Recently a good man who was tragic figure in American history died. While you may not know his name, you were impacted by a decision he made.

On December 7, 1941 Kermit Tyler was on his second day of manning the air traffic center at Fort Shafter in Hawaii.  A private on his first day of duty noticed some planes on the radar. He called Kermit Tyler, who was in charge, and told him what he had spotted on the on the radar. Kermit Tyler knew that the American private had very little experience and had likely only observed some American B-17s returning from an assignment.  So, rather than suggesting that the private review the radar more closely or that he should look at the radar screens himself, Kermit Tyler spoke the following four words: “Don’t worry about it.”

The rest is a tragic day in history, including 2,400 American military and civilian casualties as a result of an attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, and provoking the United States to enter World War II. While most believe that certainly it would have been too late to avoid the attack, the 30 minutes between the spotting of the planes on the radar and the beginning of bombing could have been used to reduce the number of casualties and to prepare a crippling or possibly finishing attack on the Japanese carriers from whence the attacking planes took off.  It would have changed the war significantly.  The war that resulted changed all of our lives, even those who were not as yet born.

Lieutenant Tyler lived with regret but so did the private who notified Tyler but failed to tell him that there were fifty planes on the radar screen.  Both failed to recognize what was important.

People of character know what is important.  Our principles are more important than our preferences. Far too often we spend time defending our preferences when they are under attack rather than our moral and spiritual principles.  Some people only have passion when their favorite sports team is unranked or under ranked and yet are completely oblivious that their principles are being bombarded with destructive principles by the movies they watch and the internet sites they surf.    They casually watch programs that seduce their fantasies and tell themselves, “Don’t worry about it,” only to later to realize their character has been blown out of the water.

Today, identify, live by, and defend you principles.

Heroes often die unnoticed but their virtues continue to live. Recently the death of Mel Cuba, a 99-year-old resident of Del Ray, Florida, went for the most part unnoticed, but his greatest virtues continue to impact the next generation.

On August 8, 1933 forty orphanage residents were swept away by a wave while on excursion to the beach at Rockaway Queens, New York. Six lifeguards rushed in the water and rescued thirty-three of them. Mel Cuba may have performed the most heroic act of the six. He swam 100 feet out from the shore and grabbed four boys. Two were on his back and one on each arm and he somehow miraculously kept their heads above the water for several minutes before another lifeguard could maneuver a catamaran close to him.  All six lifeguards were honored for their efforts, but Mel Cuba was thought to have performed the most amazing feat. What made Cuba such a hero was that he would not give up.  He never gave up when he was nearly unconscious from exhaustion. Mel Cuba didn’t give up; he didn’t give, he just gave it his all. Persistence under pressure was his greatest virtue.

In 1933 New York City honored Mel Cuba as a hero, but soon his story was forgotten except by the four children he rescued.  Had Cuba given up, four children would never have seen adulthood nor would they have had had descendents. If the orphans he rescued are living today they are in their eighties and are grandparents and possibly even great grandparents. His character helped them experience life, and in them his virtuous actions live on.

Character is not just about doing good things; it is about doing the right thing over and over again. Even when you are weary, discouraged and exhausted, continue to do what is right. While persistence under pressure may not make you a hero, it will take you one more step down the character path.

Characterpath.com
Gary Fenton

Watch Birmingham CBS 42 at 10:00 a.m. as Gary continues the Steps on the Character Path sermon series.

People who are on the path to good character are always in the process of re-creation, not just recreation, which is too often confused with entertainment.   Entertainment is an amusement or a diversion, while recreation is the refreshment of strength and spirit. In order to emphasize the right meaning of recreation in this blog post, I will hyphenate the word to stimulate thought about the refreshment of strength concept.

Even spectator sports can be a form of re-creation rather entertainment for the person of character. For true character and spiritual re-creation you need to ask after watching a game, “What did I learn about character from this event?”  The BCS Football National Championship gave us several great examples of character truths:

Coach Nick Saban’s philosophy that championships are the result of process and not events. Both before and after the game Saban indicated that excellence in the big game included paying attention to the smallest details regarding planning, practicing, and playing in the little games.  The same is true in building good character. You have to plan to do right, and then you have to do right in the little things before you will do right in the big events.

