Lessons from "Elvira"

 There is a website out there dedicated to preserving misheard lyrics.  Its name (kissthisguy.com) comes from the most infamous misheard lyric of all-time.  “Excuse me while I kiss the sky,” from Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” has unfortunately been translated by many as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy.”  I’m sorry, but that is not correct. 

One of these lyrics came up just the other day in school, while listening to “Elvira” (“oom-bop-a-mow-mow“) by the Oak Ridge Boys.   One boy heard “He’ll Fire Up,” and thought the Oak Ridge Boys were talking about the ignition of a truck.  Another thought they were saying “Hell Fire Up,” in reference to the devil turning up the thermostat…as if it weren’t already hot enough.

Both are common misinterpretations.  Both boys thought they were right.  But perception was not reality.  One goal of Whetstone Boys Ranch & Boarding School is to help our boys to see the difference between what they think is real (in regard to drugs, sex, guilt, pain, etc.) and what God has revealed to be true.
My dad is fond of saying, “Give directions so that you cannot be misunderstood.”  Too much unnecessary trouble in life is caused by people not understanding each other.  Fathers and sons, presidents and parliaments, customers and tech support.

Please pray that God will give us the wisdom and skill to communicate clearly, and that he will give our boys the humility to listen closely.

Cultivation

We start each day at Whetstone Boys Ranch & Boarding School, by logging the number of hours we have spent working on three things:  health and fitness, agriculture and wood-working.   Because our program is residential, we can budget every hour to maximize academic learning and personal growth; keeping a log helps us to account and give credit for all the boys’ hard work.

One thing that we routinely log, in regard to agriculture, is time spent cultivating the ranch garden.  We are blessed at Whetstone to have a number of talented volunteers who mentor the boys on a weekly basis – in the kitchen, in the pasture and in the garden.  Dr. Coats is our garden guru, and he has spent huge chunks of time getting our garden in shape.  The boys often records bits of wisdom he shares about successful techniques, and one technique that can’t be ignored is cultivation.

Cultivating can be a frustrating process.  It doesn’t always seem totally necessary.  It’s easy to put off.  It’s hard, blistering, back-breaking work.  And you don’t see any immediate result from your labor.
You just have to trust that the time you invest in working the ground around your plants will yield fruit, or vegetables…or in our case, men.

We do a lot of things around here to cultivate the garden of the soul.  We feed the mind with lively discussion about God’s existence and the reliability of the Bible.  We assign books, require study, administer tests and evaluate progress.  We develop relationships through ping-pong marathons, family nights, thrift store adventures, swimming excursions and never-ending ranch work.

And always we pray, remembering that all of our hard work is just preparing the soil.  On our very best day, this is the very best we can do.  God’s love makes things grow.

(BTW:  Our garden looks great!)

Memorial Day

I think it might be cool to post a bit of the boys’ writing at the ranch each week.  It will be encouraging for all involved.  A real win-win.

Many of you already know that I introduce music to the boys through my extensive and ever-expanding record (as in actual vinyl) collection.  Our therapeutic boarding school day includes a 15 minute lecture each day after lunch, during which the boys take notes in preparation for a weekly test over song titles, genres, societal influences and like.  Twice a week, I give them a topic that is loosely related to the artist of the day, and they write 100-150 words in response.   On Memorial Day, we listened to The Mamas and the Papas whose sunshine pop, combined with the holiday’s setting, made me think of “Gratitude” as a topic.

Here is a sample of what the boys produced in their journals, with their Pilot V-Ball Extra Fine pens which were donated by a former student.  (Thanks Matt!)

I am thankful I get to have a second chance to start over clean and fresh. Most people don’t get this chance.

I am thankful that I am surrounded with people that care about me and hope for the best for me and try to help me in all of my weak areas.

Seeing the woods, hearing, having all my joints, 45’s, my pilot v-ball extra fine, flute lessons with Mrs. Maxwell, sour patch kids, reading music, flower tea, water.

