what interests you, even though we aren't talking about you. I've never met a person who wrote life stories, and part of my motivation in agreeing to do this was, "What is she up to?"

A speaker said, "The way you leave your interaction with another person often governs how you feel about them until your next interaction with that same person." In some ways that is so obvious that we don't think about it. If we've had an argument, the next time we see that person- the next morning or a year from now- we don't usually have good internal feelings about that meeting. On the other hand, if we felt exhilaration about the meeting, we would probably have a good feeling about that next interaction regardless of how long the intervening time was.

This is the reason I've always thought it was crucial to part with respect. If it is a pleasurable encounter, respect is much easier to maintain. If it is a difficult encounter, I believe we still should leave it with respect even if we disagree or are hurt or angry. That is not an easy task. There are many aspects of life that are not easy, but we learn a lot from the difficult times.

I was raised in the Baptist Church. I went forward at the age of nine, and was baptized by immersion. I can remember every aspect of the whole experience vividly. The church closed when I was 11 or 12, and I attended the Plano Christian Church. That church burned down, in the late 60s, I think. It was a powerful experience to witness our church burning down. The congregation never missed a Sunday having church. We went to the Methodist church in Plano, and the congregation moved to the old Methodist church, which was in the process of closing down.

My Christian faith has been more of a battle than a peaceful experience. My faith has always been with me, but it has been a challenge to apply it. There are so many ebbs and flows in my faith and in my life and it has been hard to maintain a faith that has always been guiding me. My relationship with God is solid and always there, but it is not maintained by a peaceful prayer life as much as it is maintained by a fight and a battle. My faith bears the scars of life's struggles, gains, and losses. Many times I have read the following meditation and feel that it best describes my faith experience:

"My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar or a confession of love. Nor is it the trivial reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you.

"My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: This is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I found, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow.

"My God and I are horsemen galloping in the burning sun or under drizzling rain. Pale, starving, but unsubdued, we ride and converse.

"'Leader!' I cry. He turns his face towards me, and I shudder to confront this anguish. "Our love for each other is rough and ready, we sit at the same table, and we drink the same wine in this low tavern of life."1

I became a member of the United Methodist Church mainly because I felt it was a church where diversity of opinion, of life style, and of people was accepted more than in other churches in my experience. I've been a member of the United Methodist Church for about 15 years. During that time I've been a lay speaker, and I've served as a district and local church officer. I have also done mediation in other United Methodist Churches around the conference.

I have mediated conflicts between church members and between pastors and their congregations. I have also worked with pastors and congregations who have experienced pastoral sexual misconduct. I have seen the very best and the very worst of church life by being involved in the Conflict Resolution Ministry of the United Methodist Church.

I have discovered that the church has a dark side, and rather than hide it, I have come to believe that it might possibly be healthier if we were more aware of it. To heal we must know where the pain is, and if the pain is in the church, we must find it and heal it. As much as we would like to believe it is not in the church, and believes that members or pastors or leaders are good people, actually they are just like us with temptations and mistakes. One of the largest ministries of the church might be to minister to our mistakes.

We have a tendency to come to church with the idea that the fellowship, the leaders, and the pastor may lead us to salvation. However, we sometimes find that they are no farther along the path than we are. As good as the church is we shouldn't have blind trust in it. As bad as it could be, I think we should still embrace it. The church must be big enough to bring back the offended as well as to embrace the offender.

1 From The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises by Nikos Kazantzakis, quoted in Bishop
Job's Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, Upper Room, Nashville, Tennessee,
1983