Colt McCoy, the star quarterback of the Texas Longhorns, was eliminated early in the game by an injury.  The injury was not the result anything he did wrong; such injuries just happen in the game of football. Yet when the game was over McCoy was gracious and spoke of his passion for the game. Stuff happens in life that we did not cause and over which we do not have control.  People of character choose to stay engaged rather than bitter and withdrawn.

True freshman backup quarterback, Garrett Gilbert, arrived at the game with little expectations of playing, but due to McCoy’s injury played all but five offensive plays. His inexperience showed early but he more than met the challenge in that exciting fourth quarter. In issues of character you never know when you will face the greatest challenges and you have to be ready at all times.

Mark Ingram, Heisman trophy winner and offensive MVP of the game, never used his father’s imprisonment as an excuse not to excel. This amazing and inspiring young man refused to allow his future to be determined by his family’s past. People of good character never let the bad character choices of family members determine who they are.

Next time you watch a sporting event, choose to be re-created rather than just entertained.  When you do you will be taking a major step down the character path.

Characterpath.com
Gary Fenton

You can hear Gary Fenton each Friday morning at 9:35 on WERC FM 105.5 and WERC 960.

It’s that time of year!  Every December we hear a peppering of commentary in Christian circles protesting the fleecing of the real meaning of Christmas.  Many Christians cringe as the media and secular culture substitute the “Merry Christmas” greeting with “Happy Holidays.”   Understandably, believers feel compelled to remind society of the origins of our traditional holiday.  As Christ-followers, we are wired to desire glory for our Savior in this season created to honor Him.  But even as public Nativity scenes are left in storage and religious carols are replaced with secular songs, my Christmas is no less meaningful or holy. 
 
Just as a relationship with Jesus Christ is personal, so is the sacred celebration of Christmas.  It is my responsibility to keep the real meaning of Christmas within me.  And while I appreciate music and décor featuring the nativity or Christian aspects of the holiday, I do not want unbelievers to confuse their choice in decorations or holiday expressions with what makes them a Christian.  Saying “Merry Christmas” or sending a Christmas card with an artist’s rendering of the Christ child may or may not reflect a heart transformed by the Holy Spirit. 
 
A Christian is one who accepts the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.  Upon becoming a believer, he or she allows Jesus to be the Lord of their life.  The Bible prepares the Christian to be viewed as an outsider in his or her culture.  Jesus promises discrimination, persecution and suffering to those who submit to follow Him.  As a result, Christians cannot expect an unbelieving culture to reinforce the aspects of Christmas we revere.  Until and unless a person embraces the awe of the Incarnation, forcing them to adopt our expressions may make us feel better, but it will not aid the unbeliever in developing an authentic Christian faith.   Our goal is not to get the world to use our vocabulary but to help humanity to know our Lord, Jesus the Christ.
 
Instead of wasting energy in futile frustration, internal angst or caustic angry comments, use this season as fuel to empower you to be light in a dark world and salt in a society that is over-flavored with evil. Christians are called to meet people where they are on life’s path and even to reach out to those who are off of the path.  Demanding that unbelievers catch up with us on our spiritual journey will rarely yield success.  In fact, we may do more damage in the minds of non-Christians by engaging in public rhetoric focusing on the negative and proclaiming our need for respect.  Christians live to serve their Lord by focusing on the needs of others.  During this Christmas season may we be less bothered by the secularization of the holiday and instead experience and express joy for the gift of the Christ-child and by that we will make our day holy.  And by experiencing our own wonder of the season, may we reflect to others a spirit of peace. When a secular world encounters the grace of the Savior in the lives of professing–not protesting–Christians,  they are far more likely to discover that Christmas can become a holy day for them also. If God is really here in Jesus, what do we have to complain about?