I am thankful for food, fishing, hunting, vehicles, clothes, people, kids, water, soft drinks, Colton’s, Chinese food, coffee, basketball, women, motorized toys, the ability to learn, nice weather, color, God, ping-pong, pool, movies, music, swimming, hiking, emotions, love, strength, laughter, showers, freedom, pens, pencils, those who fight for our country, boots, horses, jelly beans, English toffee. 

See.  Don’t you feel better already?

Be Specific

How many New Year’s resolutions have already gone up in smoke…or down in donut grease? 

  

I spoke of goal-setting last week, but we all know that the hard part is carrying through.   It’s not how you start the race, but how you finish that counts – a lesson we try to teach everyday at Whetstone Boys Ranch…with words if necessary. 

So let’s just say your goal is to be less rushed, to heal what John Ortberg calls, your “hurry-sickness.”   (Mind you, I’m just picking a random goal…not one that has been on my list of New Year’s resolutions since I was five.)  

Now, what are you going to do about it?  

For the last 15 years, I have had my students submit their goals for a class grade.  I find this to be a useful exercise for them, and an entertaining one for me.  

I’ve had some memorable ones over the years:

·         Become a benevolent dictator of a small island country

·         Live to cash my first Social Security Check

·         Become a master snow-boarder (in Lexington, KY!)

·         Successfully complete a New York Times Crossword on a Saturday

·         Overcome my fear of rolley-slidey things

·         Get into fewer stupid fights with my dear mother

·         Start collecting vinyl records

·         Don’t sweat the small stuff

·         Break my addiction to over-the-counter nasal decongestant

·         Visit every country in the world 

What I like about most of these goals is that they are unique and specific.  Most of them are measurable to some extent.  Instead of “travel more,” it’s visit every country in the world.  And while this may be impractical, expensive and extremely dangerous, you know if you have achieved it or not.  (Note:  A better goal might be “Visit a country on every continent by the time I am 40.”  Video games don’t count.)

In any case, making a goal that goes beyond the generic “get healthier” or “get richer” or “get smarter” is more likely to become a reality.

And to be specific, Whetstone is in the reality business.  

Goals

We all need goals in life.  Physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, social…pick a category.  Pick’em all.  There is no lack of areas where we can improve.  Our imperfection knows no bounds. 

At Whetstone, we have a white board to keep track of certain “Feats of Strength,” like maximum weight lifted, highest free throw percentage, fastest two-mile run.   This was my brother Irving’s idea.  He’s known about Whetstone’s sharpening concept from the time we were little, and my dad offered us 50 bucks in exchange for our New Year’s Resolutions.  He required 3 long term and 3 short term goals from each of his children, recorded neatly on a 3x5 card along with a few steps that would aid us in accomplishing them.  

My dad is a prolific goal-setter.  Before the crack of dawn each morning (“daylight in the swamps,” he calls it) he’s up making lists – long lists in his unique curly font, that detail his goals for the day, week, and often year.  I have fond memories of finding him at his desk in the morning, felt tip pen in one hand and coffee in the other, hovered over his yellow legal pad.  When I return home for holidays, I sometimes find these lists lying around the house: 

1.       Dawn Donuts

2.       Take truck to Dump

3.       Bible Study @ Franklin Road

4.       14 Mile and Telegraph

5.       Flea Market  @ Noon

6.       Call my daughter

7.       Empty Mom’s side the garage

8.        “Wet ducks never fly at night”

9.       Taxes

10.   Deposit checks 

I don’t always know what these things mean, but I know my dad well enough to know he has it all worked out in his head.  

When working with at-risk boys, it can be a real challenge to help them set meaningful goals that aren’t too high or too low, too short or too long.  We all need to be challenged without feeling defeated.   We all need stepping stones and stopping points.  We must aim for perfection, while being content with the fact that we’ll never reach it.  

But as someone once said:  “If you aim at nothing, you’ll most likely achieve it.”  

The record at Whetstone for a 2-mile run is 14:59.  It was set by a very ambitious young man, who has very high standards for himself.   Maybe too high.  Success in life is determined by our ability to know what we can and can’t do – and by remembering that only God working in us, makes anything possible.   For if he were to withdraw his breath, Job writes, we’d all perish. 

Please pray that Whetstone will have the wisdom to know if 14:59 is good enough. 

