What’s the Use?

I tired to hang a mirror the other day. Picked up the hammer, positioned the hanger thingy, swung the hammer and its head fell off! There I was hand on the hanger thingy, other hand with a stick without a hammer head, and no mirror on the wall. Yet.

What to use to accomplish the task? By this time the hammer head had fallen behind a bookcase too heavy to move. So I redefined the task. I didn't need the mirror hung. Either in that place or at all. Time out, you see!

So instead I turned to the internet and found a few quotes that calmed my ruffled senses. Here’s one that re-rooted my thinking:

“People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.”  ~Author Unknown

So much for the hammer head. Or the mirror! I need to love a person and not a thing.

Then I ran across this golden oldie from Leonard Bernstein:

“A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.”

That’s not how my father explained it to me but it is the way I finally grew up and began to understand the world. I do look forward to a better day and more tranquil nights and a bright and infinite future. If not, what then? Are we to hide in constant fear for what would otherwise be?  No; I like my sense of it much more!

I was listening to a bunch of panelists discuss the balance of power between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of the federal government. Then I pondered the gaggle of old men we think of as America’s founding fathers – Tom Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and a raft more. These were the framers of our constitution. They were fearful of excesses by others. They distrusted each other. They formed a government machine that would withstand chaos and calumny. And yet each of them were agents of change and liberal to the core. Neither were they Christian or Jew. Or Muslim. They were pragmatists, each one. And they fought to build a system of governance that would stand the test of time. They allowed that amendments would be needed. They provided for interpretation and re-interpretation of their work. They built a breathing, real organism that could breathe through the ages. And survive.

They were not republican or democrat. Or independent. They were Americans. They were not conservatives or liberals. They were doers.

Oh how we need such men and women today. The Congress should weep for themselves in shame.

Oh good grief! Did I just say that aloud?  Pity.

December 3, 2014