Looking on the Sunnyside

This post is dedicated to my Grandfather

Being conscious of our thoughts and working through our emotions may sound like New Age mumbo jumbo, but I don't think that my Grandfather followed that path. He was a Methodist.

This may have happened when he was 91 - two years before he would pass away, or maybe this happened when he was 93 years old; the age at which he left us, but it doesn't really matter. The answer he gave to my Grandmother's sister was something that we often heard from him. And it is, I believe, how he managed to live so long and be such an inspiration to so many people.

He was in the hospital. He had respiratory heart failure. He was going Home.

"Well, Calvin. There's only one way out now and the road is coming to an end."

"Well, I know all that, but I prefer to look on the sunny side"

And there he was, lying in that hospital bed looking on the sunny side.

He was surrounded by his dearest family members, a staff of nurses and doctors who treated him with love and kindness, flowers and cards from former students and friends who loved him and that he had loved during his time as a teacher and principal.

The sunny side.

That's the sunny side. We can't control other people - what they do, where they go, how they think, but we can control ourselves and our thoughts. He chose to have happy thoughts. He chose to look on the sunny side.

Sometimes it's hard to keep our chins up in the world. Especially with what is happening now, but every era has had its challenges. I don't know who read more than my Grandfather. He was an academic and his library was an endless source of fascination for me - he had a little of everything, it seemed. He and my Grandmother also watched Walter Cronkite every night, they also watched Laurence Welk, too. He knew what was happening in the world and he did not live in a bubble of ignorance.

When faced with social change and the regular challenges of life, I know that instead of reacting with hate, judgment, defeat and withdrawal, he was moved to love more, to serve his community at every turn, and to never settle with my knee-jerk ideas and rebelliousness before he could clear his throat to tell me how to think on those things with reason, compassion, and what I now know would be called "grace".

My Grandfather was a Southern man. He came from a long line of educators. He had been an officer in the Navy and a high school principal. He didn't entertain silly ideas or "mumbo jumbo", but he also would not be reduced into pettiness or negativity. Rather than complain, or "belly-ache", as he called it, he did his best to do as much good as he could where he was. I never heard him say ONE word that could be construed as racist - and that's considering the definitions from both then and and now. The bottom line is that my Grandfather was many things, but one that he was not was a HATER.

It seems that the more we learn and grow, the more likely it is that we'll uncover things that make us feel ashamed or guilty, even hot-damn angry; about our nations, our cultures, even about ourselves and others. It's crystal clear to me and even though it gets hard  - anger, hate, resentment, and spite come a'knockin', but I'm not gong to answer the door.

I prefer to look on the sunny side, too.



Psalm 121 (NIV)
A song of ascents.


1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.


3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.


5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.


7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.