According to a survey done for the Harvard  Kennedy School For Public Leadership, six factors or qualities determine whether or not Americans have confidence in their leaders.  These qualities are:

• Trust
• Competence
• Working for the greater good
• Shared values
• Results
• Being in touch with people’s needs and concerns.

A close examination of these six qualities reveals that these are character traits to be practiced and not a set of skills to be learned.

Trust is more than honesty, but it is where honesty begins. You trust someone when you believe they are who and what they claim to be. When twentysomethings talk about authenticity they are really describing trust.  You develop trust not by through developing image but through practicing integrity.

Competence is about excellence and doing things well. Long-term excellence is achieved when you perform to the best of your ability not just because it is profitable, but as an act of obedience to God and because it is part of your value system.

Working for the greater good sounds very similar to the second greatest commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself.

Shared values provide evidence of the New Testament truth of how every part of the human body works together for the good of the total body.  The human body is an illustration of how the people the New Testament describes must work together in unity, employing their diverse giftings and talents for the common good.

Results are more than good intentions. On one occasion Jesus spoke of people who said all the right things but never did anything. He warned, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”  Failed intentions are usually not the result of unanswered prayers, but incomplete actions.

Being in touch with people’s needs and concerns reflects the judgment day teaching of Jesus in the 24th and 25th chapters of the Gospel according the Matthew that those who truly serve Him are those who do not neglect “the least of these.”

Instead of asking corporate, government, and religious leaders to attend leadership seminars, perhaps we ought to require them to enroll in character training.  And the very best preparation for character development is found at you local church on Sunday morning during the Bible study hour.

“Like a stray dog at a whistler’s convention” is an old witticism that portrays the way many people live. In fact, for most of us, some days it appears that everyone is calling for our attention.  However, if you attempt to respond to every external beckoning, you will feel like a frenetic, out-of-breath dog that is always chasing but never catching.

Unfortunately, many well-intentioned, high-energy people assume they must attempt to meet everyone’s high expectations and as result meet no one’s expectations. How do you keep from responding to all of the “whistlers” in your life?  The answer to that question does not begin with learning time management skills but with character development. 

Establishing priorities is a major step on the path toward good character. Good character will result when we make pleasing God our top priority.  If you do this you will neither damage your family life nor be an unproductive employee. Pleasing God does not eliminate our social lives; rather, it transforms and vitalizes our relationships with others.   Pleasing God will help you make time for family, work, and friends, but you will not be responding to their whistles for attention. All people—including you and I—make very self-centered demands on others. But God’s demands for our lives will lead not only to honoring Him, but will benefit us and others.

Begin each day by asking God to lead you in knowing how best to please and honor Him. You will find that this spiritual discipline will not only will keep you from living the exhausted and defeated life, but it will help you become a principled and disciplined person with good character.

Gary Fenton
www.Characterpath.com

Recently two new stories that under normal circumstances would have been ignored by the media became prime time news and the subject of many radio talk shows.  The first story involved a politician calling another politician a liar. That alone is about as newsworthy as the morning sunrise. It happens every day in every country. The second story involved a rapper expressing anger that a friend of his did not win at a music award ceremony.  Rap music is (generally) more about expressing anger than it is about harmony and melody, so to hear that a rapper is angry is as about as surprising as hearing that Jefferson County is broke. So why are these worthy of headlines?

Both occurred on national television in disrespectful and uncivil ways.  An elected U.S. Representative interrupted President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress to accuse the President of lying. The rapper stormed the stage at a music award ceremony to express his views on who he wanted to win the award.  Both were immature temper outbursts and violated civil discourse.

And what is so bad about that?  While civility is often perceived as being a wimpy virtue it is both a character and a democracy issue.

While civility is defined in several ways, it is described as “treating positions, people and systems with the respect due them.”  We are taught by Scripture and by common sense to respect positions of National leadership.  The South Carolinian may or may not have been accurate in his evaluation of the President Obama’s veracity, but in that setting Rep. Wilson was expressing contempt for office.  The rapper whose rhythmic anger has made him millions showed disdain for the winner rather than disagreement with how she was chosen. 

