Sheep and Goats

Tag: George Benson

  • Making a ‘Great Name for Oneself’: Part 2

    Part of a multi-part series.  Here is Part 1

    Whoa! That certainly blew up in my face! George can rest easy. The friends love him

    Not only was Aubree pounded into mush by everyone who chimed in, but one sis mistakenly took her sentiments as mine—I think she only read the preview—and chewed me out royal! She stuck up for George: “I happen to know that Brother Benson has taken time from his busy schedule to donate time doing specific songs that are original songs.” What’s more, she said as she slammed the door, ‘your books are rubbish!’

    And here I am trying to be the JW successor to Mickey Spillane, the one who threw it back at his high-brow critics by vowing to never introduce a character who drank cognac or wore a mustache because he didn’t know how to spell those words! I mean, George doesn’t have this problem.

    Quite a few people told her (and my new-found critic told me) to MYOB!. It was enough to recall to mind a certain young chum, continually accosted by someone who wanted to ‘encourage,’ who answered tersely, “1 Thessalonians 4:11.”

    The bro intent on encouragement said he didn’t know that verse. ‘Look it up,’ was the reply.

    The next day that brother, who was also a modest man, approached to say, “You’re a pretty good teacher.”

    (“Make it your aim to live quietly and to mind your own business . . .” 1 Thess 4:11)

    ***

    Said Aubree: “If he was in my congregation I would say nothing. His choices are his own. I would listen to him at a get-together for sure….But I said what I said because I come here to share an opinion which I may not express any where else.”

    Understood. It’s my fault, really. She says what she says before just a few and I relay it to the whole wide world! I changed her name of course, but it’s like what my daughter once told me: “Dad, it’s getting so I can hardly say anything to you because I’ll next see it on social media! You think calling me “Amy” covers it? My friends know who it is!” Well, they shouldn’t be here. I mean, none of us are ‘recommended’ to be on social media.

    Give Aubree her due because the points that motivate her are certainly valid. I just didn’t like it applied to a specific person, even if it was on the tiny private forum that I swapped for a public stage.

    She pointed to how “there are many brothers and sisters who have left lucrative political careers, football careers, ballet careers, singing careers, acting careers and other careers for which they have natural talent and have all the necessary skills – for to put Jehovah first in their life. … I would rather show great encouragement to young artists to practice their craft at home for pleasure of their friends – and I tell them it is not the time now to go out in the great entertainment world to make a name for themselves – unless they lose focus and lose their life. … Football, singing and a few of these professions take their toll on the young ones.  ….. that is all I wanted to say.”

    Can anyone say she doesn’t have a point? Of course, she does. She cites two persons she personally knows who chased after entertainment careers and were never seen nor heard from again.

    “I do mentor young singers in the truth, and I have seen some of them go into the world to never return……. career and ego. I always warn them when they are good!” Of another, “I have told her to be cautious.”

    Trouble is, it’s not in the nature of young people to be cautious. ‘The beauty of young men is their power,’ the verse says, not their caution. Sometimes I think we do damage to young people by eternally telling them to be cautious in circumstances that their peers face without the bat of an eyelash. But nobody can say, ‘What has she been smoking?’ Everyone has seen play out what she speaks about. I admire her for having the courage to say out of pure motive something she knows will be unpopular. But I’m still with George.

    It’s just that those of creative bent, who may not excel in more practical gifts, are always being urged to tone it down, stay low key, keep their talents under a basket—whereas if your talents lay in putting down carpet, you would be honored in the highest places. Understand, it’s not the honor that is sought—it is the ability to move about freely.

    There are brothers who are craftsmen, FBBC160A-9784-43CE-9A62-0C0E5CC434ACwho truly excel at their field, and are highly sought after. One of them locally is snapped up by a Fortune 500 company that puts him on their private jet and flies him all over to their various facilities, treating him like royalty. Nobody ever dreams it is an improper tending to his career or that he is unhealthily inflating his ego. As to me, my quip for the longest time has been ‘if it pays, I’m not good at it. If I’m good at it, it doesn’t pay.’

    (Photo: Fran1 at Pixabay)

    For crying out loud, even my books sell like ovens in hell! Let some malcontent write a book and it goes off the charts because all his/her friends buy it! Let me write a book and it trickles beneath the chart because all my friends consider one ought not look into ‘the deep things of Satan!’

    ‘How come you never taught me practical things?’ I said to my aged dad, who was handy. ‘I did,’ the amiable fellow said, having long outgrown his former taciturn ways. ‘You just weren’t paying attention that day.’

    I think he fell for the mantra then in vogue, ‘To get a good job, get a good education.’ You can always hire people to do that lesser stuff for you.

    I have what I need. I don’t complain. I do let off steam from time to time, but that’s like the Eastern European man who went to the police to assure them that the political views of his parrot were not his.

    To be continued….

    ******  The bookstore

  • Making a ‘Great Name’ for Oneself: Part 1

    As shown in link, George Benson, long known as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, is still going strong at 79..

    This news did not sit well with all.

    “You would think at this age he would put Jehovah first. Instead his career still going….still working hard on his career,” said Aubree.  “Older people like this could set the right example.”

    Tom: At Prince’s funeral, one of the congregation’s pioneers told reporters, (I included the quote in the Prince chapter of Tom Irregardless & Me) “I was just standing there and all of a sudden, in he walks. I thought, ‘He just wants to be treated like an average person,’ so I just kind of acknowledged him, and he came in and sat down.” She added: “I think he wanted to be private and my observation is: he had to have his creative outlet. Maybe he just needed it to survive.” 

    He wanted to be treated like an average person. But people do what they need to survive. I’m not sure that he’s not ‘putting Jehovah first.’ We can expend too much energy pounding square pegs into round holes.

