By Norris Burkes October 13 2024
Earlier this month, I celebrated my 67th birthday with a couple of pieces of German chocolate cake.
Fortunately, experience told me not to go for a third.
That’s because I still remember my seventh birthday when I sneaked a half-dozen cupcakes from my mom’s cake carrier, devoured them and threw up just prior to the party.
But still, that birthday wasn’t the worst.
My worst birthday was my 45 th when my Air Force chaplain supervisor came into my office at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, wearing a strained expression.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he said, “but your name didn’t appear on the Air Force promotion list to major.”
I was unsure how to interpret the news. The pessimist in me said I’d just been fired.
And if my optimist was saying anything, I couldn’t hear it because the pessimist was choking him out.
The military doesn’t keep officers who don’t make the rank of major. This meant I had only six months to find a new job before I would be unemployed and stranded 3,000 miles from my California home.
The only reaction I offered my supervisor was, “And this is my birthday.”
It was about that time that a colleague presented me with a helpful book
titled, “Who Moved My Cheese?” by authors Spencer Johnson, M.D. and Ken Blanchard. Johnson and Blanchard seemed to be proclaiming that change was the only certainty in life, so deal with it.
The book uses a parable format to depict talking lab mice that work to outsmart the scientists who are constantly moving their cheese into an unfamiliar part of their maze.
Somebody had indeed moved my cheese, and the military maze I’d known for eight years became an unfriendly place, so I spent the next hour hunting for help.
About halfway through the book, I stopped, taken aback by a particularly evocative question that the mouse characters found written inside their maze. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
I looked away, paraphrasing the conundrum aloud in a slow and thoughtful repetition. “What would I do if I weren’t so afraid of change?”
It was abundantly clear what I normally did when I felt afraid. I got upset, I fretted and then became a generally rude person toward those who loved me.
But the authors were insisting that I answer a different question: “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”
I went to the copy machine where I enlarged the quote into a mini poster which I placed above my desk.
A few weeks later, as fear melted from the equation, I came to know exactly what I would do.
I would return to my California home and to the most rewarding ministry of my life — I determined to resume my career in hospital chaplaincy.
No, the cheese question didn’t work magic. It didn’t totally suspend my fears.
I was still scared, but I was determined to keep fear from obscuring my goal. I printed my resumés, scheduled hospital interviews and kept pressing toward the goal.
Three months later, I had six job offers for hospital chaplaincies and I returned to part-time military life as an Air National Guard chaplain.
Twenty-three years have passed since that harsh announcement. But that day continues to remind me that whenever I’m uncertain, fearful or just plain indecisive, I can reach into my resiliency repertoire for the refrain of that birthday question.
When I think about it long enough, the answer usually floats to the top.
You may ask, “Does that always work for you, Norris?”
No, not always. Sometimes I default to eating a half dozen cupcakes.
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Parts of this column excerpted from my book, “Thriving Beyond Surviving.” All of my books are available on my website or by sending a check for $20 (per book) to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. Email comments to comment@thechaplain.net or by text or voicemail to (843) 608-9715. See past columns and other books at website www.thechaplain.net.