The only way a democratic society can function is when dialogue and public discourse can occur.  Loud protests, strong objections, sarcasm and raised voices all have their places in democracy. But when such actions are the result of uncontrolled anger, they support a mad “mobocracy” rather than a majority democracy.

Thankfully, Representative Joe Wilson and Kanye West have apologized, but this issue is larger than these two uncivil men whose good fortune apparently surpasses their maturity.  Both men apologized for not being able to control their emotions and by doing so acknowledged it was a character issue.

We are moving in the direction of becoming a society of boorish bullies.  Increasingly the person with the loudest voice and the strongest microphone is the only one heard.  Even the recent Health Care town hall meetings moved from being examples of democracy in action to Jerry Springer-like events in which voters who cannot control their emotions yell at politicians who cannot control spending or emotions.

Civility begins with self-control and that is a character issue.  

Apologies from Joe and Kanye’s public relations firms will not resolve this issue.  Neither will a partisan congressional resolution passed by folks publically wringing their hands and privately gleefully winking at each other’s fix it. It begins when all of us, not just politicians and rappers, learn how to control our emotions and to express disagreement and disapproval in an appropriate manner.  Elected officials and popular entertainers don’t set the example; they follow our example.  Ultimately, character is the result of allowing the fruit of the Spirit of God to be present in our lives.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Gal. 5:25-26)

Control your emotions today and you will take a major step down the character path and you will help others do so as well.
Gary Fenton
www.Characterpath.com

Have you ever heard John Cage’s three-movement piece entitled 4’33”?  John Cage, a well known composer who wrote this creative piece, and David Tudor, an accomplished pianist, debuted it in a piano recital in New York in August of 1952. If you are not familiar with it, stop by the church and I will play it for you on the grand piano in our sanctuary.

It is a rather unique composition in that it is a four minute and thirty three second presentation without any note being played. Cage always denied that it was four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence because there was always sound, just not piano or music. There was the scuffling of feet, coughing of the audience, and the sound of a gathered crowd. The composer intended the content to the piece to be to be perceived as the sounds of the environment.

While Cage’s composition was very controversial in the music world, it has become an excellent teaching tool regarding listening.  4’33” is now used to help people listen to the incidental sounds of life. Every moment we consciously and subconsciously block out sounds we do not wish to hear. While such discrimination is necessary, it can also become dangerous and destructive. Blocking and filtering out critical information will result in having a wrong perception of reality.

Rather than looking through rose-colored glasses and listening through mellowed earphones, people of character do not filter out all criticism. They listen not only to what was intended for them to hear, but for the hurt and disappointment often conveyed by the people with whom we speak. While people compliment us and congratulate us because it is socially accepted and expected, we can often hear in their tones and inflections the disillusionment, discouragement and distress they really feel but fear to put into words.

When you are on the character path you not only listen to the words, but you listen the incidental sounds that may reflect reality better than words. While 4’33” may not be technically great music, it can be wonderful teaching tool.

Today after you have visited with a colleague or someone you supervise, ask yourself what you really heard—not just what words, but what was really being said.

If you do this you will be one step further down the character path.
Gary Fenton
Characterpath.com

Staying on schedule can be a character issue.  This outstanding guest post will help you understand the character consequences of scheduling.  If you have a busy schedule this is a “must read.”

Recently my husband treated me to a weekend free of wife and motherhood duties.  I only had myself to pack before I flew off to another U.S. city for a brief retreat from regular life.  On the morning of my flight, I slept a few extra minutes past the alarm’s first ring.  I leisurely arose and caved in to the urge to check email and Facebook.  I proceeded with my unhurried approach until I stepped out of the shower and saw a clock.  Reality hit as less than 30 minutes remained to finish getting ready.  Immediately, I felt the crunch to complete what now seemed a lengthy list of final chores.  As my anxiety elevated, I began barking instruction to my husband, delegating my outstanding wrap-up.  By the time I bid my husband good bye, he was eager for my exit and resistant to a parting kiss.  Understandably he was frustrated with the stress he was forced to absorb amidst my panicked race to get out the door.

