WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF NOBODY EVER FOUND OUT?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© March 15, 2014



There is so much we do that nobody ever knows about.  It is the engine of enterprise that pulsates through most of us, and is essential if a society is to survive. 

Yet, our society is obsessed with recognition, with getting credit, with winning awards of achievement and outstanding performance.  But that is not what keeps society on an even keel, not what keeps a modicum of sanity carrying us through the day.

 
Most of us live quiet lives well below the radar, lives that represent the engine of enterprise and without which society would not exist, or could not persist. 

It is these quiet lives that sustain a community, a country, a society.  It is the lives of people of all shapes and sizes, occupations and preoccupations, joys and sorrows who keep pretty much to themselves, people who are largely invisible to the movers and shakers who get all the attention, recognition and most of the credit, while people of the earth with a center and a compass that is generally reliable pay little attention to these movers and shakers, as they are too busy being and doing.  

 
Recently, an Iowa farmer, close to ninety years old, died, and everyone wondered who he would leave his modest farm and holdings to.  Well, it turned out his holdings weren't so modest, and his farm wasn't limited to the place surrounding his bachelor home, but expanded out into the county, and into other counties.  

 

This farmer had farm land worth more than $2 million, and yet he lived almost as if he were on subsistence.  A church goer all his life, he left his $2 million estate to a number of Catholic churches spread out in several counties, churches he had visited in his long life, leaving dollar bequests ranging from $300,000 and more.

 

It was never necessary that he be found out; never necessary to proselytize.  So, I ask the question: what would you do if nobody ever found out? 

 

It was never necessary that this Iowa farmer be found out; never necessary that he demonstrate or proselytize his faith or reveal his ultimate intentions.  He was a man of the land, the land of his birth, the land that he nurtured in nature, and quietly prospered for the effort.

One can only speculate as to how the material side of his nature envisioned making a spiritual investment as a codicil to his existence.  For once his will was revealed, he was found out.  I choose to see in him faith and farming as love made visible in work, taking comfort in the words of Indian mystic Julal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) who reminds us:

“Every one has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put into his heart.”

Indian master Swami Brahmannda (1863-1922) adds:

“If you wish to work properly, you should never lose sight of two great principles: first, a profound respect for the work undertaken; and second, a complete indifference to its fruits.  Thus only can you work with the proper attitude.” 

Chances are this farmer never read these Indian masters, but his life and work were expressions of his love of the land, and the work it provided as an expression of his joy.  Perhaps he thought he had only borrowed the land for a while and was returning it to God. 

Not a living soul had any idea that he had a “grand strategy” to make life a little better for those less fortunate in these several parishes.  These parish priests confessed he never showed his hand in life; some didn’t even know who he was.

My intention is not to single him out for praise or celebration.  He is mentioned in the context of the majority of living and working souls in every community across this tiny globe who have had or are having life experiences similar to this Iowa farmer, and feel no need that anyone knows how exquisite the pleasure they are having in the shadow of these stormy times.