At the bottom of my résumé, under Other Interests, I have included the following:

• Creating programs and opportunities for helping others reach their full potential and which improve the human condition
• Giving comfort to those in need
• Servant leadership
• Traveling (global, local, all types for cultural experiences)
• Reading books of purpose and value

Reviewing that résumé now, a few years after having composed it, I can see clearly that these are ideals rather than interests, but the list still makes perfect sense to me. These ideals matter in the definition of who I am. But why does that particular list matter so much to me that I am intent on keeping it in my résumé, even though I now can see that it is in a language perhaps not always understood by potential employers? In trying to clearly convey who I am, am I unintentionally esoteric? 

To be clear, then, what I'm trying to say is that I want to dedicate myself to work that matters in some way for not just myself, but for others. What I am trying to say is that I want the travel I experience to open me up to a better understanding of the greater world in both its glories and the needs of its people. What I am trying to say is that I am inspired by non-fiction books, which speak to the real life experiences of others from which I am inspired either to do likewise or to carry on. 

When feeling overwhelmed, for example, I'm apt to say, "If Dear Mad'm can do it, so can I!" Check her out. Stella Walthall Patterson is her name, and "Dear Mad'm" is her story. It's definitely one of the 1940's, peppered here and there with occasional quirky political incorrectness, but one from which we can still gain. And, that's the point. To gain intrinsically, to grow in our ideals, in our virtues and values, and our ethical treatment of all of life. Live life experiences from which we can gain. Read books from which we can gain. All this can shape us to be more the kind of person we want to be. 

I have a top seven, so far, of books that have done that for me. Stories to which I go back for regular helpings.  "Dear Mad'm" is in that top seven for its story of an 80 year old woman striking out to live alone with her "young legs" in an isolated cabin in the mountains.  So is "Angela's Ashes," from which I learned I'd rather be the oppressed than the oppressor. "Isaac's Storm," taught me that whatever storm or natural disaster we encounter in our own lives has already, most likely, happened in the life of someone else. We must be sensitive to and aware that Isaac stood on the coast of Galveston in early September 1900, feeling inadequate in his job as meteorologist, suspecting that something powerful was approaching that he couldn't even begin to name, nor from which he could save the people he loved. 

"Christy" was only 19 years old when she boarded a train, alone, in Buncombe County North Carolina and entered into a place of need in Appalachia, not far from where I grew up in East Tennessee, and left the mark of education and opportunity for the people of that area.  "The Long Walk to Freedom" never fails to remind me that it is possible to own a life, as Nelson Mandela did, that peacefully yet dramatically changes the course of a nation caught up in violent turmoil. And I pray anytime I want to complain about the cold or uncomfortable aspects of life, that Corrie Ten Boom will always be close by in remembrance. "The Hiding Place" calls us all to do better, and more, than complain. 

Rounding out the life shaper list, and truly, in my opinion and belief, the Greatest Story Ever Told, is the Bible. These Words hold the story of God's plan for Creation, and that includes us. It is that plan upon which I rest and work and get on with that which is pure, that which is lovely, that which is admirable. Think on those things.