Today is Daniel’s birthday. . . not the prophet, but my brother. My mother used to tell me: “Cherish your brother. There is nobody closer to you on the planet by blood.”
She was right. Dan is not just my brother, but (to quote the Flintstones) my lifelong pal. The fact that he was calling Brexit a movement whose time was coming twenty years ago means you know he is smart, but he is also a good guy. Smarts he got from Mom and Dad, but goodness was a quality he developed . . . after he stopped breaking my toys.
Here are three things (other than the merits of Brexit) I have learned from Dan:
Endure with grace.
Dan is filled with grace. He is strong enough to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without coming unglued. You can knock him down, but you cannot finish him off. Meanwhile, he will get the counsel he might need without dragging everyone else into his troubles.
A great secret to a good life is to share enough, but not too much. He endures with grace because he has learned this lesson.
Be honest and aspire for virtue first.
I have known people who would do anything to “win” and they were harmful. I have known people who would do anything for money and they were odious. I have known people who would do anything for their cause and they were dangerous.
Dan is willing to “lose” if his integrity is on the line. If I offered him everything he wanted (a job in vexillology?), but he had to sacrifice his integrity, then he would not take the deal. He knows that on many things a gentleman must compromise, but never on virtue. When it comes to integrity, compromise is the language of devils.
Nobody is perfect, but Dan doesn’t use that as an excuse.
Life does not have to “work out” in the details if you are a gentleman.
Nobody does much academic work or lives a productive life without having people let them down. Dan is a great teacher and scholar, but not because he has been handed much. If some people are born on third base and think they have hit a triple, then some hit a triple, slide in safe, and are called out.
The great ones dust themselves off and go back to bat. One overlooked aspect of a Christian gentleman is that he loses as gracefully as he wins. A deeper characteristic is that a Christian gentleman never loses because the way he “keeps score” is by character. If he grows through a crisis, then he wins. Nobody controls his game.
Dan may not have mastered that, but he is as close as anyone I know.
Be like Dan.
Happy Birthday!
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