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TheDiscipleMd

We are all familiar with the story of Joseph and his “coat of many colors”. His father, in a gesture of love and admiration gave him a beautiful coat.

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. (Gen. 37:3-4).

Eventually his brothers, filled with jealousy and perhaps chided by the young Joseph’s brashness, sold him into Egypt as a slave. We all know that over time the story has a happy ending with the reuniting of the brothers but what of this “jealousy” that propelled his brothers into such a dastardly deed. It is an emotion that can cause “good” people, even the most elect, to do “bad” things. It caused the great King Saul to seek the life of David, Pharaoh to fight against Moses and the Pharisees to crucify the Savior. As Jeffrey Holland mentioned in his great sermon on the Prodigal son, it caused the faithful brother of the wayward one to be “haunted by the green-eyed monster of jealousy. He feels taken for granted by his father and disenfranchised by his brother, when neither is the case”(“The Other Prodigal”, Ensign,July 2002).

Jealousy is a very powerful emotion. Yes, left unchecked, jealousy can not only cause the ruin of nations, but it can cause the loss of our very souls. If we examine our own lives I think we will discover that this emotion too often comes to the forefront of our lives. There are endless ways for jealousy to rear its ugly head in our lives. When a friend speaks of how successful their children are becoming,  or talk of a new home they are buying,  or when someone gets a fancy car, earns a degree, receives a calling or shows a talent. Do we feel happy, or is their coat of many colors causing us to be green with envy?

I don’t know all the answers on how to overcome such “jealousy” but I do know that if we pattern our lives after the Savior’s, that this thing we call “jealousy” will not be a part of our life. There is no mention of it vexing the Savior. Humility was His greatest attribute and it is that attribute that will help free us from this insidious attribute. It is not only a carrier of spiritual darkness, it causes great sadness, unhappiness and often sorrow. Let us follow the example of the Savior and be devoid of jealousy towards our brothers and sisters. Let us shed our “coats of jealousy”.

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As I neared the end of taking down all my Christmas lights, I paused momentarily and sat on my front steps. It was always a pain to put up the lights and take them down. Now I was almost done. Just one lone tree remained to strip off its lights. A certain sadness entered my soul as I pondered on the significance of those lights. Just days before, as my wife and I pulled into the driveway when the lights were in “full bloom” on my house, she mentioned how wonderful it was to have those lights on. There was a certain warmth and love that you feel from holiday lights. So as I sat there that day, I began associating all the good things in my life with those lights. I started to ‘count my blessing’ per se and started to thank the Lord above for all the good things that had come into my life because of my upbringing and the faith I had been taught to have regarding mankind and the universe. I felt a rush of momentary joy fill my soul, and I felt my eyes well up with tears. Life is full of tragedy, which seems to visit all of us on a weekly basis. But, for a moment, I basked in the memory of light.

After composing myself, I got up and looked at the last lighted tree, and I thought to myself, “I’m leaving the lights on! I’m leaving them on, and I’m going to light them up every twenty-fifth of the month this year as a reminder of all the good things I have in my life! And so I packed up all my Christmas lights that day, but I left the lights on my corner tree. And I lit it up on January 25th, Febuary 25th, March 25th, and I will do it again tonight. I don’t know what the neighbors think, but I guess we live in the land of the free.

So this year, I’m turning that tree on each 25th of the month. And I’m inviting you to join me because as I looked out my window last night and saw that tree, it brought me to the remembrance of all that is good in my life. And it stands as a reminder to me to thank the Lord for my many blessings, no matter how small.

So, if you desire next month, light up one of your trees in remembrance of Christ, and all that is good! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to keep twenty-five alive in our hearts and bask just one more night in the blessings that come from the gospel light?

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TheDiscipleMD

A good friend recently shared this great story entitled: “Don’t Widen the Plate”

“In Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA convention.
While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man, worth every penny of my airfare.”
Who the is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter, I was just happy to be there.
In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948.
He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.
Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy?
After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.
Then, finally …
“You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck. Or maybe you think I escaped from Camarillo State Hospital,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “No,” he continued, “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.”
Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?” After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches,” more question than answer.
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”
Another long pause.
“Seventeen inches?” came a guess from another reluctant coach.
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”
“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.
“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?”
“Seventeen inches!”
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.
“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.’”
Pause.
“Coaches …”
Pause.
” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?
The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”
Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.
“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”
Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross.
“And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate!”
I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to …”
With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside.
“… dark days ahead.”
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach.
His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players — no matter how good they are — your own children, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches.