Feed the Good Wolf

There is an old Cherokee legend known as the story of the two wolves. In this story, loosely paraphrased, an old grandfather conveys to his grandson that there are two wolves within him who contend for control of his life. One is noble and good, while the other is dark and evil. When the grandson asks which one will win the grandfather replies, “the one I feed.” There is great wisdom in this simple story, and you can Google it if you would like to read a longer version. I am certainly not the first person to write on the subject. However, it has come up of late and the below poem grew out of those recent discussions.

The issue at hand is the internal conflict between right and wrong, good and evil. The devotional “Jesus Calling” phrased it as follows: “There is a mighty battle going on for control of your mind. Heaven and earth intersect in your mind, and the tugs of both spheres influence your thinking.” Each of us views this struggle based upon our own world view. Some people are content with believing that we just do the best we can based upon our upbringing. Others like the image of the little angels and demons sitting on each shoulder, whispering in our ears. Some will concede to the struggle between God and Satan. A few folks are satisfied with the Jiminy Cricket personification of the human conscience. I’m personally in the God and Satan camp, with perhaps some angels and demons thrown in. However, little red devils with horns and pitch forks are merely an image contrived in Dante’s “Inferno,” so try not to get hung up on the visual. Either way, the two wolves concept pretty much covers this issue. The point is that there seems to be struggle between various influencers in our hearts and minds. Sometimes it’s a conscious struggle and at other times unconscious, but it’s definitely occurring.

Which wolf do you feed? And is it the wolf you are willing to become? That, after all, is what life is all about … becoming. At any given time we are headed in a given direction based upon our choices. The question we must ask ourselves is where are those choices leading us? To humanize the wolf-feeding metaphor consider this quote from fitness icon Jack LaLane: “Every day, and at every meal, we choose our weight.” I won’t dwell on the context of that quote because it stings a little, but its astuteness points to a profound wisdom. The culmination of our daily choices defines our future. While pondering this subject a while ago I cobbled together four words that sum it up for me: Daily Decisions Determine Destiny. And to make them easier to remember I use the term D-4. That is what our daily struggle is all about. Whether you call it the two wolves, a spiritual warfare, or the battle between good and evil, it happens every day right within our own hearts and minds.

And that battle rarely takes the shape of one life-altering decision. For most of us it takes place in a myriad of seemingly harmless choices that happen from moment to moment throughout our days. The battle isn’t a giant sequoia that comes crashing down upon us. In fact, it’s more like a tiny trickle of water that slowly erodes our character. So it would be wrong to think of life in terms of “a” decisive moment. Rather, life is an endless series of decisive moments. And what do those moments decide? In the end they determine who we are, what our life stands for, what our legacy is, and how we will be remembered.

In conclusion I return to the simplicity of the old Cherokee story. Where do all of our choices lead? Who will we become? Which wolf wins? The one we feed. We become the choices we make ... so by sure to feed the good wolf.

The Two Wolves
There are two wolves within me
One is noble, wise and kind
He always guides me towards the good
In body, heart and mind
This wolf seeks the path of honor
And desires the best for me
He respects my fellow man
And understands eternity
Alas, there is another wolf
Who also dwells within
An evil, dark and selfish wolf
Who tempts me unto sin
This second wolf is vicious
He destroys and he devours
He reminds me of my failures
And taunts me in my darkest hours
The evil wolf is cunning
Full of anger, wrath and pride
Striving ever with the better wolf
With whom he dwells inside
And which will be victorious?
It remains yet to be seen
The noble wolf is powerful
But the evil wolf is mean
The choice is really up to me
Which wolf wins and which concedes
For, in the end, the wolf who reigns
Is the one I choose to feed
               By Frank Carpenter ©

The Story

I was speaking with a friend recently who had an interesting family background. Her father had been a professional Jai Alai athlete in Cuba in the heady days before the revolution. This had given him cause to rub elbows with the famous American actors and writers who frequented Havana back then. Later, after everything changed, her parents immigrated to the United States with only the clothes on their backs. To her credit, my friend’s mother meticulously recorded many of the interesting stories related to that particular heritage. This conversation got me thinking about the stories from my own family history, and how each of us has a story of his or her own. Those stories are important because they are such an integral part of who we are. That’s why we need to ask our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and others to tell us about their lives, because those lives make up the foundation of who we are. Then we need to tell those old stories, as well as our own, to our children, grandchildren and nieces and nephews. In this we can connect the past to the present and, hopefully discover some wisdom for the future.

