The "It's All on Your Shoulders" Syndrome

I'm scanning all my old slides and negatives with my new film scanner. I've discovered photos I haven't seen for years in the process including (at last) photographic evidence that I am (or at least was at one time) not a complete klutz. In the picture at the left, the young man in the center bottom position, the key man in the water-skiing pyramid at the Lone Star Camp Water Show circa 1978 is none other than me! Admit it. You didn't think I could do it either! You thought I was making it all up about being a trick skiier!

I noticed something about that picture that makes me wonder. "How, exactly do I keep winding up in this stupid position?" When I was doing that stunt, most of the weight was on my shoulders. My skis were about a foot below the skis of the two guys on the outside because of the weight of the two guys on top. I can't bobble or the whole thing comes down on my head.

Sometimes you have to wonder if you are getting something out of having all that weight on your shoulders. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, do you take all this on because others want you to or did you volunteer because you like being the center of attention.

I'm beginning to wonder. After all, the chairman of ETCOG essentially said the same thing in his infamous letter to me. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's time I climbed out of the water and let someone else hold up the pyramid for a change. Maybe someone else can do a better job of it than I can. Maybe I should take all that good advice I've been getting about dumping Generations and starting over some where.

It would certainly lift the financial load and place it elsewhere.

But would it be right. God seems to have opened a door that would allow us to open a new day care center that would generate enough income to pay back some of the debt from GT and allow us to keep taking care of our seniors. It seems to me that would be a good thing.

I remember when one of Mark Twain's wild-haired business ventures went bankrupt, he personally guaranteed all of its debts and went on a worldwide lecture tour till he earned enough to pay them off. Twain may have been a crusty old sinner, but he was an ethical sinner (and I'm not convinced he was a sinner anyway). While I can't earn anything as a comedian, I can work hard and I can run a profitable day care center if we have a building.

Crazy or not, I feel the weight on my shoulders and difficult or not, I think anyone who takes the name of Christ should at least try to pay his debts instead of hiding behind the legal protections of corporate law.

Of course, occasionally I buckled and the whole danged pyramid fell down on top of me and it usually hurt a lot. I hope we can avoid that.

Please pray for our intergenerational day care center. We are waiting on a decision by the investors.

Tom King
tomking@charitygolftournament.net