    Aubree didn’t give up:

    “When one is famous and has a lot of income coming in from royalties…. one can cut your life-style and put Jehovah first….There are many brothers and sisters who have left lucrative political careers, football careers, ballet careers, singing careers, acting careers and other careers for which they have natural talent and have all the necessary skills – to put Jehovah first in their life.”

    Tom: I would not assume that he is not. Time was when coming across someone like him we would say that he has his own special territory, one that others will find hard to reach. As to income, who is to say he does not put it to very good use? The angels may sing out, “Another nickel from Harley!” at the end of the month, but it is perhaps guys like Benson who provide much of the practical fuel.

    “I do not share the same sentiment.…I have a nasty suspicion it is the ego that remains involved…. the need of achieving something and still be admired by the people!”

    On the other hand, “Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.” Do these ones all grovel around in sackcloth? These days ordinary publishers are given counsel not to let spiritual gifts go to their head. Why conclude just from his work that he has an inflated ego? If he does, he has plenty of company in others who have yet to separate their own egos from bringing their gifts to the altar.

    In the mid-seventies, rumors swirled that Glen Campbell had become a Witness. The rumors were untrue. He hadn’t. However, one of his band members had and proceeded to talk Bible so much that an exasperated Glen forbade all discussion of religion during working hours. Who is to say that George is not doing the same before people who cannot tell him to shut up? He’s to quit this gig in order to write letters? Given the restricted forms of ministry available today, it’s even more understandable he would choose to continue what he does.

    Aubree still doesn’t back down. She seldom does. It’s the prerogative of we old people who have seen a lot and think we have something to say, who see young people chomping down on cotton candy, imagining it substantial, and would warn them that it’s not. And it certainly is true that those who ‘reach for the stars’ come to spiritual ruin far more often than not. So I will tell her a story that spins things her way.

    The story was told at LeRoy’s funeral that he, as a young black man in the Deep South, was invited to play along as one of B.B. King’s band members. His son confirmed it. He declined the offer, on the basis of family and spirituality. Instead, he went on to make his living on the railroad. He came up from the South in his later years to my neck of the woods. For a time we served together on the same body of elders. He was outspoken, even occasionally outrageous in things he would say, but always genuine and universally appreciated. In time, he stepped down as an elder. I even helped persuade him that it would be a good thing, that he had done it all, and should go out ‘on top,’ not when his faculties were starting to decline and people would start to say bad things about him. He was true to the faith till his death and would frequently get together and jam with brothers young enough to be his grandsons. 

    I used to tell him that, should I die before him, I wanted him to give my funeral talk. What a trip that would be! “Hee hee hee,” I could picture him rumbling in his deep roguish and jocular voice, “that Tom Harley was a good ol boy, but he’s deead now, D-E-A-D!”

    I don’t know. Maybe George is being a bad boy. There he is posted with a ‘Look! A celebrity! And he’s one of ours!’ type of admiration. Is it really so that having celebrities onboard somehow buttresses your cause? Some of the silliest people on earth are celebrities—all of them, really, except our guys, and we only have a handful. Serena doesn’t even count, because it doesn’t appear she was ever baptized and she has gone on record saying (now that she has a daughter) she means to get serious about the faith she was raised in. We shall see what comes to pass. I have a chapter in TrueTom vs the Apostates on the brouhaha surrounding that statement of hers..

    No, I suppose George is not the one to emulate. But don’t we do damage when we become too insistent that everyone must be ‘an example?’ Leave the fellow in peace and appreciate him for what gifts he has. Here we put the constantly repeated, ‘Do not compare yourself with one another’ counsel in a setting that we usually don’t put it in, though it applies nonetheless. Alas it is human nature that we will do exactly that.

    Growing up, I took one of those psychological tests in which you answer all sorts of nosy questions and are rewarded with indications of what vocation you are best suited for. Being raised in a suburban and non-Witness home, I imagined results would point me to some nice secure field, the sort in keeping with the saying then in vogue, “To get a good job, get a good education.” My dad, raised on the farm, used the GI bill to put himself through engineering school after WWII and took a job with the local utility. He figured that since everyone requires heat and electricity, no job could be more secure. People raised during the Depression came to highly value security. 

    Instead of similar recommendations, results were that I should be A) a music performer, or (slightly lower priority, but still head and shoulders above anything else) B) a youth counselor. I’ve never done either of those things, but I have come close enough to satisfy both urges. Public speaking (and now blogging) is not so different than music performing. Shepherding (and now writing) is not so different than youth counseling. 

    So I have a thing for creative people. And I don’t like  to see them dismissed as ones ‘trying to make a name for themselves.’ or persons incessantly in quest of satisfying their ‘big egos.’ That doesn’t have to be the case, though it can be.

    ***

    Workers could be crude at the power company, though my dad was not one of them. “I just wasn’t prepared,” said one brother who started working there as a young man, “for one of those guys to grab me from behind and another pull my pants down,” a common hazing of new employees. He came to know my dad, as he was sometimes assigned to the nuclear plant where my dad had been promoted. Nuclear technology was then brand new. This plant was among the first in the country. Tour guides would lead visitors through the plant. By prior agreement, an employee would walk by staggering and drooling, muttering nonsense. “Don’t mind him,” the guide would say. “He’s one of the earliest here and absorbed a little too much radiation.” 

    Another story this new employee told, our brother who is now retired, was of visiting laborers being advised that invisible radiation hangs around at the 3 foot level, but if you stay below that, you’re okay. They would walk about and work all day, even carrying heavy gear, in a crouched over position. 

    Here were jokesters satisfying their ‘big egos,’ though perhaps not making ‘a great name for themselves.’ Or maybe they were. Our brother remembers these donkeys decades later as though it were yesterday.

    To be continued here

    ******  The bookstore