“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
The 1970 film “Patton” depicts the role of General George S. Patton during World War II. At one point, during the allied invasion of Sicily, Patton’s army is stuck unable to advance. In frustration he drives out to the confront a battalion commander charged with breaking through the enemy line. “Put fire into this battalion, or I’ll get somebody who can!”
He then abruptly turns to the executive officer who is standing nearby.
General Patton: Major! You the executive officer here?
Major Walker: Yes, sir.
General Patton: What’s Your name?
Major Walker: Walker sir.
General Patton : Well You’re now commanding officer! You’ve got 4 hours to break through that beachhead, if you don’t make it, I’ll fire you!
The scene reminded me of something the general wrote in his 1947 memoir, “War as I knew it.” “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
Our creativity and ingenuity is a gift, a spark of the Divine genius. It has been said that man has only ever had one problem; he wants to be like God. This was the promise of the serpent in the garden, “you will be like God.” But this is a lie. We are already like God for we are created in His image.
But we have forgotten.
Much of the strife and contention we experience in our daily lives, including the battles to preserve life and maintain the sacredness of matrimony, are due to the fact that we have forgotten who we are and why we are here. We are subjects of the Kingdom of God. As such the task we are given is to expand that Kingdom to all the corners of the world.
This does not mean we march in lock step to a set of orders. We are not robots programmed with a set of instructions to follow. Out of His love and mercy God has given each of us gifts, and the free will to be creative in our use of them.
You might think that Tom Monagham, the founder of Dominos Pizza, has a gift for building wealth or financial acumen. But you would be wrong.
After serving in the military as a young man, Tom had saved enough money to go to college. His dream was to be a successful, and wealthy, architect. But he lost his savings in an oil well swindle that went bad.
Undeterred Tom and his brother Jim borrowed $500 to buy a small pizza restaurant, DomiNicks (this was 1960.) The idea was for the restaurant to pay for Tom’s college but after a few months of long hours and little pay, Jim was ready to move on. Jim gave his half interest in the restaurant to Tom, asking nothing in return. But Tom felt his brother needed some compensation and so gave him the only asset he had, an old Volkswagen Beetle they used for deliveries.
Without his brother’s help Tom could not operate a restaurant and attend college, He put his college aspirations on hold and doubled down on being a “pizza-man.” He saw an opportunity in delivering pizza to college students and began to enjoy some success.
But seeking to expand his business led to a grueling 14 years of “hard-knocks” education in business. He dealt with partners who did not share his vision, dangers of bankruptcy, conflicts with the IRS, lawsuits, and competition from corporate giants.
Tom Monaghan never gave up. In 1998 he sold Domino’s Pizza for an estimated $1 billion, 38 years after buying that one small pizza shop. If we had to guess at Tom’s gifts, determination to succeed would surely be among them.
His faith was also something that came gradually. Initially he spent his money on all the toys one would expect in a rags to riches story, cars, helicopters, boats, a private island, a new corporate headquarters and even a major league baseball team.
It was C.S. Lewis who turned his life around. Tom read Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” and realized that up until that moment his life had been driven by pride. He took what he refers to as a “millionaire’s vow of poverty.” He sold the toys, including the world-series winning baseball team, stopped construction on his mansion, and turned his palatial office into a conference room. Tom said “I wanted to put my money where it did the most good and saved the most souls.”
He narrowed his focus to higher education and realized he now had the resources to do what few were capable of. In 2003 he established a new private university, Ave Maria, based on the principles of Catholic social teachings.
Tom Monaghan has been quoted as saying, “The biggest impact I can have for what I want to do, the results I want to have with what God’s given me, is to help as many people as possible get to heaven.”
Ultimately that is our goal, to get to Heaven and bring with us as many people as we can. And God has given each of us a unique combination of gifts to accomplish that goal.
God invites us to follow Him by obeying His commandments and His teachings given to us through His Church. But that is just the beginning. We all have the freedom to use the gifts God has given us in the most creative ways we can imagine. By coming to know Him, as subjects of His Kingdom, we come to know of His plan for us. The gifts we have been given are for us to build the Kingdom larger and stronger through our own creativity, intelligence, and imagination.
This is who we are, God’s children, His friends, and subjects of His Kingdom. May we stop trying to be God, and learn to love as he loves.
Pax Vobiscum
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time