A Woman Killed over 57 Dollars. What is One Life Worth?

“We just got robbed. I’m not kidding Bart! We just got robbed!” Kendall was standing in the corner behind the counter, white-faced and trembling with fear. The tone of her voice, the look on her face and the open cash register drawer removed all doubt. I had only been in the back room for two minutes but in that short time something terrible had happened.

It was 1978 and I had been working at the Baskin Robbins store on 19th street for about 6 months, which meant I was one of the more experienced staff members. It was 5:30 in the afternoon, the slow time of the day during the dinner hour and before the evening rush. It was a time for restocking cones and cups and for swapping out near empty tubs of ice creams with new ones. I was heading for the back to get a tub from the freezer when I saw him enter. Dark hair, dark jacket and a bandana. I didn’t think anything of him, he was just another guy. I went through the door to the storeroom as he approached the counter.

When I came out he was gone, and so was the money. When Kendall told me what had happened my first (and in retrospect, stupid) instinct was to chase after him. The fact that he had a gun and I had an ice cream scooper did not register in my mind. As I ran out the door I saw a car pull away. It had been parked just out of view of the door, about 20 feet away at the curb to the walkway of the center in front of the bar next door. It was a dark blue car about 10 years old. It had a black California license plate with gold numbers, “965 HTM.”

I ran back inside and called the police. This was pre “911” so I dialed the operator. “I need the police we just got robbed!” I was immediately connected to a police dispatcher. A squad car appeared outside within seconds. The dispatcher took the description and plate number of the car and told me to hang up and speak with the officer on scene.

Kendall told us the full story, how he had pulled the gun and told her to give him all the money in the register. She had nervously filled a brown bag with what was in the register and handed it over. He had turned and walked out. The whole event had taken only 1-2 minutes. Kendall had barely finished her story when the news came in over the police radio. They had found him! I had, amazingly, correctly identified the make and age of the car and there were officers in pursuit. The chase was on, the robber was racing down Newport Boulevard.

It was over in a matter of minutes when the thief crashed into another vehicle. He suffered no serious injuries but the woman he hit, a mother of three young children, was not so fortunate. She died at the scene. On the front seat of the dark blue Chevy the police found a toy gun and a paper bag with 57 dollars in it.

57 Dollars. Three children were forever motherless over 57 dollars. It is hard to process the tragedy of such a selfish and stupid act. How could such a thing happen?

The next few weeks saw a flurry of investigational activity.  There were a police interviews at work and at the police station, a photo lineup, and I was called to testify at a preliminary hearing. I was not told about the ultimate resolution of the case but I assume there was a guilty plea before trial as I wasn’t called back to testify again. My life went on.

I think about the robbery every so often. Each time I do it is the 57 dollars and the death of the mother that are most troubling. So much was lost over so little. I think about this every time I hear of a robbery. I wonder how someone could become so thoughtless, so heartless, so evil. At what point does the life of another human being become worth so little?

Life needs to be defended. It needs to be fought for.

There is nothing more valuable on this planet than human life. The Old Testament truth that we are created “in the image of God”, created with the ability to love, to reason, and to choose, is a truth we need to pass on to our children. This truth is the basis for valuing life, every life. Each and every person on this planet is of infinite worth, far more than 57 dollars.

-          Bart

Thanks for visiting the blog. Please remember the power of the share button and let your friends know about this and other posts. You can subscribe to the blog by clicking the link on the page and follow me on Twitter @bartbarrettmd. You can read more about the value of life in my book Life Medicine, available on Amazon.com.

10 Parenting Mistakes to Avoid

Kids don't come with an instruction manual. Parenting is hard work and we all struggle. We will make mistakes along the way but avoiding these pitfalls can make it easier.

1-      Yelling

Anger does not work. It demeans, divides and destroys. It is a shortcut to control that helps avoid understanding and reason. Discipline is a must but anger is never of value.

2-      Emphasizing performance over character

We know parents are failing in this regard when 75-98% of college students admit to having cheated in high school. If all that matters to a parent is the grade on the report card then children will do whatever they can to get that grade. When the grade is more important than the knowledge we have lost something as a society. I would rather have an honest child working at Walmart than a cheating child who was a heart surgeon.

3-      Praising the outside instead of the in

We live in a culture that obsesses over appearance, where an immoral but beautiful woman with no talent or skill can be a celebrity. While we cannot change the fact that society focuses on the superficial externals we can do not need to reinforce that at home. We can and should tell our children that they look nice but the majority of our praise should be on behavior on character. Our words and praises communicate our values and priorities

4-      Putting the kids before your spouse

This is a big one. Mom and Dad come first. Parents who neglect one another to dote upon their children will not have a healthy marriage. We have all seen it happen and it never ends well.

