Happy To Be Humbled

An old friend newly made — she’s nowhere near old, but you get the idea — and dear sister in the Lord mentioned a Scripture yesterday: “Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position [NOTE: This can also be translated as "willing to do menial work"].  Do not be conceited.”

Me being me, naturally I chimed in with a “as I often remind everyone, I am a truly humble man” comment.  At which point in time she challenged me to a humble-off.  My offerings thus far have been that I’m so humble:

• The air I breathe has to force its way into my lungs because I don’t want to bother it by drawing it in myself;
• When I go fishing the fish have to swim up to me and beg for permission to jump in my boat because I can’t bring myself to put my hook in the water.

Yeah, weird Christian humor.  Gets us through the unfunny times.

The reason I mention this is, other than the obvious “if that’s your idea of being witty you really do have something to be humble about” comment, is because something took place yesterday that truly did humble me.  We tend to think of being humbled as being humiliated in defeated, our illusions about ourselves shattered by reality of someone or something triumphing over us.  That’s not always the case.  Sometimes, being humbled means standing in awe of a moment when perfect God works through imperfect people, namely us, to carry out something we in and of ourselves could never bring about.  Yet because somewhere along the line we were not only willing to do what He asked us to do but actually did it, that which we could never accomplish was in fact accomplished.

Shortly after I started working in earnest on the book, I decided I wanted to include at least one metal band from that era.  The one that immediately came to mind was Barnabas, since despite their skill — their music still holds up — they were something of the music industry’s unwanted stepchild.  Also, the band had an active fan-run message board to which at least one of the members regularly contributed.  So I made contact with the member, namely Kris Klingensmith (drummer and lyricist), and did the interview.  He was kind enough to provide contact information for a couple of former bandmates: Mick Donner, who played guitar on the band’s second album, and Nancyjo Mann who was the lead singer throughout the band’s recorded history.  Made the calls, did the interviews.  I had a vague memory of Mann being involved in the pro-life movement, but didn’t know the full story until she provided it in unvarnished detail.  Her story is one of the book’s most sobering moments.

Fast forward to that period of time earlier this year between the book being completed then sent off to the publisher and its release.  Being one who works in marketing yet intensely dislikes sales (makes for some interesting internal conundrums), how to get the word out about the book without being obtrusive was, and is, a challenge.  I’m a firm believer in networking and social media as it offers the opportunity for mutual marketing; an exchange of assistance.  Much better than beating someone over the head with your message, methinks.  Therefore, I started looking for opportunities to put this belief in action.

Since I’m a twit… uh, am on Twitter a lot I of course looked there.  One day, one of the people I follow made mention of her actively working in the pro-life movement and looking for stories from people who had personal experience with abortion.  Said person had a couple of blogs of her own that are well-read and is a participant in assorted political organizations.

Hmm.

An agenda item I’ve picked up on over the years is the need to be wise with what you have been given; i.e. as you receive so you should give but don’t throw it out there willy-nilly as  Willy can pay for it like everyone else.  This is why the book isn’t available digitally and won’t be for quite some time.  I simply can’t afford to give it away wholesale.  Not that I’m looking to get rich here; due to not being in possession of a time machine thus being unable to return to the 80s and own a certain record label this is not an option.  I’m not hoping to so much as break even on the travel and communication expenses incurred in the course of writing the book.  I also can’t afford to be handing it out on the street corner.  Anyway, said all that to set up the following.

One of the oft-used methods of promoting a book is the teaser, this consisting of making a small portion, usually a single chapter, freely available.  The hope is this sample will prove enticing to those who read it, so much so at least some will be motivated to purchase the book so they can read the rest of the story.  Now, in the case of a book such as mine where each chapter is an entity in and of itself there is the potential downside of losing a sale to someone whose primary if not sole reason for buying it is obtaining that one chapter.  However, two factors weigh against this.  The first is how I’ve never encountered a scenario where more than one artist in the book is not of interest to a potential buyer.  The second, one that factors into all marketing considerations for the book, is the ministerial element.  Not everything can be squeezed into a spreadsheet.

Hmm…

“Hi.  I just finished a book that has a chapter you may find of interest.  If you’d like to run it in your blog and in the process of doing so mention the book…”

She agreed and in a few days time did so, mentioning the book and in a separate post reprinting Mann’s chapter.  Now that she was aware of Mann’s story, she also ran an article from several years ago about Mann’s experience.

A young woman pregnant with her third child read that story.  Her mother was pressuring her to have an abortion as her husband had left her and her mother didn’t believe she could handle the two children, both under five, she already had let alone another.  Her mother arranged for her to go to a clinic and abort her pregnancy.

She went to the clinic.

She thought about Mann’s story.

She didn’t end her pregnancy.

The story doesn’t end there, of course.  It cannot end there.  A sacred obligation for deeds not just words is pressed on the heart of every believer.  In this case, be it directly or through an organization there is a mandate from God to offer what support, financial and other, one can both during the pregnancy and after birth to moms-to-be who choose life.  Yet even with this there is the breathtaking, awe-inspiring moment of realization that this stumbling fumbling bumbling sinnerboy, namely me, was used by God as part of a process giving an unborn child the opportunity to be born.

Never been happier to be humbled in my life.