Drop A Gem On ‘Em
Drop a Gem on ’Em
(drop ə jem on əm) verb phrase
To offer a piece of hard-earned wisdom, insight, or life-giving truth drawn from experience and given freely to another.
To distill the lessons of one’s life and pass them from one generation to the next; from father to son, mother to daughter, elder to younger, OG to YG.
To participate in the work of becoming a good ancestor in the here and now rather than merely hoping to be remembered as one in the then and there.
Usage: Gems may take the form of stories, proverbs, warnings, encouragements, observations, or lessons gathered along the way.
Cultural Note: “Dropping a gem” belongs to a tradition of wisdom-sharing that is neither academic nor institutional. It is the wisdom tradition of barbershops, stoops, front porches, kitchen tables, basketball courts, elders, uncles, pastors, coaches, fathers, and neighborhood OGs.
See also: mentorship, discipleship, proverb, testimony, becoming a good ancestor.
Facebook Memories showed me a post that I created for Father's Day last year. It was a simple post expressing both the wisdom I have gained from my fathers and father figures and my gratitude for the gift they entrusted to me. So, it feels fitting to sit with this post for another year as I return and revisit the gems handed down to me from the fathers and father figures in my life.
Whether it was Mobb Deep, whose song title I borrowed for this post, or *Gems Along the Way*, a book by my pastor in Hawaii, Wayne Cordeiro, gems have been a way of talking about wisdom gained in life.
It is the type of wisdom that has beckoned me and challenged me to traverse life with faith, courage, and compassion. It is the type of wisdom distilled through generations and refined by the crucible of lives faithfully lived.
One of the gifts of getting older is realizing how much of who you are has been entrusted to you by others. Long before I had the language to describe it, people were dropping gems on me. Fathers. Grandfathers. Uncles. Coaches. Pastors. Teachers. Friends. Men who showed up at the right moment with a story, a lesson, a warning, an encouragement, or simply their presence.
So this Father's Day, I found myself returning to those lessons. Returning to the gems that various father figures in my life have dropped on me over the years.
Here are five of them.
1. It is possible to make mistakes—and to make them right.
In a world where leaders cover up their mistakes and hide their wounds, many end up bleeding their trauma all over others because they cannot admit where they got it wrong. The reality is that if you cannot admit where you got it wrong, you will never have the opportunity to make it right. I remember a leader in my life asking me to grab coffee. As he opened up, he apologized for the ways his behavior towards me had caused harm. To be honest, I did not know how powerful an apology was until I had one shift the story I had been living from. This may sound simple, but it is connected to our God-given vocation to be reconcilers in the world, to be those who participate with God in the restoration of all things. And this starts with our ability to make things right in our own lives.
2. You can be afraid, but fear is not a good enough reason to act cowardly.
This lesson was taught to me by the men who pushed me to get on stage and rock the mic, to traverse rock ledges over the sea, and bomb hills. From hills and stages to standing up against oppression, this lesson extends to the courage that justice requires. Many are afraid to stand up against injustice because to stand up means that you may stand out, and the monster will come for you next. In the movie We Bought a Zoo, there is a line that says a person just needs twenty seconds of courage to positively shift their reality.
If surviving pebbles on a hill bomb has taught me anything, standing up may be painful, but living with the regret of not trying will haunt you. And that pain is far worse because it is a wound inflicted on our soul.
So, whether it is gathering the courage to ask that person out or to stand up to oppression, I am grateful for the men who taught me that fear is no excuse to be a coward.
3. Being a good man isn’t about being well-behaved; it’s about living from a deep essence of goodness.
As a young boy, I was always told to act right. In Bible college, I was told that Jesus is watching you, and if you have been to Bible college, you know the rest of that saying. But the problem is that you can be well-behaved and never be a good man. Because well-behaved men are only well-behaved until they are not. The impetus behind the behavior is how one is seen. Goodness, on the other hand, is the impetus for how a good man shows up. I watch well-behaved men become morally reprehensible when the mask slips, and the lack of goodness is exposed to the world. But I have also watched good men live from the deep reserve of goodness that pours out as kindness and dignity to all those who flourish in the runoff. One of the best examples of being a good man was my pastor in Los Angeles. He showed me what it meant to lead with kindness and compassion.
4. You don’t have to be biologically connected to help raise boys into good men.
Who remembers Konstructs? The Lego knock-off from the early 80's was a mainstay in my life as a 4-year-old. A family friend named Mickey would come help me build intricate worlds that allowed my neurodivergent interiority to flourish. He was a man without any biological children of his own, yet showed up as a good man caring for children that were not his own. He is the one who introduced me to my love for Hip Hop. P.I.D. and Michael Peace, anyone? But he also introduced my little sister and me to Petra, so maybe that part is a wash. All joking aside, good men being present in the lives of boys who need to learn to become good men is not about biology; it is about proximity. My friend, Mickey, taught me that.
5. The essence of fatherhood is presence. Some men father children but fail to be fathers. Others never father a child, yet are called “father” by those they choose to show up for.
In some ways, I have been blessed to have many father figures in my life. But I also know the ache of growing up without a father in the home. I have typed and erased a few versions of this paragraph because it is a hard topic to talk about.
Dr. Lindsay Gibson taught me that you can love your parents and still say what they gave you was not enough.
That is a hard thing for adult children to hold, because there is the pressure to capitulate and protect.
My understanding of this lesson deepened when I encountered the idea that your father may have given you the best he could offer, but we are not responsible for the ways his best still falls short. In countless conversations with men over the years, I have heard variations on the theme that my father was in the home, but I did not have access to him.
So, whether absent physically or emotionally, many men have grown up with a void. And at the same time, many men show up for children that are not biologically theirs, but belong to the collective us. And it is those men who change the trajectory and outcomes for children struggling to find their way.
On the other side of Father's Day this year, I wanted to spend some time reflecting and sharing the wisdom I have learned from the fathers and father figures in my life. The one thing that this reflection really showed me is how much raising children is a communal act. As someone who has helped to raise children, I hope that in my lack, other good men partner with me to see more children raised up feeling loved, secure, and full of hope for the good and beautiful in this world. Hopefully, a few of the gems they dropped on me will be picked up by those who come along after me.