Recovering from a stumble

It was spring 1981 and this author of this column was in a job going nowhere. I was doing radio news in a small town. When the position came open, just a few months out of college, it seemed like I'd hit the mother lode. My immediate superior was a longtime former TV news director, many years my senior, and he would teach me about the town and about journalism. On both counts, he came through aces. In addition to working morning drive, I'd have the chance to call high school football play-by-play. Unmarried, no children at the time, I devoted myself to becoming a good news and sports broadcaster. It felt as if the stars had aligned just for me.

In most employment situations, the bloom comes off the rose pretty quickly. In this case, the visionary radio station owner with big plans proved to have little money. On payday -- before the days of direct deposit -- we would get our checks and literally race to the bank to cash them. We had been led to believe, and we were correct in this, that the owner did not have enough money to cover the entire payroll. Snooze you lose. Every two weeks we'd run to our cars hoping we wouldn't get stuck with a paycheck that wouldn't clear. While the opportunity was wonderful, you have to get paid. Time to move on.

A vacation day was spent driving to Erie, Pennsylvania for a meeting at Jet Broadcasting, a venerable company operated by solid management. I'd finagled a job interview with the majority owner, Myron Jones. Mr. Jones was elderly and walked with a quite pronounced stoop, perhaps osteoporosis. When you're young, you can make wrongheaded assumptions. Mr. Jones' body was compromised and I assumed that frailty included his mind. I was quickly disabused of that thinking.

Mr. Jones: Where are you working now?

Me: I'm at WGBZ-FM in Youngstown, Ohio.

Mr. Jones: No, WGBZ is in Sharon (Pennsylvania) and I know that because I erected the station's transmitter tower.

Oops! That was a stumble. Youngstown is a nearby city, much larger than Sharon. My attempt to "snow" the owner was blatant resume enhancement. It should have been a fatal error, cutting off any future with Jet. If not for Mr. Jones' compassion, it would have been the end of the line. Months later, I received a call from the number-one radio station in Youngstown inviting me to take a job as afternoon drive anchor. Jet Broadcasting also owned this station. Mr. Jones remembered me and when a slot opened, I filled it. Much better position. Always got paid on time. That job led to a position in Pittsburgh, PA, which in turn led to a radio management job in St. Louis, which is how yours truly got to Missouri. I have not forgotten my stumble nor Mr. Jones' willingness to look past it. I'm grateful that he saw something worthwhile in a cocky young kid.

A wealthy young man tried to "snow" Jesus of Nazareth in a story that appears in each of the synoptic (or similar) Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

In it, the youthful man, perhaps rich due to inheritance, has everything money can buy but he cannot purchase eternal life. How do I get it, Jesus? Keep the commandments is the response. "Which ones?" the man asks. In Matthew's account, Jesus details them. For me, this is a giveaway that the questioner didn't really know them. After Jesus explains about not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, honoring father and mother, et al., the young man replies, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?" (Matthew 19:18-19)

To my reckoning, the young man tries to snow Jesus twice: first by asking the Master to detail the commandments he needs to follow (he clearly didn't know them); and secondly, by claiming to have kept them all perfectly.

It is Jesus' compassion not to humiliate the rich heir that is striking. The Lord proceeds to tell him to divest himself of his possessions to achieve eternal life. The scene ends with the young man going away sad, "because he had great wealth." (v. 22)

I'd like to think that the young man thought about that conversation later just as I many times have pondered that talk with Myron Jones nearly four decades ago. When we stumble, the compassionate will pick us up.