This line of thinking leads me to several observations. First of all, we are each an important link in the ongoing chain of our family’s history. If I don’t pass on the history to the next generation I may be robbing them of it entirely. Remember that the past is a gift we can give to those we love which they can cherish in the future. Maybe you don’t have a recorded past, or a pleasant one. Maybe you were orphaned or estranged. What’s done is done, but you can still start the story as a gift to those who come after you, and break that cycle. In this case you have the unique opportunity to give them what you were denied. Even if no one seems to care now, someday it will be too late for our kids to ask about the past, so it’s our responsibility to tell them anyway … or at least write it down.

Secondly, once we’re gone all that’s left is our story. How we live is another gift we give to our children. This is one of the most important things we have to leave them. Listen, you don’t have to be president, or fly jets or leave them a million dollars. If you can’t leave anything but the memory of a happy and loving life you will have done a great thing. The quality of a man’s life isn’t measured in money or power or social status. In the end what will matter is meaningful relationships and changed lives. Those are the only things that can outlive us in this world

I must also insert here that I believe there is a heaven and a better life beyond this brief and temporal one. If that’s true then this life is merely a dress rehearsal so I want my story to point the way to what I believe in. Therefore, I’m taking a hard look at my story to be sure that it’s the one I want to live with for eternity. Maybe you should too. If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to email me.

As a final illustration on this subject I offer the below poem. I had the rare opportunity to travel with my father, late in his life, back to Minnesota for a couple of high school reunions. As we drove around and he reminisced I sat in the back seat scribbling copious notes about his life. I saw it as a rare opportunity to learn things about my dad that would otherwise never come up. Some of those notes grew into this poem, which I now have the pleasure of sharing with the rest of our family. By doing so I created an extra chapter in our family’s life that otherwise no one would ever know or remember. Now I know that you probably don’t care about my father’s childhood. However, I thought this might be a good example of the facts and stories that you might want to extract from your own relatives … or share with your children.

The point here is that each of us has a story … a story to live, a story to tell, a story to remember, and a story to pass on. What’s your story, and who should know it? And, perhaps more importantly, is your own story the story you want? No matter who you are, what you’ve done or how old you are, there’s still time to change your story. There is still time to give your spouse, your children, and your grandchildren the story you’d like them to cherish for the rest of their lives. I’m hoping and praying that your story will have a happy ending. And I know it still can.

Lake City Days
Oh, sweet memories of my youth
Where the Mississippi, broad and slow
Becomes Lake Peppin for a time
In the quiet valley I used to know
Lake City was my childhood home
Well named and nestled upon the shore
Of Peppin, where my family lived
Good people, solid, happy, poor
I remember the house on North Oak Street
Where water and power, we had none
Jumping rope and climbing the lilac tree
The sound of the trains and boyhood fun
Our neighbor kept bee hives out in back
And rhubarb grew around the yard
The hand pump sink and the big iron stove
Life was good, but times were hard
The back room where mother, when I was sick
Would cradle my fevered head
All through the night upon her lap
I slept there instead of my bed
And also the house on High Street North
Near the corner of Madison
Where more of my childhood days were spent
Snows of winter and summer sun
I remember the green of McCahill field
Where we tasted success and defeat
And the game in that blizzard of '39
By the end snow was nearly two feet
We went to the westerns and serial shows
At the old corner theater
Where heroes of youth were larger than life
And their images still endure
I remember the services at St. John's
Most in German, as I recall
And even at home we spoke German a lot
I knew it well when I was small
Doc Bailey's office and Lundgren's store
The gazebo down town in the park
Near the court house where dances were held
When the evenings of summer grew dark
And I'll never forget my crush on Joanne
For her, I carried my very first torch
It seems silly now, but back then it was not
I left a May basket on her porch
My dad was coach of the football team
And a teacher at Lincoln High
I shared a room with my brother, Don
Chuck Ericson lived near by
We used to swim in the gravel pit
And pull weeds at the nursery
Summer days we fished down at the lake
Where, in winter, we played hockey
It seems like just yesterday somehow
Though, in fact, it was long ago
But I can still feel the Minnesota heat
And envision the drifting snow
I hold these memories and cherish them all
From my Lake City childhood
Life was simpler then and I have no regrets
Times were hard, but life was good
By Frank Carpenter ©