The People's Parable

The common mask of “fine-ness” is not something Benjamin wears, which is incredibly refreshing.  If you ask him how he’s doing, Ben answers the question honestly as if you really meant to ask it. Like an old friend would. He’s not afraid to tell you that his mom is fighting cancer or that his family has struggling relationships. He’s not afraid to tell you that he has a hard time figuring out who he is outside of what he does.  You know, all of those things that run through our heads when someone asks “how are you?” and we just smile and say “fine”?  The world could use more Bens.

Benjamin has crazy hair.

It’s amazing really. Every time it gets long enough, Ben cuts off his hair to donate to Locks of Love. In about a year, he goes from clean cut to easily confused with Jesus, all so someone battling cancer can enjoy a sense of normalcy. Okay, and maybe he enjoys the process a little bit. You decide.

Not only can Ben use the hair on his head to change lives, he can grow a mustache that might save a prostate. Yep, it’s possible for a killer ‘stache to have that kind of influence on a man!

Welcome to Movember.

Every year, men around the world shave their faces clean and on November 1st, begin growing their best mustache. It can be groomed to perfection, or a little chaotic. It can be surprisingly attractive, or astoundingly not. But either way, they do it for a good cause and at least a few good laughs. As the month of November progresses these “Mos”, as they are called in the Movember community, become a walking billboard for the cause. When someone says “What the heck is that on your face?!”, Mos explain Movember and their desire to increase awareness around men’s health, especially prostate cancer.  So not only does Ben use his locks to make wigs for people struggling through chemo, he grows one mean mustache to save the prostates of the world. I can safely say I’ve never met a person who could do so much with their hair.

Movember means much more than dudes with mustaches, and I encourage you to check it out here and participate, even if it’s mostly out of curiosity.

Benjamin is a great role model.

If you could make a list of things you would want your kids to be, you’d probably include words like happy, generous, intelligent, successful, etc. Those are all wonderful qualities, but one that many people lose in their journey to adulthood is the quality of being real. You won’t appear weak if you never admit brokenness.  You won’t be hurt if you keep your heart on lockdown. If you keep covering up who you really are, you’ll seem better. More successful. More intelligent. More happy. But lucky for us, and for all of the kids Ben mentors through Young Life, he knows better. Benjamin knows that without being real, you can’t live life to the full. You can’t be intoxicated by the gifts of life without acknowledging the battles.

I am so thankful I had a chance to meet Ben. I hope everyone gets to know someone like him that reminds you how much more there is to life than facades of perfection.

Daphne Smith is the most beautiful veteran I know.

She is my husband’s grandmother. So yes, I have met her before, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to write about her on this Veteran’s Day.

Most of the time it’s easy for me to be cynical about this country. Deceitful politicians, materialism and selfishness tend to stay at the forefront of my mind, but one conversation with Daphne and I’m reminded why this country is great. She doesn’t talk about her service much, or all of the bad things she saw. She doesn’t talk about my generation as if it just rolled out of bed and wants a handout. She doesn’t harp on why the democratic or republican parties are insane, or why people who do not think like her are wrong.

What Daphne does is exude kindness, and strength, and humility. She is everything I want to be when I grow up.

Think about this. Daphne was born the year before women were given the right to vote. She was 6 years old when Hitler published Mein Kampf. She was 13 when scientists split the first atom and 14 when the first Nazi concentration camp was established. Daphne was 20 years old when the first commercial flight crossed the atlantic, and when World War II began. In 1942,  the year Daphne would turn 23, she enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (which was not an official branch of the U.S. military until the following year, becoming the Women’s Army Corps). She was in the first group of women to ever serve this country as a part of the United States military.

Talk about strength. Daphne was a woman in the prime of her life when it was acceptable, if not expected, for women to follow the lead of men and find a husband to take care of. But, even though women were hardly considered equal to men, and even though she could not receive half the benefits of men in the U.S. military, and even though she had a man who’d asked her to marry him, she chose to serve this country. Daphne chose to show other women (and men) that we would make this country great by standing up for what we believed in and taking a chance, like the families who founded this country did many years before. She would do whatever it took to be the best woman God had created her to be, even if that meant losing her life.

When Daphne returned home from her service overseas, she married the man who’d asked and waited patiently for her “not now” to turn into a “yes”. She raised a wonderful family, has 3 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. On December 6th, she will turn 92 years old. She has watched the United States fight several wars and win, lose, or who knows, she’s still proud to call this country home. Daphne knows why the United States of America is great, above all the reasons why we’ve become jaded. She is not rolling in money, or wearing expensive clothes, or living in a castle. But Daphne is free, and she fought to preserve that for everyone who calls America home.

Daphne Smith is everything it means to be an American. Thank you grams, for showing us what that looks like.