I went to Grossmont College and San Diego State University, and realized in conversation with my wife that my sons — trade school graduates in trucking, auto repair, and plumbing — all make more money than me.
That may seem odd, but, a) it makes me happy that they’re in lucrative fields and doing well at the beginning of their careers, and, b) it isn’t just the result of their choices, it’s also the result of mine.
When God made it clear that Teressa and I would be doing urban ministry in hardscrabble communities, first in Linda Vista, Calif., then here in the McKees Rocks area, we answered the call knowing it would not likely involve a Jaguar automobile in our driveway.
In fact, I took a 20% pay cut with Starbucks Corp. when I left California and transferred here. Then, two years later, I stepped out into ministry full time, which entailed more reduction in resources.
But we went in with our eyes open, knowing it would come at exactly that cost, and decided the work was more important than the pay.
In other words, we made a choice. In this case, we knew the consequences up front — but sometimes in life we don’t know what the results will involve. We try to weigh risks and hope for the best, but sometimes things don’t turn out so good.
I picked a fight of sorts with Allegheny County Housing Authority over its plans to add more low income housing here where we have more than any other town in Pennsylvania. I don’t regret that, but it had a negative effect on some friendships I’d had for years.
That was the risk, and I suppose I knew it, but I generally don’t turn friends into enemies in my heart over politics and policy, so I was a bit surprised to have some longtime friends attacking my character and badmouthing me to others. The consequences there were not so pleasant.
Call me naive. I should have anticipated it a bit more. We’re in the post “agree to disagree” era politically, as evidenced by growing political violence, but I was still a bit blindsided by it.
A couple of years back I spoke to multiple Stowe commissioners about Broadway Avenue in West Park. Over a span of several months, contractors for Columbia Gas had billed us to upgrade infrastructure up and down the center of town, but when they left, they left a mess. The main road in our small business district was as bumpy as a BMX track, and folks were putting abnormal wear on side roads to avoid it.
“Have the solicitor call and demand they come fix the road,” I said. “It wasn’t that way when they tore it up.”
Across the board the reply was hopeful. Funds were being allocated to pave Broadway in a few months, so having them come back out to cause more detours and aggravation re-laying the brick didn’t make much sense.
The call to the contractors, to my knowledge, was never made.
Neither were the repairs.
The real problem came when neither was the paving done.
So now we still have a bumpy, teeth-shattering wrongly re-laid brick thoroughfare, but it passes between far fewer businesses than it did just a couple of years ago. In fact, to have the realty signs on empty buildings tell it, it seems most of that area is for sale. Even the pawn shop has shuttered.
Not having the contractors held to account on their shoddy work may have seemed prudent at the time.
Residents were tired of the road being shut down and zigzagging through detours, and, anyway, there was a vague promise of funds to repave, so a choice — not maybe an entirely unreasonable one — was made.
Like all choices, this one had consequences, and this time, not so good.
In our lives we make choice after choice.
From the petty (which socks should I wear today) to the significant (should a person purchase some rental properties, taking on risk, but perhaps adding passive income) to the immensely life-altering (should my friend go with radiation treatment for prostate cancer or surgery, neither of which is guaranteed and both of which can have large downsides).
Each choice has some outcome or consequence.
Decades ago Garth Brooks sang “The Dance” about not knowing the outcomes of things and how our lives are better left to chance, because if we knew how things would turn out we’d opt out of some great moments to avoid pain in the future.
It’s a nice notion. I’m guessing, though, that we’d all turn back the clock and re-do some choices knowing the price we paid for them later down the road.
The Rev. James Hogan is a native of Stowe Township and serves as pastor of Faithbridge Community Church. His views do not reflect the views of the West Hills Gazette.
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