BEING THERE

Be there. For members of Beloit Memorial High School’s marching band back in the day, those two small words loomed mighty large. They were painted in 3-foot high letters on the back of the rehearsal room and they were indelibly imprinted in the depths of our brains. This was Don Cuthbert’s band, and you were going to act like it.

Be there meant you were on your mark and you were on time. You wore your black shoes when you marched and you kept your hair up off your collar. Your lines were straight and you knew your part (or you’d wish you did!). If you wanted to be a part of Mr. Cuthbert’s band you did what you were supposed to do when you were supposed to do it. If not, you’d better have a good reason (and there were, as was well known, no such things as “good” excuses!).

We might have balked at some of the rules and demands, but we all knew that we wouldn’t get desired results if we didn’t all fulfill our commitment to our director and to the band as a whole. The “C” in Mr. “C” might as well have stood for commitment as well as Cuthbert, for he taught that as much as he did music.

As a former footballer himself, I’m pretty certain Mr. C. agreed with another “be there” sort of guy, the Green Bay Packer legend Vince Lombardi. Lombardi opined that “Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

My parents would have been in good company with the bandmaster and the football man, for they were interested in preparing their children to work well in the family, on a team and in society. If you started a project, well then – you’d best finish it! If you promised to do something, then it should be done – and in the time allotted as well. No finking out, no fooling or fudging. Mom and Dad wanted their kids to be people of honor and integrity, people on whom others could count.

The Bible teaches commitment, for sure – first and foremost to God Himself, the original author of being there. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37-38). God was and is there for us and one way we demonstrate this kind of love for Him is by being there for those He created.

Considering the state commitment seems to be in today, what with divorces, defaults and the general decline of doing what was promised, perhaps we would do well to perform a regular check on the state of our “being there:”

●Keep a running inventory of the status of our promises. Norman Vincent Peale once quipped that “promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.” 

●Pray before we promise. Think about it first. Can we/will we follow through? Since we know we don’t like to be disappointed, we can safely assume others feel the same if we disappoint.  Abraham Lincoln had some pretty good advice on this matter: “We must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on to perform what we cannot.”

●How often are we there at church? How about our Bible reading, time spent communing with the One we should love with all heart and soul and mind? Graham County United Methodist Parish in Hill City, KS once asked its flock, “Just suppose people were as enthusiastic about church events as they are about sporting events. Would there not be a marked difference in the life of the church? Just suppose that every member of the church attended as often as you. Would (it) need more seating or would the building be closed and put up for sale?” We cannot function properly alone. The Lone Ranger is a fictional character. We need the One Who made us, we need His Word and we need His people.

●And when we're ‘there,” no matter where there is and with whom it is, are we there? Do we listen? Are we attentive, in tune, fully present?

Ach! So much to this “being there” business! I guess there was a reason those letters in the band room were so big!

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:5, 6