Strive to be Good

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and vast world commerce, and it was not there.  Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”   (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835)

How often do we arise in the morning and pray or say,  ‘I really want to be good today—and not just good for myself, but  good for something, good for my family, good for the man or woman or girl or boy who crosses my path, good for America?’ What if this were a part of our family prayer?  What if we could persuade another person to do this, and they another, and our political leaders to do the same—where would we be?  Could America be great again?  It is a truth that where there is no vision the people perish and the greatness of a nation becomes just a memory.  We seem to forget that nations, even cultures have died. 

James Reston, a columnist for the New York Times over thirty years ago said, “We are a nation with a conscience.  Usually it is a troubled conscience, because we are not living up to what we were taught we were.”  I wonder if we now even have a “troubled conscience,” or if the pulpits once “aflame” in America’s mainline churches have also become doused with the cold and dirty water of the moral cesspool that has washed over our once great social institutions—government, education, military, athletics, even entertainment (maybe never ‘great’ but always influential). 

   

I know that there are a few who haven’t succumbed and are holding up their light.  To mix the metaphor, it only takes so many snowflakes with determination to become an avalanche.  Let many more of us resolve daily to be good—will you do it tomorrow morning?  It is the only way we can become great.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 29

I am not a Shakespearian scholar or even very well-read in Shakespeare, but I have read a couple of his plays and all of his sonnets and recommend this one for anyone—or anyone’s friend—who may be dissatisfied with their state in life.  I would call it “Sweet love remember’d” from the penultimate line of his verse:

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, --and then my state

(Like to lark at the break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

            For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings

            That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

I would hope that each of us could qualify ourselves to be charitable and bring “sweet love remember’d”  to another—to to lift this friend and give him/her hope.  When other men fail, with faith, hope, and charity we can lead such an one as above unto God, “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world,…which hope cometh of faith, [and] maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast….”  (Book of Mormon, Ether 12:4; see also Holy Bible, Hebrews 11 )

Running Against the Wind

The Bob Seger song of some years ago, ‘Against the Wind,’ has in it a lyric, a truth we all sooner or later will come to know. It goes:

            I’m older now

but still runnin’ . . .

            Against the wind.  

I suppose all of us will stop for a moment or two now and then, if we can, and just drift, or at least stop running and try to hold our place where we are.  But we quickly find we can’t for long and if we do it at all it might be to our disadvantage.

            The years rolled slowly past //

            And I guess I lost my way.

            There were oh so many roads—

            I was living to run and running to live

            Never worried about paying or even how much I owed….

We stop because we get tired or we do it by design to regain our strength or our moorings or to refocus on our goal  or to set a new goal.  Upon reflection we come to realize, as the song earlier says, no matter what we do, if we hope to have a successful life we ultimately must ‘keep on runnin’.

Indeed, as we get older we find, or should find, that ‘holding our place’ does not really work and getting further in debt is not the solution.  We start to fall back.  We, or someone, will eventually have to pay our debts.  Gravity or entropy does not sleep and all debts must be repaid; consequences for our actions or inactions will always come due if we stop ‘runnin’ against the wind.

Those drifter’s days are past me now.

            I’ve got so much more to think about.

            Deadlines and commitments--

            What to leave in, what to leave out. 

It sounds onerous, but it is not. 

Yes, the notion of ordering the activities or resources or commitments of our lives against the omnipresent ‘wind’ forces us to make some decisions as to ‘what to leave in, what to leave out.’  We must put our time, talents, and resources into that which matters most to us.  We must make some value judgments and take stock of where we really want to go.  And some things must be left out. 

Indeed, if we stop to think about it, a kite or a 747 is launched against the wind.  To get off the ground, though, these aircraft must not be too heavy; they must not carry too much baggage.  Wind facilitates lift off and gives the pilot more control.  But it also can be our enemy and wear us down if we don’t learn how to reduce the friction or drag and like the sailor, to ‘tack’ into it or use it to our advantage. 

So, this leads us back to what I originally going to title this piece—Priorities.  

Setting priorities—timing—balance—goal setting, calendaring, making value judgments against eternal standards and principles—these are some of the prime movers of a successful life. Wind, even resistance can be our friend.  There must needs be an opposition in all things.  But first things must be of first priority. 

What to leave in, what to leave out?  Depends on where you want to go.     

Ignorance

“Ignorance of one’s own ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”  Montaigne

It has been said that the last couple of generations of Americans are the best educated in our history.  Well, maybe ‘in part.’ But I see some glaring holes in the education of this cohort and even a dangerous mis-education. Our schooling has become unbalanced having purged character education from the curriculum. Having Wikipedia and a massive data bank at hand with our ‘smart phones’ does not automatically make us smart—and certainly not wise. President Theodore Roosevelt sagely observed that “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

  

The ancient Christian apostle Paul enjoined his hearers  who, “…having the[ir] understanding darkened . . . through the ignorance that is in them” to become “renewed in the spirit of [their] mind.” (Ephesians 4:18, 23)  “For now we see through a glass darkly. . . now I know in part. . . but then shall I know [much more clearly and fully].” (1 Corinthians 13:12) Paul knew that we had much yet to learn. 

