Timeless not old.....

I got two statements, if you don't remember anything else I say:

Begin with the end in mind and die empty.

- Aeneas Williams, Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Speech

(August 2nd, 2014)

Do you know who Aeneas Williams is? You should. Have you heard Fred Rogers' commencement speech at Dartmouth? You should. Have you been exposed to timeless wisdom recently? You should. How much better would your life be, however you define this, if you made it a practice to seek out, reflect on, learn from and live into wisdom consistently? Greater abundance awaits if we but seek it….

Unexpectedly, several times in just the past that day, I've encountered wisdom. Wasn't looking for it and honestly wasn't that open to it at the time … but both instances that I'd like to share here have left an indelible impression that I hope to carry forward in my life, so I share them with you….

Aeneas Williams is now pastor, but if you recognize his name at all, it's likely because he was an exceptional defensive back in the National Football League for fourteen seasons and was recognized for his appreciable accomplishments by being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014. I was always a fan - he just seemed to carry himself so differently and better and with such grace that it was noticeable both on the field and off in his playing days - but I never really knew what had become of him in his retirement.

As it happens, even though I'm boycotting the NFL along with so many who are repulsed by its tone deaf and cowardly record with respect to social justice and the care of its current players and alumni, as I scrolled through the program guide, I noticed a segment of the program  A Football Life that featured Williams (https://gamepass.nfl.com/video/aeneas-williams-a-football-life), so I watched it. And I am so thankful that I did, because I'm an even bigger fan of Aeneas Williams now and even more impressed with him as a human being than I have been him as an outstanding and truly all-time player.

You see, Aeneas Williams is truly a man in full, a human being fully alive, imbued with a sense of purpose and living on purpose in an otherwise chaotic world, and thereby he is making an even greater contribution off the field than his incredible body of work on it. Suffice it to say that I was truly happy for him and his family when I learned a few years ago that he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame: it was a hard-won and richly deserved honor for an exceptional and exemplary player and leader, because during his career he had always been a positive influence not only on teammates but on the organizations with which he was affiliated and on the larger body of active players during his day. So I was gratified to learn even more about this exceptional person and his impact … and then they began to examine his life in retirement, which is even more impressive than his exceptionally impressive playing career.

Aeneas Williams is a man of deep faith and has chosen to become a small-town pastor and community leader. But not just in any small-town: by coincidence, it turns out that he has settled in Ferguson, Missouri. Yes, that Ferguson. And though we all have horrific memories of what happened there in the aftermath of Michael Brown's death just four years ago, as is typical with our media, we know much less about the appreciable renaissance that's occurred since … in which, it turns out, Aeneas Williams has played a meaningful role. He is still the same understated, by example leader, but now his focus is helping others see hope in the midst of despair and to make this the basis of informed choices that will lead to better outcomes for them and, actually, for us all.

Aeneas Williams' example inspired me and, even though I've lived a parallel life of service throughout my for-profit career, it reminded me just how important being a positive influence and role model in the lives of others truly is. Specifically, his example has inspired me to ensure that every time I have the opportunity to share meaningfully with someone I should take it, or, to use his phrase, I should live as if my goal is to "die empty," having left all of myself and what I have to contribute out on the field of my life. Yes, I've given a great deal over the years, and at appreciable cost to me and my loved ones at that, but this is a small price to pay both to pay forward the myriad blessings that I have received and to have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to fellow human beings' success and fulfillment in life.

Simply put, Aeneas Williams is one of my heroes, not just on the field but in life, which matters so much more … and he's so very different but in meaningful ways quite similar to another of my heroes to whom I was reintroduced recently, Fred Rogers.

That's right, that Fred Rogers, as in Mr. Rogers, the creator of and lead character in the exceptionally long-running and profoundly influential television program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.  Currently on my list of things to do is to see the new documentary tribute about his life and work, Won't You Be My Neighbor? So I didn't expect to be reacquainted with him and his legacy via my Facebook feed this morning, but I'm so thankful that I was.

You know that Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood ran for a long time, right? But did you realize that it was for more than thirty-three years, from 1968 to 2001? Me either. And did you know that this gentle, courtly man whose on-camera persona was the embodiment of understatement and grace was actually the graduate of an Ivy League college, a Presbyterian minister and one of the most progressive social influences in our society for decades? I suspect you may have known the latter, but, like me, not the first two realities about this singular gentleman's life. But what brought me back to - and has greatly enhanced - my appreciation for Fred Rogers is his 2002 commencement address to his alma mater, Dartmouth (https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2018/03/revisiting-fred-rogers-2002-commencement-address).

If you know Fred Rogers, you know him to be the very embodiment of graceful, classy humanity: he was an exceptional person in so many ways, including as "an extra special, kind man" (which is actually how he described one of his collegiate professors). And he was also an incredibly incisive social observer and innovator in his ever-understated way, which it turns out, was also supremely positively influential. So his commencement speech is as he described the world, "a magnificent jewel."

In it, he shares the wisdom of "the last of the great Roman philosophers, and the first of the scholastics of the Middle Ages," Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. (Sure, we all remember him!) And that of Yo-Yo Ma and Saint-Exupery to boot. But what he mainly does is to offer sage advice to a cadre of people embarking on the next chapters of their journey.

And, in true Fred Rogers style, he offered them what he called "an invisible gift," by asking them to invest one minute in silence to ponder "those who have helped you become who you are today." I can imagine that although the assembled were honored to be hearing from Mr. Rogers, I suspect that they were looking even more forward to the end of his remarks and to that of the ceremony itself … except that momentarily they had underestimated this quiet force of nature, as we've all tended to do. Gently yet profoundly he stopped them and refocused them on gratitude rather than their understandable and well-earned pride. In so doing, he shared a gentle reminder of what should be the priority of our priorities. "It's not the honors and the prizes, and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls," he noted, but "the knowing that we can be trusted" and "that we never have to fear the truth" for this "is the bedrock of our lives, from which we make our choices" and therefore "is very good stuff."

He concluded his remarks with an exhortation of which we should all be mindful and share every day, too:

So, in all that you do in all of your life,

I wish you the strength and grace

to make those choices which will allow

you and your neighbor

to become the best of whoever you are.

That was sixteen years ago, but is no less powerfully true today. That's the thing about Aeneas Williams and Fred Rogers: they are - and they have lived in ways that are - timeless, not old. Were it that we could live so eternally, too....

In this spirit, then, I wish all of you the gratitude-infused courage to live a life that's timeless both in its substance and its impact and, at Mr. Rogers' behest, I leave you with the words of the great philosopher as he quoted them:

O happy race of mortals,

if your hears are ruled as is the universe,

by love.