Let Each Esteem Others...

About 4 this morning I uploaded a finished copy of my fire department history book to the printing company; in a week or ten days they’ll send me a sample copy and, if there are no major glitches, that book will be published.

Thanks be to God!

The final push to get the thing done leaves me numb and exhausted.

And… ashamed.

I tweaked and tweaked the proof pages, yet I’m not satisfied. I’ve left out so much information. I’ve avoided controversial problems. I’ve short changed some people who deserve great credit.

This is the 19^th or 20^th book I’ve written or edited, and every book has left me feeling as though I could have done so much better… Although as far as I can tell my fire history is the most complete and thorough treatment of the topic I know.

After working on this thing, off and on, since 1985 and collecting about 2,000 pages of notes, I become keenly aware that I know little about my subject. There are more knowledgeable people who could have done a better job.

But, they didn’t.

I did it because this is what I do.

One thing bothered me greatly: in the final throes of correcting proofs, I had to call for help. The formatting of some photos and captions (the book is chock full of them) defeated me. Any way I tried, they came out wrong.

So I called on Helen, my daughter-in-law, who is a graphic artist to bail me out. She cheerfully came right over and restructured tables and cells and photo slop things in a matter of minutes. Problems I’ve struggled with for weeks, she solved.

In all sorts of areas, she cuts right through crap and comes up with solutions.

I don’t know what our family would do without her.

One problem—the book covers.

For ages, whenever I’ve thought of this book, I’ve imagined a red cover with a black and gray charcoal drawing of galloping horses racing with a fire pumper wagon billowing smoke. Ages ago Mose Bowden, curator of the Jacksonville Fire Museum, sketched such a picture for me. We used it on the cover of an earlier history I wrote for the museum before he died. The firemen’s credit union printed that same sketch/book cover on the chest of tee shirts and distributed them.

I gloried in that.

So, the horse picture carries many emotional attachments for me.

But Helen sees with the eye of a graphic artist. She’s designed many book covers and other pieces of commercial art. She sees the book cover I envisioned as static. She suggested we use a dynamic colorful photo of firefighters toiling at a massive oil tanker explosion and fire.

I balked.

“What do you mean cut my baby’s ears off,” I questioned. “He’s perfect. His ears are not too big. You can’t cut them off. He’s My Baby!”.

As we worked together discussing the book cover, I calmed down and prayed a spot prayer that the Lord would help me not to be recalcitrant and demand my own way but to be teachable and go in the way He would have me go.

Not that God cares a fig about red covers as opposed to black covers, but He cares deeply about conforming me to the image of Christ.

As I prayed silently and Ginny, Donald and Helen talked, a phrase of Scripture came to my mind, one I have not thought of in years.

Paul told the people living in Philippi, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others as better than themselves”.

That means deferring to the judgment of people smarter than I am (or dumber—yes, I’ve learned a lot from dumber people).

I certainly was not expecting a spiritual lesson that late at night in the midst of formatting a pdf file and covers for a history book. But, God reaches us where we stand and when we’re in a listening mode.

I re-looked at Mose’s horse sketch. I looked at the burning oil tank with firefighting equipment in array. I looked at Helen’s cover design and at the one I’d done myself… “Nothing out of vainglory”…

Helen, bless her, listened as I explained my emotional attachment to the drawing and to the old man who sketched it. She understood my conflict. She said the cover decision is entirely mine and we would go with my choice.

She also said she would stay up late and reformat the back cover of the book to include the antique fire pumper and galloping horses. And she would redesign and brightened the front cover all over again.

She would abide by my decision and help me accomplish whatever I chose.

Look for the flaming oil tank on the cover when the book comes out.

Helen’s a treasure.

I hold her in esteem.

She’s much smarter than I am… Someday maybe I’ll write about all the things I’ve learned from people I considered at the time to be dumber than me—like the illiterate who taught me how to change a car tire, or the gravedigger who taught me how to dig a proper hole…

Let each esteem others as better—because they are!

I just don’t always recognize that.