Carolina QuotesEven in everyday life, something bigger, deeper, and more important than self-satisfaction needs to be inside us. Having a transcendent cause is not just some vague idea in the back of our minds, something we'll hang onto just in case of a crisis or a battle. No, it has to be there day in and day out. Our lives should reflect our commitment to that cause. One example of this may be as simple as your faithfulness to some uninteresting and seemingly unrewarding job- simply because you've got to bring home a check- and not giving up on it.
William G. Boykin Carolinian
Source
p. 13
- work
- Man to Man: Rediscovering Masculinity in a Challenging World (2020)
- year
- 2020
- locator
- p. 13
Cite this record
“Even in everyday life, something bigger, deeper, and more im…” William G. Boykin. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-103E5430EC. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/103e5430ec
More from William G. Boykin
We fought an eighteen-hour battle that day. Most people don't realize this, but we were fighting over two of our dead comrades- the pilot and co-pilot. And we took more casualties because we refused to leave them behind. We couldn't get those two bodies extracted from that helicopter, and we were not going to leave the remains of our two men behind. We were fighting over dead bodies. But, to us, it didn't matter. Alive or dead, they were our comrades and they were coming out with us. We knew they would have been there for us were the roles reversed. When Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon made that third request to go down into the street, they knew there wasn't much chance they would come out alive. That's a transcendent cause. And so was recovering the bodies of the others who died. The question for today is this- have we assessed our lives to determine who and what it is that's worth living and dying for? One can be part of today's "give me" generation or one can be part of "I'll give to you." Shughart and Gordon were givers- not takers. And they gave their lives. But they gave their lives because they had a transcendent cause. Their cause was- at the tactical level- the same for every warrior who's ever been on the battlefield: the guy behind you, in front of you, and on your right and left.
Terrorists strike like lightning- hard, fast, and without warning.
I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.