I stayed in this unpleasant mode after I arrived at the airport.  I sprinted to security, where the line was out to the atrium.  I ended up behind a large family traveling together for a destination wedding.   When it was time for my security line to merge with others in queue before approaching the agents, rather than wait my turn, I pretended to be with the wedding party.  Had I identified myself separately, I would have been the first person cut-off and forced to wait for the alternating line.  Assuming I was part of the wedding party and continuing a conversation begun with the family, a TSA screener inquired about how long I’d been married.  I snapped a quick and curt answer, hurriedly trying to move on.  I proceeded to dash to the tram, rattling the nerves of a young mother I gently swiped as I passed.  Once inside the terminal, I looked up to see a famous Atlanta family waiting at a nearby gate.  A tad bit star-struck, I caught myself wanting to observe their interactions but was quickly reminded of an impending plane-door closing.  

Yes, I made my plane.  But, there was so much lost.  As I found my seat on the plane I reflected (and repented) of a morning lost.  This should have been my perfect opportunity to show gratitude toward my husband, patiently wait my turn in the security line, graciously help the mother traveling with two young children, and enjoy the opportunity to people watch amidst a brief brush with fame.  From the minute I realized I was running late until I arrived at my gate I was in survival mode.   Behaviors benefiting anyone else were abandoned in my need for self-preservation.

How often do we turn ourselves or our families into survivors by failing to stay on schedule?  It is easy and tempting to desert our time budget as we get distracted or extend a moment of enjoyment too far.  We dismiss momentary and almost subconscious choices as insignificant.  But are they?  A child, who arrives late (or at the last minute) to school, arrives stressed.  And hurried activities are never quality activities.  We’ve all heard studies showing insufficient sleep yields underperformance in school or on the job.  Staying on schedule keeps us and our families at their best.   Unnecessary stress is avoided.  And honoring the time budget may even afford us the few extra moments to serve others in our midst. – Amy Fenton Lee

Amy Fenton Lee is an Atlanta area wife and mother who struggles like the dickens to stay on schedule.  Her new (school) year’s resolution is to be more disciplined with her time on email and Facebook.

Since this website is dedicated to character, I would be lacking good character if I withheld the full identity of the author of this excellent post.  Amy is my first-born and the mother of my oldest grandson.

When you deliberately move from surviving to serving you are taking a major step down the character path.
Gary Fenton
Characterpath.com

“Avoiding situations where you do not have to admit publicly that you don’t know something hinders learning.” (Thomas, Robert J.  Leader to Leader Vol. 50, Fall  2008)

To succeed in any endeavor requires having the right information at the right time.  Many companies and individual who fail blame it on a lack of good and timely information.  However, their failure may not be a flawed information system, but a chink in the character armor.

Individuals who are serious about walking the character path have to frequently drink from the well of learning.  Yet, far too often because of pride and a maintaining an image, they refuse to admit they don’t know what to do.  They attempt to bluff their way through the situation.  Imagine a marathoner on a warm day refusing any water offered to him along the way because he is fearful accepting a water will make him to appear under conditioned.  Due to dehydration the marathoner does not complete marathon.  Later, he explains that he could have finished the course if it had not been such a hot day.  While the heat may have been a factor, it was not the deciding factor.  The real culprit was his pride.

Many people blame their failure on their circumstances when the real issue is a character flaw.  People of character are aware they do not have all of the answers, so they drink freely from the spring of knowledge and information. When you admit you do not know you invite some who does know to fill your cup.

Today, if you encounter a situation when you don’t know something, admit it.  You are not only more likely to find the answer but also will be a better person.

Read 4 Life Truths by clicking on the Pastor’s blog on http://www.dawsonchurch.org