Tools

 There’s nothing quite like having the right tool for the job.  Hours, days and even weeks can be shaved off the estimated time of completion.  Headaches, injuries, and a thousand little frustrations can be eliminated by making a quick trip to the hardware store and investing a few bucks.

One such tool is pictured above.  This is what I call a fence tightener-thingy.  It has an official name, but it would hardly be more descriptive than mine.  To sum up, one begins by securing the loose end of the barbed wire to a stationary point, like a tree or a t-post driven into the ground. One then inserts a portion of the wire in the left grip and clamps down.  The same is done to a second portion, about 2 feet to the right.  Next, one ratchets the device inwards, pulling tight the entire wire to the left and right of tool, and creating slack in the middle.  Once the wire it tight, the desired end is nailed down, and the tool can then be safely removed.

Whetstone Boys Ranch hopes to show boys the importance of acquiring the right tool, and the importance of rightly using it.  And we’re not just talking about power tools.  We’re talking about anger management, and meditation, and Bible-study, and regular exercise and eating right, and getting a good night’s sleep.  Tools that help us to be better at being ourselves – the unique type of person God designed us to be.

Ephesians 4:11-13 says that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”


Whetstone Boys Ranch and Boarding School is in the equipping business.  We are in the business of assisting the transformation of boys from being tools of the sinful forces that seek to twist, misshape and destroy, to using tools for the betterment of their selves, their families and their future as God’s servants. 

Will

 “Will” is an important word at Whetstone.  Brandon and Laura’s 2 year old son is named Will.  We have a beautiful chestnut brown horse named Will. (Interestingly, he was given that name years before he was generously donated to us.)  Will is a helping verb that aids in forming, among other things, the future perfect tense – a concept that we will be working hard to understand on Monday morning at Whetstone Academy.

More to my point, human will is central to any change that occurs on our ranch or in our boarding school.  We are not behaviorists.  We do not believe that our control of a boy’s environment makes him change.  We’re just not that smart.

But wait, I can hear you say, isn’t that the whole idea behind Whetstone Boys Ranch?  Create an atmosphere filled with unconditional love, positive role models, academic guidance, meaningful labor …and poof! a rebellious boy turns into a responsible man!

Not exactly.

Sure, we believe that environment matters.  We think horses and chickens and cows help boys learn gentleness and patience.  We think exposure to God’s word can encourage life change.  We are confident that our attention to detail on the outside can make difference on the inside.

But when push comes to shove, a boy’s will to change matters more.  And whatever you call us – boys ranch, boarding school, group home, residential treatment center – we will never be able to make any of our boys give their hearts to God.  Ours is a spiritual battle that must be fought with spiritual weapons.

And so this morning, when we received the fantastically generous donation of a round pen for training our horses – or I could say for training our Will – I was reminded of both the similarities and differences between training horses and training boys.

Both need limits.  Both need love.  But only one is capable of being forced into submission.

The other, in the future perfect tense, will have been transformed only when he accepts God’s grace, and understands that God’s limits to our behavior demonstrate his love.

Only then, will God’s will be our boys’ will too.

Whetstone Wives

 November 23^rd is a big day for me personally.  This year, it falls on Thanksgiving, my wife’s birthday, and my 15^th wedding anniversary!  Not a day I should forget.  There could be bad times in Brooklyn if I do.

Fifteen years ago, I married Christine Marie Creasy.  It was a bright and crisp autumn day in Jackson, Tennessee.  She was better than I deserved as a 22-year old student teacher with no income except from loans.  Whatever possessed her to do such a thing?

She has said on several occasions that it was my dad.  It wasn’t my dad’s wheels, which consisted at the time of a big yellow Ryder truck which he leased for his hauling business.  It wasn’t his winning smile, filled with rotten and rotting teeth – or his hair, often discolored from the dust of whatever job he’d recently returned from.  It wasn’t his house bought at rock bottom price in the late 70’s, the value of which might have actually gone done since.

