Oct
03
The 4H Idea
I am going to be giving the Keynote address at the Southern Region 4H Volunteer Forum in Little Rock, Arkansas tomorrow. I wanted to have a napkin specifically for 4H but was having a hard time visualizing it. Luckily, as I was writing the commentary for a napkin I was drawing earlier this week I came up with this quote. It started me thinking about what I know of the 4H Organization and how it all seems to be about helping young people become who they want to become.
It’s a tricky thing, this becoming. We are constantly becoming something new in mind and in body, even us old people. But it is especially true of young people. They are going through a tsunami of becoming as they grow. Our job as parents, as volunteers, as teachers, as mentors, is to figure out the best ways to help these young people navigate through this tsunami of change.
I love the simplicity of the 4H idea: Becoming takes place in four arenas of life; Head, Hand, Heart and Health. That is what it’s all about.
The Balancing Act
It acknowledges that our thinking, working, caring, and fitness all need to develop in balance with one another. It’s not enough just to be a model of bodybuilder perfection or look great in a bikini if you aren’t able to think critically about the world. It’s not enough to be a theoretical genius in neuroscience if you fail to love your neighbor. It’s not enough to be always working, earning all the money in the world, if you ignore your health.
Leading the Way
They all work must in concert with one another if we want to be the person we really want to be. And as any kid will tell you, they are watching our example much more than our words. So if we want our youth to be balanced, guess what? We have to lead the way.
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Drawing, commentary and quote by Marty Coleman
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Jan
09
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When I started having trouble in my marriage, a Pastor gave me a bible. I drew in it when I went to church. I would often look at people and wonder what they were thinking. Here are three drawings that includes what I imagined they might have been pondering.
Drawings by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Apr
17
>A vintage napkin from 2000. Drawn for my daughters and put in their lunches for school.
No, I don’t remember why I drew a toilet saying this quote. I do believe the quote is true so I don’t think I was trying to say it was a waste product. Maybe I thinking that even people we don’t have high regard for can say things of value. Or maybe I was thinking teenagers like toilet humor so I would use that image to say something profound? heck it was almost 10 years ago, as if I can remember now!
Quote by someone who I am sure would be mortified if they knew a toilet was saying it.
Apr
13
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People often cannot allow themselves to think certain things. It might be an idea, ‘God exists’, or maybe ‘God does not exist’. It might be about a relationship, ‘I am going to leave him’. It might be about your career, ‘I am going to change careers and move to another town’. It might be about fitness ‘I am going to run a marathon’.
Those things are all too big, too far advanced for you to wrap your head around. You can’t think them, you won’t think them. And if you do, you quickly follow it with, ‘no, that’s insane’ or something equally dismissive. But the idea remains, tucked in the back of a drawer in your mind.
Eventually one or more of those ideas might actually sound not so insane. You might think them achievable and bring them back out into the sunlight of contemplation. What matured, you or the idea? The idea never changed. The idea that I could run a marathon is the same idea now, less than 2 weeks away from me actually running my first, as it was a year ago when it was in my ‘insane idea’ drawer!
What insane idea do you have that you need to take another look at?
Quote by Hans Kudszus, 1901-1977, German aphorist