5-      Protecting your kids from consequences

Failure, loss, pain and suffering are a part of life and are life’s greatest teachers. When we beg teachers for second chances on missed assignments or expect our kids to play in the game when they miss practice we are denying them a learning opportunity. When my son was about 8 he threw a plastic boomerang and broke a neighbor’s window. I took the $9.82 he had in his piggy bank to help pay for it. It wasn’t a punishment, I told him, it was a consequence. He was not in trouble and I was not angry. Even though it was an accident, the repairs required money and he needed to help pay. It was a lesson for both of us and for his friends.

6-      Trusting your teenager

Just the other night on TV a parent said that she completely trusted her 18 year-old son. I thought. “Are you crazy?” Think back to the foolishness of your adolescence and ask yourself how many times you shouldn’t have been trusted. We need to know where our kids are, who they are with and what they are doing.

7-      Telling instead of showing

If you don’t do it the chances are your kids won’t learn it. My kids learned honesty by watching us give back money when we were given too much change and seeing us point out when we were under charged. They learned about morality and purity when they saw us decide against certain movies because of objectionable content. I knew I had done well when my then 18 year-old son called me and asked “Can you check the content of a movie me and my friends want to see?”

8-      Expecting too much

Not every child is an Albert Einstein or a Michael Jordan. I have seen teenagers with severe anxiety from being forced to take too many advanced classes. Their parent’s unrealistic dreams of an Ivy League education were weighing them down. Other children have come to me with overuse injuries from playing too many sports year-round as they pursued athletic stardom at the age of 10. Sometimes parents need to chill a little!

9-      Not playing with your kids

It is not enough to watch your kids play or to arrange play dates. When we value what our children do we value them. It felt weird when I played Barbies with my daughter, but I did it. (I did however, draw the line at Pretty Pretty Princess. A man needs his dignity.) I played Halo with my son. I was terrible at it, but when he started talking about warthogs, grunts, elites and jackals at the dinner table, I knew what he was talking about. Take time to play.

10-   Not providing a clear system of values

Kids need to know not only what things are right and what things are wrong, they need to know why things are right and wrong. Forget about keeping the 10 commandments, most people can’t even name 5! We need to set moral standards and teach them. I love the way the Israelites of old were instructed in how to pass on their beliefs and values- “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deut 6: 7-9 NIV) There was no way their kids weren’t going to get the message!

None of these come easy and reviewing the list I see some areas where I could have done better. How about you?

-          Bart

Sharing is caring! Let others know about this post by clicking on the share button. You can be notified of future posts on Twitter by following me @bartbarrettmd, or have future posts delivered to your mailbox by clicking on the subscribe button on the page (scroll down on a mobile device.) Got parenting tips of your own? Think I’m crazy? Share your thoughts in the comments section!

Lessons From a Failing Marriage

His father had died, he was having struggles at work and his marriage was in trouble. All in all it had not been a very good year. He was discouraged and depressed and clearly needed to talk.

Unfortunately, I was not prepared to discuss these intense emotional issues. He  was scheduled for a brief visit to discuss his diabetes and I was planning to review blood sugars, go over his cholesterol and discuss diet and exercise. Marriage counseling was not on the agenda.

Nevertheless this all changed 3 minutes into the visit. It was clear that the medical issues were not his most pressing need. Like it or not, prepared or not, I needed to listen. If I did not address the emotional issues the likelihood of long term success with the physical issues would would be small.

Realizing it could cause me to fall behind and mess up my schedule, I took a breath and sat down and asked more questions. I asked about counseling. They had gone to counseling for their marriage but he did not have confidence in the therapist. He repeated a complaint I have heard from many men, the feeling that the counselor had taken his wife’s side and had not listened to his point of view. He knew he had work to do but felt that he was not as bad as he had been made out to be. He felt that he was being blamed for their struggles as a couple.

I acknowledged that he seemed to be a pretty decent guy but then shared with him something I have often shared in discussions with patients and church groups, the four words that pose one of the greatest obstacles to improvement in relationships, “I’m not that bad.” When we latch on to these words we embrace thinking that paralyzes change. He may not be that bad, but I was pretty sure that didn't mean that he could not be better, and while he could not control what his wife did he would always be free to work on himself.