My wife was convinced that she wanted to marry me during a crazy and freezing cold winter visit to Pontiac, Michigan – during which she saw a picture of the man I could be someday.  A man dedicated to his wife, to his kids, to his work and most of all, to a personal God who sustained him through the trials of running a small business and a large family.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

I haven’t written about her very much (and I’m sure she’s fine with that), but I can’t overestimate the role that my wife has played and continues to play at Whetstone Boys Ranch.  She is my helper, my friend, my confidante, my inspiration.  I am convinced that I will never fully appreciate the degree to which my wife has sacrificed her comfort to provide me with this opportunity.  But I thank her, and I thank Laura, and I thank Cari from the bottom of my heart, for supporting their men-folk.

And you can be sure that if a beautiful, intelligent and righteous young woman falls in love, marries, and lives happily ever after with a boy from Whetstone, it will be more due to the Whetstone Wives than their hubbies.

Rubs and Scrapes

We like to go on long walks at Whetstone Boys Ranch.  Long walks are good for the soul.  In addition to pondering the meaning of life and the mysteries of nature, we enjoy looking for signs of deer.  More specifically, we like looking for signs of “the big buck.”

He’s out there…teasing us.

We sometimes see this buck in the morning, during our devotional time, through the large glass windows that enclose the living room area.  Through the binoculars, it almost looks like he’s sticking out his tongue at us.  On the few mornings that Brandon has waited for him in the tree stand, this buck has artfully avoided the trap.
So on the last walk, our first young man was intent on finding another place to set up “Mr. Maxwell’s” stand.  I was amazed at his ability to effortlessly identify the small signs that had slipped my attention:  bark rubbed off a tree, hoof scrapes in the dirt, tiny little droppings no bigger than a rabbit’s, and to my astonishment, a wispy tuft of hair caught on the barbed wire fence.

I’m still a bit of a city boy, so the hunter’s sixth sense for such things is still beyond my powers of observation.  But I’m working on it, and I’m sure that in time, I’ll be able to track a deer in the dark…by mere scent.

What I’m getting at here is that second nature is exactly that.  Second.  It doesn’t come natural.  It’s learned.  Many things that a healthy person takes for granted are actually behaviors learned from parents, mentors and siblings who have guided us along the right path.  Not all boys have these role models.  And even if given the opportunity, not all boys pay attention long enough to learn from them.

I’m picking up a lot about hunting and tracking at Whetstone Boys Ranch.  Our boys will pick up more important things.  Trophy deer are nice, but treasures in heaven are better.

Good Fences

Good fences makes good men.

Because good men don’t let their horses run into the road.

Because good men take time to build something that lasts.

Because it takes manly strength (and a good sense of humor) to clear and tighten a barbed wire fence without the fancy tools…and when your chainsaw breaks down.

Because there are few greater pleasures in life than spending a sunny fall morning in the woods;  and men who understand this have a better chance of being good.

Good fences make good men, because good men learn from other good men how to do stuff the right way…and when things don’t go right, they learn how good men handle getting angry.

Whetstone Boys Ranch has 280 acres of opportunity to build good fences…and good men.

When Life Gives You Walnuts...

Twelve giant walnut trees stand guard at Whetstone Boys Ranch, their huge arms framing almost any view from the house.  In addition to providing shade and shelter, they are beginning to take on the added responsibility of therapy for our boys…or for the time being, boy.  

One activity we’ve begun since moving operations from downtown West Plains, which has a noticeable lack of trees and an abundance of glass store fronts, is throwing walnuts.  (Boys will be boys, after all.)  In a few shorts weeks, we have devised a number of engaging games with the thousands of walnuts which make routine walking a health hazard.  There is horse-shoe walnuts, where we try to hit a 50 gallon red feed bucket:  1 pt if you hit it, 2 pts if it bounces out, and 3 points if it lands and stays in the bucket.  There is around-the-world walnuts, where you try to hit three perimeter tree trunks in succession.  If you miss any one of them on your second “chance,” you go all the way back to the beginning.  

And there more walnut games in the works:  a version of Frisbee golf played with walnuts, stick-ball played with walnuts, lawn-bowling/shuffle board version to be played by rolling walnuts on the smooth concrete of the wrap-around porch.    

