Forgiving my body

When I was 9 Dale Spencer said

 "Let's play ball boys." You replied

And kept me playing until I was 50.

Santa left me a 12 gauge shotgun when

I was 12. Uncle Harold said, "Larry,

Let's go hunting." You responded and

Kept me walking and hunting until

I was 55. "Let's play tennis," John Lux said

And you and I did, for 45 years.

You and I peddled my bikes all over

Town as well as to school and along my

Columbia Daily Tribune delivery route.

We walked to the movies downtown.

We walked across town to girl friends'

Houses. We hiked with the other Scouts

To the south of Boone County many

Times.

During all this energetic happiness you never

Stopped. You complained from time to time,

Hiding a diminished future. You answered "Yes"

When "No" was a possibility, perhaps a justifiable

Preference, but I didn't know it.

Now, you're saying, "Please. I'm tired. I can't

Go on as before." You're living a disease today you've

Disguised in the past. I can't be angry with

You. You hoisted me and held me up

Too many times and years for me to rebuke you.

To the contrary, I honor you. I forgive you.

Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America’s Future

Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America’s Future, by Jim Wallis

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. —attributed to Edmund Burke 

The 24/ 7 news coverage today, especially on radio, cable, and the internet blogosphere, doesn’t really “cover” the news but rather fuels the audience’s already-held prejudices about what is happening.   Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 72-74). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

. We’ve lost our integrity in the public arena, substituting ideological warfare for genuine and rigorous political debate, replacing substance with sound bites.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 76-77). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The best big conservative idea is personal responsibility.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 83-84). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

“Talent is what you have, effort is what makes you succeed.”  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Location 89). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The best big liberal idea is social responsibility.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Location 136). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Hubert Humphrey expressed it well: “Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.”  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 138-139). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Good Samaritan gospel parable  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 137-138). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

There is a personal and a social gospel.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 143-144). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

With some notable exceptions, conservatives mostly missed the civil rights movement, for example, while liberals were at the center of it.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 164-165). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Politics seems to be in constant campaign mode now. Our politicians are always running for office, always battling their opponents, always getting ready for the next election. Their political opponents are thought of more as enemies than as colleagues, and working with them is less important than planning how to defeat them next time.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 253-255). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Politicians take a problem and do two things with it. First, they try to make people in the public arena afraid of the problem. Then they try to blame the problem on the other political side.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 258-260). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Jon Stewart, “I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.”  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 334-335). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

What size the government should be is the wrong question. A more useful discussion would be about the purposes of government and whether ours is fulfilling them or not.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 394-395). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[the New Testament about the role and purposes of government.] Paul says those purposes are twofold: to restrain evil by punishing evildoers and to serve peace and orderly conduct by rewarding good behavior.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 407-408). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

the GI Bill and FHA (the Federal Housing Authority) made a big and positive difference in the lives of our families and so many others by educating fathers and making first family homes possible after our dads came home from World War II. Most people who have Medicare are very happy with it, and Social Security rescued an older generation from poverty.  Wallis, Jim (2013-08-15). Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future (Ebook Shorts) (Kindle Locations 671-673). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

It's the trip

IT'S THE TRIP

         Rather than be spooked the next time you drive by or walk and whistle past a cemetery, think about all the individuals in it who are rarely, if ever, visited.  Most have been forgotten. 

         Look at the experience of walking or driving by a cemetery from a Sophiological perspective.  Think about their power, influence and significance when they were alive. 

         No doubt there are buried lawyers, doctors, professors, successful entrepreneurs, and maybe a real estate mogul or two.  However you think about success – socially, financially or professionally – remember death is the great equalizer and these significant lifetime achievements don’t matter in the afterlife.

If you’re not inclined to believe in a spiritual realm or higher power, then you’ll be fertilizer, assuming you go for a natural burial and don’t get boxed up, forever encased.  Regardless of how your remains are processed you will not reflect on anything whether you failed, succeeded, or were a good person.

         If you’re one who believes in another world beyond this life, then it still doesn’t matter if you were a US Senator, Congressman, or a Pulitzer Prize winning author. 

         Name the US Senator from your state during World War II.  Do you know who all those important people are in the credits that make programs possible on PBS?  Did you ever wonder about a street name and for whom it honors?  Do you care?  Do you know who received a humanitarian of the year award last year in your community?

I get rather impatient, like many people, when I’m required to sit in meetings where talking about goals becomes the focus rather than actually getting to the end result.  Process trumps goals and the organization ends up spinning its wheels. 

         Nothing gets done.  In some of these meetings, you want to shout, “Let’s top talking about doing it and just do it!  It’s not rocket science! Let’s just get the job done”!

         In contrast, as a process for life or perhaps better described as a personal sojourn, relates to each of us, I’ve concluded as have others, that the journey requires focus on the here and now, not the future.   

         Yesterday, to modify a cliché, is gone forever, tomorrow is a hope with no guarantee, and today at this very moment as you read this, not the next hour, is the only reality.

         The process becomes about the quality of living as it pertains to interactions with others – the kindness, empathy and compassion shown.  The here and now, even though we should plan for tomorrow, has to be life’s focus.  It all comes together in the process more than we realize.

         No one starts living after some lofty academic or professional achievement.  It is now.  Not surprisingly, there are a lot of unhappy or unsatisfied very successful professionals and entrepreneurs out there.  They endure spiritual poverty and don’t even realize it. 

Even for those who accept material gain isn’t the goal, they also must realize making a difference in a cold, mean, troubled world won’t put an end to life’s injustices.  Hunger, poverty, economic inequity, domestic violence, or animal abuse are among the social challenges that plague humanity as much today as they did a century ago or longer.   

         Leo Tolstoy wrote in one of his short stories, “You say you would do twice, ten times, a hundred times, more than you did.  But if you did ten thousand times ten thousand more than all men have done, what would that have been in the work of God?  A mere nothing!  God’s work, like Himself, is infinite.  God’s work is you.  Come to Him, and be not a laborer but a son, and you will become a partner of the infinite God and of His world … your work will be neither small nor great, it will be God’s work.”

         Sometimes we may overthink our place in the world.  It can be self-absorbing without much progress, not unlike the Hamster in the wheel racing to a destination and getting nowhere, though the furry creature has the benefit of losing weight with much needed exercise. 

In the end, it is important to plan for tomorrow as best we can, hoping to enjoy it, but in the final analysis understanding that it’s in this moment that matters such as whether we made someone smile who is having a bad day.  Perhaps it’s the best form of energy to feed the cosmos that in turn keeps hope alive. 

         In doing so, we are to our Creation as the Creator intended.  We are an extension of something bigger and better, something transcendental, helping to bring out our better angels.

         Now that you have finished reading this, what will you do that’s joyful and meaningful for yourself or someone else in the next hour?  Sometime today? More important, how can you condition yourself to do it each day without thin

For Carolyn

The large painting above the couch

Is missing. Where did it go? I didn’t move

It but it’s obviously gone missing. Ouch!

There’s pain in my chest. I’ve lost my groove.

My sense of balance has me stumbling

And staggering about. Where did my astrolabe

Go? It’s gone, too. I hear me mumbling

With ill-formed words and thoughts that are frayed.