I encouraged him to ask himself a question, “Am I being the best person I can be for my family?” This is a question I ask myself regularly, a question that turns my focus away from the faults in others and helps me be a better father and husband. I have learned that when my family sees me working hard to be a better man they are much more patient with my faults and struggles.

He seemed open to the concept. As the conversation continued he shared that he was a man of faith, so I added another encouragement, sharing the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 12. Paul told his readers that they should not “conform to the pattern of this world but instead be transformed by the renewing of their minds.” I paraphrased Paul’s words as “you are broken in your thinking, if you want to break free from the behavior that has gotten you into trouble, you are going to need to radically change the way you think!” With these words I encouraged him to take a closer look at the way he viewed himself, his wife and his marriage.

As we talked I learned that he did not have anyone in his life who could challenge his thinking and perspective in this way, anyone who could tell him when he was wrong and how he could be better. For all of his life he had trusted his own judgment almost exclusively. Realizing it is hard to do better on our own I suggested that in addition to the counseling they were already doing that perhaps he should find a mentor, someone he could trust to help him be the man he wanted to be.

His story reminds me that simple things can have profound impact. How much better would our lives and relationships be if we put others first and worked each day to be better people for those we love? How much growth would we experience if we were willing to question our thinking and develop meaningful relationships with someone wise who could help guide us on our road to personal growth?

Something to think about.

- Bart

Your feedback is welcome, feel free to leave a comment. If there is someone you think needs to read these words, click the share button. A reminder, you can follow me on Twitter @bartbarrettMD, or on my office facebook page.

4 Lessons on Failure, Courtesy of a Dying Church

What happened? How did I end up in this mess? I had such great plans, how did they all fall apart? Many of us have asked these questions when confronted with failure. Failure is a part of every life, even successful ones. While dealing with failure is never easy, those times we do not succeed are usually opportunities for learning and growth. If we do not learn the lessons then simple failure becomes a tragedy.

Failure in all forms is difficult but dealing with the failure of a church is especially hard. I saw this first hand 7 years ago when I was asked to preach to a church that was in its final days. The church had at one time been a thriving congregation of over a thousand. On the Sunday I was invited to speak the congregation had dwindled to fewer than 100 and had just made the decision to hand all of their property and facilities over to another church in town. It was a sad day. It was my goal that morning to find some positive lessons in the midst of the sadness.

 I turned to a biblical story from the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, a tale of a time when the nation of Israel faced a disastrous failure. There I found lessons on why people fail that were applicable then and are still applicable today.

In 1 Samuel 4 the story is told that the people of Israel were defeated in battle by their enemies the Philistines. The leaders of Israel came up with a solution to this defeat and prepared to reengage the enemy. They sent someone home to fetch the Ark of the Covenant (a gold plated box that symbolized the presence of God) and bring it to the battlefield. Their logic seemed to be, "God is in the Ark, so if we bring the Ark,we bring God. If we bring God, we will win!"

Their lack of true spirituality revealed when the ark was brought to the battlefield by two priests who should have been removed from office years earlier. They were incredibly dishonest and immoral men, thieves and adulteres who clearly did not honor God or His law. Nevertheless, they were deemed worthy of escorting the ark to the battlefield. Believing that the ark guaranteed God’s blessing and ensured victory, the people let out a mighty cheer when the ark arrived, a cheer so loud that it caused fear in the Philistine ranks. The Israelite joy was short lived. Their plans and thinking were revealed as foolish shortly after the battle started. They were routed by the Philistines, their priests were killed and the ark was stolen. Over 30,000 Israelite soldiers were slaughtered. 

When news of the defeat reached the Israelites back home despair resulted. The father of the priests fell over backwards at the news and broke his neck. His daughter-in-law, wife of one of the priests, was in labor, giving birth to a son when the news came. There were serious complications during the delivery and she knew she was about to die. Overcome with despair at the loss of her husband and Israel's crushing defeat she named her son Ichabod, which means, “The Glory has departed.” She died convinced that the blessings of God were gone, that the nation of Israel was crushed and abandoned. It was a dark time of great failure for the Jewish people.

A close look at the story reveals common causes of failure in communities of faith, lessons for all of us today.

1- The people tried to do it their way. They thought they could do whatever they wanted and expected God to go along with their plans. They had an idea, going to war, and tried to get God to go along with it by bringing the ark. When people and churches fail it is often because they have gone their own way and expected God to follow. Many of my greatest mistakes have come in times when I was supremely confident that I knew what I was doing.