  

Maybe this is a bad idea.  I can see at some point having to discipline a boy who throws a walnut at me, or through a window.  Maybe gathering walnuts into buckets and transporting them to a shelling station will be better, since it allows opportunity for both work and revenue.   But the fact remains that we can’t eliminate every loose impediment from our 280 acres.   On the whole, walnut competitions seem like a good example of clean, healthy fun.  Better to teach boys how to act responsibly within their surrounding, than to ban them from interaction.  

Seen from this perspective, the physical universe God has created is a perpetual playground for mankind.  All He expects is that we use a little imagination and follow a few basic rules.

In other words, when life gives you walnut… aim them at something non-breakable and devise a point system.     

The Book of Firsts

 

On the Whetstone Boys Ranch kitchen counter, there sits a notebook which we have dubbed the “The Book of Firsts.”   Since this last week was our first week, we made a lot of entries.

Below, I have copied one of the first journal entries from our first boy.  As his teacher, I am proud of his descriptive writing.  As his mentor, I am proud of his introspection.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Maxwell popped on the lights around 6:00 o’clock and said, “We’re going.”  Excitedly, I jumped out of bed and into my camo, then threw on my  boots. Within moments, Mr. Maxwell and I were out the door and off to the stand to scout some deer.  The ground was saturated with dew, and it made me look as though I had been wading in a pond.  Trampling through the thick pastures, we spooked 3 deer which gave us both a bad feeling that the deer were moving early.

As we walked through the woods down an old road, memories of hunting with my dad ran through my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking about all the mornings before sunrise I had followed my dad through the woods on the way to the stand.  Whetstone’s so-called “buddy stand” turned out to be an ancient single stand that had grown into the tree.  So, we thought it through and decided I would sit on the ground, a couple trees away from the tree stand.

As the sun rose through the trees, birds started singing, turkeys chattered off in the distance, and squirrels fought over acorns.  All of this combined gave me a warm feeling.  It made me feel nothing but happiness; all my worries were swept away.

I think we’re off to a good start.

It's Official!

 It’s official!  Today, Whetstone began “sharpening” its first boy.  In our first ceremony, during which he symbolically branded his own pair of leather work gloves, we began the process of refining through holy fire.

For privacy reasons, I won’t share much about him right now.  Just imagine him as your teenage son, or brother, or nephew or neighbor.  He’s a boy who needs help at a crucial juncture in his life.  He’s a boy with God-given talents, who is searching like all boys, for his role as a man.

If nothing else, Whetstone Boys Ranch will present him with an authentic vision of what this looks like, according to God’s Word, God’s Son, and God’s Holy Spirit.  Please pray that in the coming year, he and the others who will hopefully join him soon, will be convinced, “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate [them] from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Toilet Paper

Some little things are big things.  Like toilet paper.  Toilet paper is a little thing, but without it, you’re in big trouble.  

One week ago, we were about to be in some big trouble.  We had been so preoccupied with issues like insurance and intake, that we had run dangerously low on White Cloud.  Each of us had commented on the fact that something had to be done – and each of us probably thought someone else needed to do it.  

Not my job description. 

About this time, a total stranger burst into our office with a bag of goodies.  She had heard of Whetstone Boys Ranch, and she had immediately begun acquiring items that she thought would be useful:  a spare garden hose, old textbooks, clothing, washcloths, sheets, and…you guessed it, toilet paper!  At just the right moment, and in the fullness of time.  I mean, we were literally down to the last sheet.  

So she bursts in, drops off two black garbage bags of household items that she had carted over in her rolling basket, and without making any eye contact or small talk, declares to no one in particular, “I thought you guys could use this stuff.”  She then elbows her way out as fast as she had come.  

Now I’m not saying that God is working behind the scenes to guarantee we have toilet paper.  I’m not saying He isn’t.  What I am saying is that we serve a God who created the biggest of the big and the smallest of the small.  Size is no issue to Him.  From the furthest star to the tiniest particle – neither of which we can fathom or measure – He designed it all.  He cares for it all.  He sustains it all.  

And if He should choose to withdraw his breath, it will all disappear in the blink of an eye.  

It’s all a part of His job description.