She Ain't Heavy. . .

She's my nandina.

The Work of Christmas

by Howard Thurman

"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart."

A Dog's Life: The King Surveys His Lands

Eisenhower Wisdom

Guess who said this?

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

Imagine any Democratic president saying this today, let alone a Republican. Where is Ike when we need him?

Perhaps it takes a man from the battlefield, and a person of unusual humanity, to understand truly the senselessness of war.

Nuclear Fallout?

The NY Times ran an article yesterday, "U. S. Rethinks Strategy for the Unthinkable," about the American public's preparedness for a nuclear attack. Apparently there's plenty of educational information available now but a reluctance to disseminate it for fear of alarming us.

The article brought to mind a vivid memory from childhood: air raid drills in elementary school where we would huddle under our desks--with our hands clasped over our tucked-in heads--readying ourselves for "the unthinkable." (It turns out that these drills weren't as ridiculous as they seemed; studies show that we're best off staying inside buildings rather than heeding an impulse to flee.)

At any rate, I'm struck by how much has changed. We didn't worry back then about scaring the public; everyone knew those were scary times and we were advised to think and plan accordingly. Contrast this with today, where people often comment on how dangerous our world is, but addressing this reality is itself unthinkable.

Indeed, we learn in the Times article that the Obama administration had planned to simulate an attack involving about 10,000 emergency personnel in Las Vegas; the drill never took place, however, because "casinos and businesses protested, as did Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. He told the federal authorities that it would scare away tourists."

It's like everything else in America. Business interests dictate priorities.

We used to be scared of things that mattered. Now we're scared of shadows, and, as a result, we're becoming shadows of what we once were.

Government Malfunction

Not sure how to feel about the tax cut compromise reached last week? Presidents Obama and Clinton posited a spirited defense. Economists Paul Krugman and Robert Reich derided it. They're all people I respect.

As I see it, everyone has acted irresponsibly: the President for failing to show leadership a long time ago; the Democrats for failing to act on this legislation earlier; and the Republicans for protecting the pockets of millionaires at everyone else's expense.

No, when legislation passes that so clearly diverts money from desperate needs all over the country, it suggests that the system is broken. Our government is acting irresponsibly, and no one can stop it. President Obama may have done the best he could in a bad situation, but the situation shouldn't have existed in the first place.

Maybe now we'll finally face the fact that there is no knight in shining armor to ride in and stop the madness in Washington. Knights went out of business a long time ago.

For Mrs. Edwards

Long after we've finished dissecting the tragic life of Elizabeth Edwards, I will remember her for this: her honesty and courage in living with cancer. Like Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve before her, she brought into light the reality of living with advanced, incurable disease.

She didn't try to tie a pink ribbon around her situation, either. She knew this disease would take her life, and she told us so. She knew that her days were numbered, and she reminded us that ours are, too. She knew that cancer wasn't something that she could "beat," but she continued living her life undaunted by death's shadow.

Many people's hearts went out to Elizabeth Edwards over the course of her life--for her son's death, for her cancer diagnosis, and for her husband's infidelity. Unlike many in our ruling political class, she seemed real and human and as vulnerable as the rest of us.

Hers was a troubled journey, though perhaps in truth, her story was ours as well--just played out on a larger, more public landscape. For who among us doesn't experience pain, loss, and betrayal somewhere along the way?

Whatever contradictions may have existed in her personal and public life don't matter in the end. What we have left is the public face that she showed us. And it was a face that accepted life's terms--the hardest terms of all--without flinching.

I'm sorry that Elizabeth Edwards has died. I wish her children well and hope that they are buoyed in the years ahead by the uncommon strength of their mother.

Early Winter in Carolina

Clintonian Wisdom

My notes--scribbled in the dark while listening to Bill Clinton speak this week in Greensboro--don't come close to recording the breadth of his remarks. But one page stands out where I wrote, "Inequality is breathtaking."

The former president was talking about the first major challenge he sees in the world today: economic inequality. He began by reminding us that we took much for granted simply in attending his lecture: assuming that we would have comfortable seats, that the power wouldn't go out, that the room wouldn't get too hot or too cold, and that we could get a drink of water or go to the bathroom. In the countries he assists through the Clinton Foundation, none of these are givens. Such inequality around the world and within countries is not sustainable.

The other challenges are that our world is too unstable (WikiLeaks as an example) and that our energy consumption can't persist at its current rate. In order to address these problems, President Clinton said that we need to move beyond the old arguments of whether to cut taxes or spend money. The question now on the table for anyone seeking change is "How do you propose to get it done?"

Insisting that we all adopt a model or framework for our vision, he put forth his own: if a proposal will improve the lives of many people and move the world forward into the future, then give it a try. Tax cuts, for example, are fine if they create new jobs. Unfortunately, the ideological rigidity on both the left and the right don't lend themselves to imaginative solutions, given Clinton's sensible paradigm.

I wish more people could hear President Clinton. He's the voice of reason these days in a shrill, unstable environment. His work around the world on behalf of the sick and the poor seems to me the highest calling and gives him a rare perspective on what's important in life.

If he comes your way, go and listen. You might come away changed. I did.