2- The people of Israel had leaders who made bad decisions and used flawed reasoning. Following bad leaders almost always leads to failure. In the Biblical example the leaders were mistaken in their understanding of the workings of God. It was the elders of Israel who had the idea of bringing the ark to the battlefield thinking that it would guarantee victory. So often leaders are wrongly convinced that they know exactly how things will play out. They get overconfident, place too much faith in themselves and everyone fails. We see this in organizations and even Churches today which often undone by leaders who mistakenly think they know how things should work or how God moves. Incompetent leaders don't make good choices!

3- The Israelites refused to deal with bad leadership. The immorality of the priests was widely known but was allowed to continue unchallenged for many years. I have seen this in business and even in small offices. When bad leadership is not addressed, failure results. Too often organizations and faith communities will sweep dysfunction under the carpet instead of dealing with it.

4-  The true cause of their failure eluded them. They did not see that they were at fault and instead blamed God. The dying woman expressed this, saying"The Glory has departed," implying God had abandoned them. Our failures are typically our fault! Blaming others causes us to not learn valuable lessons.

My concluding points  to the sermon I preached years ago still have relevance to people and churches now.

- We need to put less confidence in our own decisions. We need to be willing to question ourselves and seek wise counsel.  For Christians, this means making sure we are following God's plans and not our own.

- We need to be careful who we follow. Organizations (including churches) cannot function if every decision is analyzed and questioned, but they can't survive if there is only blind obedience. When it comes time to choose leaders we need to be diligent and cautious.

- We need to hold our leaders accountable and not ignore their sins and repeated mistakes. Dealing with failed leadership is difficult, but it is essential.

- We need to resist the trap of thinking that failure is the end. The dying woman declared that "the Glory had departed from Israel." As we read through the Old Testament we learn that Israel's greatest days and triumphs still lay ahead of her. It is easy to get caught up in our failure and want to give up. If we do we may miss out on what God has in store. 

Powerful lessons from failures thousands of years ago!

Bart

As indicated by the subtitle of the blog, my musings range from medicine to ministry to the meaning of life. I pray those post has stimulated reflection. If you found it helpful, please share it with your friends. For those new to the blog you can subscribe to future posts by clicking the subscribe button on the page. Posts on Medicine and marriage are coming soon! You can follow me on Twitter @bartbarrettmd. Comments are welcome! For those in Southern California, you are invited to join me this Sunday morning. 10:30 at Valley Baptist Church, 2201 West Alameda in Burbank. I will be speaking on dealing with criticism and tough times.

The Foundation of a Lasting Friendship

Many friendships don't last. Some we think will last forever quickly fade while a few endure in unexpected fashion. This is a story of such a friendship.

I have known Rod for thirty-five years. When I was 18 he took me in as a roommate. 7 years his junior, he was a brother, friend, mentor and guitar teacher to me.   At times we shared evenings filled with long and deep conversations about faith and life, other times I would sit and marvel at his guitar skills, listening with envy at the beautiful melodies he created, many of which I can still play.

Out friendship has endured these years in unique fashion. We do not speak often but are always glad when we do. We have very few things in common. He loves the outdoors, hiking and nature and knows next to nothing about sports or politics. I am lost outside of civilization and am addicted to sports and am a political junkie.  Come to think of it, we have almost nothing in common!

In spite of this we are friends, true friends, not the Facebook sort, but the kind that would come to one another's side at a moment's notice without question.

We remain friends because of a single, deeply shared commonality. We are brothers in faith. In our own ways and in our own worlds we each live each day doing our best to serve the God we love, the God who first loved us and who made us brothers.

Which is why I found myself sitting alone in a coffee house in an unfamiliar neighborhood in Long Beach on a Sunday night a few weeks ago. Rod was playing, one of three artists scheduled to perform that night.

I listened to him sing about life and about loss, about a search for meaning and purpose, sharing his gifts and talents with all those God brought his way.  He was genuine and transparent, honest and forthright. He was Rod. This is who and how he is.

As I listened I was transported back 35 years, to a place where I was once again sipping coffee listening to his music and looking up to a man who possessed a level of character and integrity to which I aspired. He is still an inspiration to me.

There is no question that I would not be who I am today were it not for Rod. His friendship has been such a gift. 

- Bart

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share the post with friends, to share your thoughts in the comments or to subscribe to the blog! You can subscribe to the blog and have posts delivered by email or follow me on twitter @bartbarrettmd