The YMCA Story ...Conclusion

Thought For The Day

The new YMCA Membership was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I felt like I had achieved some special status and indeed I had. I had been the recipient of another person's act of kindness. That event would color my life and lay in wait to teach me a life lesson when I was old enough to understand it.

The year that followed was filled with events and activities that eventually dimmed the gift and allowed it to come to rest in a space called "entitled". I always knew the membership was the result of someone's generosity but not with the brightness of that first day. That's natural, you say? Maybe so but if we think a gift is what we deserve perhaps we feel less inclined to return the favor. Then, the value of the gift is diminished rather than enhanced by living in our garden.

Debussy explained that music is the space between notes. And so, a space began a new era in my life.

When I went into Junior High, grades 7-9, there were more organized sports activities. Some were provided by the schools and others by city leagues. Basketball was a favorite city league activity but in school I became interested in track and field. It was during this period that I began to work in my fathers Shoe Repair Shop after school and sometimes on Saturday. That made a sporting life difficult at first and eventually eliminated it. In high school, there was a brief period of activity when I made the tennis team. After that I was back at work and never participated in organized sports again.

After high school I went to college. I went to BYU for my first year and the first semester of my second year. When I came back home I went to work at Saginaw Malleable Iron in Plant Engineering. It was a great job and I would learn more there than I could have in college. It would change my life in other ways and create some more "spaces" so there would be music in my life.

During the two plus years I worked at "Malleable" I did a lot of growing. And this is where we get back to the YMCA.

After I had been there for a year there was a United Way Fund Drive. The GM philosophy was to support the "Fair Share" concept of giving. I had serious objections to being forced to do that. I was already giving ten percent of my gross income to church. It was expected by the church, promoted by my parents and at the end of the year members were expected to go to a tithing settlement meeting with the bishop and promise they had "tithed", 10%. My feeling was that if I was giving that much to my church The United Way should be happy with whatever I deigned to give them. GM did not agree. I was told that working there was a privilege and my participation was mandatory.

I was twenty, knew pretty much everything and was as stubborn as stubborn gets. I found myself at loggerheads with GM management. That's not a good place to be. Fortunately I had a boss, Charley Luther, who was the toughest, smartest and gentlest man I would ever know. He took me aside and we had a little visit. He took the company line and I took the "me" line. Then he began itemizing the organizations the United Way supported and I must say I was impressed but I explained that my church provided for hapless members who were sick, disabled and temporarily out of sorts and wasn't what I was doing just as important as supporting the United Way?  His response was classic. He told me that what I was doing was the least I could do if I supported my church.  He said doing the least you can do is not the spirit of good will. Then he asked if there were any organizations I admired that my church didn't support financially.

After some posturing I admitted the YMCA was certainly a worthwhile organization. He said he did too and that the United Way supported the YMCA. Then he said that I might look upon my gift to the United Way as a gift to the Y. In my beleaguered state I said, but your gift is taken from your overall gift, you are asking me to make an additional gift. Then, he said he made an additional gift too. He donated five memberships that were to be given to deserving kids every year.

Well, that did it for me. I gave my "fair share".

Giving what you can to things you believe in is not measurable by normal accounting practices. When the heart and mind work in concert there is a resonance created that rivals any of the great symphonies. The gift to the giver is to be in that moment, in that music, at that time. That's kind of what love is, don't you think. When you give all you have, your riches are beyond measure.

©Herb Ratliff, August 7, 2012, All Rights Reserved