(photo courtesy of Jami Lind)
…you can, doesn’t mean you should. The corollary is, “There is no point in doing well that which you should not be doing at all.” (Thomas K. Connellan)
This past week Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. While I did not always agree with her, I respected her for many things but primarily for her ability to disagree without being disagreeable. She is quoted as saying: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
I am struck on this bright, crisp fallish day by the swirling divisive rhetoric from too many quarters of society right now. It is overwhelming. So much tit-for-tat spewing. Really? Where, oh where, are the calmer heads and when will they prevail?
No one lives forever. Including me and you. That fact alone should cause us to rein in our urgent flitting from firestorm to maelstrom. It should also cause us to stop and evaluate the basis from which we are acting. What’s the problem we are trying to solve and what is the definition of success. Too often, we are not solving problems but rather reacting to manipulated emotions.
This too shall pass. All of it. Some of it will pass via death, some by changes in circumstances, some through elections or other means.
John Wesley exhorted us to “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as you ever can.” That isn’t, by the way, exhorting us to do what is good for me and my friends. What is most convenient for me or what fits my ideology the best.
That whole love your enemies thing? Yea. That includes, unpopularly, people we violently disagree with, don’t like, think are the personification of evil. How many of them do we pray for?
It is sad to see so much school yard bullying going on. In all quarters, but especially in our political and governmental arenas. All of them. Every side. The posturing and the preening and the holier-than-thou attitudes are tiring at best. Release the lions into the arena. The media awaits.
There is a long game to be played but we have sold our birthright for a bowl of stew. Immediate gratification is demanded and if we don’t get our own way, it is acceptable to be as nasty, hateful, and retaliatory as needed to get our own way. The “if you-then-we” threats are relentless.
We recast lies as truth and eat the poison we are fed rather than do our research, ponder and think, discuss, consider, and – sometimes – even admit we were wrong.
God help us all.
Just Sayin' 