As a schoolboy, and even in my undergraduate college work, I would often hear my contemporaries say such things as, ‘I can’t wait to get out of here,’ ‘I will be so glad when this is over,’ and then on graduation day, ‘Finally, it’s over!’  Hmmm, I thought that graduation day was a commencement.  

Of course I, too, occasionally became weary in some classes but, because of a habit of personal reading, knew that I had, like Paul, only just begun.  I looked forward to a continuing education, not just a piece of paper that supposedly qualified me for a job.  I loved going to school and still do.

Even in graduate school I would occasionally hear classmates refer to their ‘terminal degree’ that was just on the horizon.   A terminal degree?  Have they really ‘learned it all?’  Again, ignorance of one’s own ignorance. . . .

“For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.” (Doctrine and Covenants 123:12; also, Ephesians 4:14) Though still ‘in part,’ truth is out there and invites people to learn of it. 

I am grateful for the wisdom of some of the ‘giants’ of my youth who kept my door open to learning:  

·        “Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”  Henry David Thoreau

·        “Whoso neglects learning in his youth loses the past, and is dead for the future.”  Euripides

·        “Ignorance is not innocence, but sin.”  Robert Browning

·        “An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it.  It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes.”  Samuel Butler [A wise discrimination is part of a ‘good’ education.]

·        “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”  Mark Twain

·        “If you were graduated yesterday, and have learned nothing today, you will be uneducated tomorrow.” Author unknown. 

Since the “Millennial generation” often reduces all things down to a pursuit of the physical and material I end with this bumper sticker profundity: 

‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.’ 

Our Declaration of Independence / Our forgotten Dependence

We have just celebrated our Independence Day, the 4^th of July.  We rightly revere our ‘Founding Fathers,’ giants such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison and other men who my faith believes were “wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose [of establishing a new nation.]” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:80)

We remember them in person, we remember them in song—even long after the ‘days of ‘76’: “Our fathers’ God to thee, author of liberty, to thee we sing.” (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, Samuel F. Smith); “Oh, beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life!” (America the Beautiful, Katherine Lee Bates); “Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n rescued land, praise the Powr that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust!’ And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!” (The Star Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key)

But we must ask, Where did these founding fathers and these inspired lyricists get their foundation, their inspiration?  Shall we look back at least 150 years before this country was founded?  William Bradford  and George Carver in the little ship Mayflower penned these words in the establishment of the Plymouth colony: “to the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.” The twin pillars of the earliest American Dream was Religious liberty to worship God, and equal opportunity for all men. (“All men were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”)

From the earliest settlers of our history, through the establishment of ‘one nation under God’ in the late 18^th Century, and our final coming together in the middle of the 19^th Century under the leadership of our great president Abraham Lincoln, we fought all foes to be free yet we knew  and acknowledged in those days that our dependence was on God almighty.  But we (of the generation of the last sixty years) have forgotten that with every right, there is a corresponding duty—including a duty to God.   Our forebears knew that the highest role that a nation can play is to reflect God’s righteousness in national policy.  That is what Bradford and Carver intended, what Roger Williams sought, what William Penn was striving for.  Do we hear it today from our President and our legislators or the majority on our Supreme Court?  No.

Are we striving for that?  Is that on our personal and national agenda every God-given day?  Significantly, religious liberty stands first in the Bill of Rights.  It is the most essential, the foundation of all the other freedoms.  But the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would seem to infer that we will worship God in some way. 

  

Now, in our generation, the attack on religion has distorted this essential freedom to mean freedom from religion.  Millions of our young people have bought into that disastrous notion.  If this republic and this civilization are to survive, if we are to survive, we must return to God and to informed and inspired and worthy Church leaders—leaders with a vision and with a firm foundation and a reliance on scripture and revelation.  

In each of the metal coins in our pocket or purse is inscribed, “In God We Trust.”  Is that just blasphemy?  Certainly no conception of trust in God can make any sense which assumes that He will prosper our ways or bless us until our ways become His ways, until we begin to keep the conditions He has specifically laid down for national blessing. 

In the final analysis the blessings of peace and prosperity and a settled land are not a product of politics—but a fruit of righteousness.  We simply cannot fool God about our individual or national goodness.  The signs of the times and the events all around us show that collectively we are no longer worthy of God’s blessings. 

But…there still may be a chance: “If my people, which are called by my name [Christians] , shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” ( 2^nd Chronicles 7:14) 

Independence?  Maybe we should acknowledge our dependence.  For this I pray.