Of Words and Challenges

 

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    Based on an actual conversation at breakfast, between two people, whom I will call Sally and Jim:

Sally:  I got the word today on just 3 tries.

Jim:  That’s great.  What was the word?

Sally:  Shout.

Jim:  But that had none of your usual start letters.

Sally:  And that was helpful.  You learn a lot about the structure of words through this exercise, interesting things, especially about five-letter words.

Jim:  That could make for a good educational tool, beginning with middle-school kids.

Sally:  If you could get the kids actually to do it.  They might find it too challenging these days.

Jim:  Good point.  Too many are quick to avoid challenge, and too many others quick to accommodate the evasion of challenge.

Sally:  And unhurried to reward those who are willing to take on a challenge.

Jim:  Education is supposed to be about challenge.  Engaging challenge is a great way to learn.  If you don’t, the more you evade challenge, the more challenges you will have.

Sally:  There are challenges we can avoid, and should avoid.  But life is challenging.  It’s supposed to be.  Challenges will come, looked for or not.

Jim:  Yep.  You can avoid some, but not all.  The learning is in how to manage challenge, how to face it, and how to overcome it, if you can, and how to cope if you can’t.

Sally:  Some of the biggest challenges come from those who are selling to people, especially young people, that they can avoid all challenge.

Jim:  Who promise ‘challenge-free’ paths of life.  They offer making this ‘The land of the safe, and the home of the careful.’

Sally:  Where is the joy in that?  The better path, the path of fulfillment, is in ‘The land of the free, and the home of the brave.’  Not only do we overcome challenges. . .

Jim:  . . . and help each other face them . . .

Sally:  We grow, and many things that once seemed challenges no longer are.  Then we can take on bigger and better things, becoming stronger, more able, more fulfilled by accomplishment.  All the while, more compassionate, kinder, more charitable.  That is why God sent us here.

Jim:  It’s in the scriptures, “there is an opposition in all things.”  We discover the joy in life, find and live a joyful life.  Not an easy life.

Sally:  “Having no life,” without the challenge of opposition, as the scriptures teach.  But very loud, persistent voices promise challenge-free, problem-free, easy lifestyles.

Jim:  They promise.  The challenges come as the promises are not kept, not delivered as advertised.

Sally:  And then the challenges multiply—and accumulate, and hang around.

Jim:  To be faced by a weakened people, in ‘The land of the safe, and the home of the careful.’

Sally:  A life of constant challenge but few achievements.  And plenty of frustration.”

Jim:  Again, where is the joy in that life?  A life missed.

Sally:  Where has that ever worked?  Nowhere.

Jim:  In the end, not even for those who promised it.  Life gone amiss.

Sally:  That might be tomorrow’s word.

Of Overreaching Concerns and Asset Allegation

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What is in a word?  That is an old question.  Often what is in the word may not be what the author intended.  The result can be humorous, and sometimes insightful.

Before retiring from the American Bankers Association, I became acquainted with a couple of examples where perhaps the wrong word presented an insightful meaning.  Listening to a seminar broadcast I heard the speaker explain the “overreaching concern” of his particular program.  Since the beginning of the Great Cessation and related lockdowns, I have heard many overreaching concerns expressed.  Perhaps we may learn from them.

On another occasion, in reference to money management, I became acquainted similarly by insightful accident with the term “asset allegation.”  I think that many a loan officer or bank examiner has had to come to terms with cases of asset allegation.

In 1775 the English playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan introduced us to Mrs. Malaprop, who delightfully uses words in unintended ways, at least unintended by whoever created the words.  His play, “The Rivals,” is a classic of English comedy.  In one example, Mrs. Malaprop, trying to convince her niece to give up on a young man of interest, expresses the wish that Lydia, the niece, would “illiterate him” from her memory.  In recent days, I think that we have all come across efforts by some to “illiterate” events from our historical memory.  Much to her happiness, Lydia ignored the advice.

Mrs. Malaprop, quite displeased with Lydia’s response, cautions her niece not to “extirpate” herself from the matter, explaining to the young girl that Malaprop has “proof controvertible” for her case.  Again, in recent days many have indeed been called upon to “extirpate” themselves or their ideas, prodded by noisy voices supported by much “proof controvertible.”

In conversation, discussing what she considers proper education, Mrs. Malaprop recommends boarding school, where the student could obtain “a supercilious knowledge in accounts”.  I may admit that considering the CECL financial accounting rule, I have been tempted to wonder to what degree “a supercilious knowledge in accounts” might have had a role in its development.

I would also wonder, as I compare the variety of approaches across the globe to the current virus, whether some policymakers were subjected to Mrs. Malaprop’s advice that youth be “instructed in geometry” that they “might know something of the contagious countries”.

As a final reference, of many wonderful examples in the play, I would call upon Mrs. Malaprop’s advice that proper education of Lydia might lead the dear niece to “reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying.”  I have heard and read many things in recent days by many people and mused whether the time would arrive when these people would come to reprehend the true meaning of what they were saying. 

In my days of Civil War reenacting I became familiar with the Union song, “Grafted Into the Army.”  Composed by Henry Clay Work, it pretends to be written in the words of a widow, immigrant to the United States, lamenting her son Jimmy being “grafted” into the army.  Military jargon can be difficult enough for those not in the army, even more so for someone arrived in a new society.  Jimmy’s mother does express pride in her son “Dressed up in his unicorn.”  Intended to provide lighthearted moments in a dark time, the song also tells of the widow mother complaining at “the captain’s fore-quarters” about her son being too young.  Many sons were too young, and too many did not return.  Mixed in the mirth is the sad message that Jimmy’s “brothers fell / Way down in Alabarmy.”

An anecdote from dining at a restaurant:  I had occasion to visit the restroom.  The following instruction, printed in large letters, was displayed prominently over the sink:  Employees must wash hands.  I waited there some minutes, pondering the appearance lately of many strange requirements, but at last I gained the courage to break the rule and washed my hands myself.

Of Children and Lockdowns

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In the heavy lockdown state in which I reside, the early stages of shutdown closed the outdoor playgrounds.  They closed the outdoor basketball courts.  To drive the point home that children were not welcome, the rims and nets were removed from the backboards—the worry must have been that some child might think of defying the governor’s orders.  I noticed at the time that golf courses remained open and were actively used, but I did not hear that many children frequented the fairways or the greens.

We all can agree that the lockdowns and closures of the Great Cessation are not pleasant.  There is a general wish that they would not have to happen.  There is a variety of views about how necessary this all has been.  I have not, though, heard anyone deny that children have been hurt the most.

Consider this partial catalog of harm to the children among us:

Education was abruptly interrupted.  Schools were closed.

• In my major suburban county, government efforts to provide “virtual education” were repeatedly tried and failed and eventually abandoned.  The virtue remained elusive.
• Education that requires group participation, such as music and arts, became unavailable.
• Field trips were canceled. 
• All school clubs’ and extracurricular activities—educationally valuable and greatly desired by children—ceased.
• Personal belongings were quarantined in school lockers for months.
• Public libraries were closed.
• For the fall, the local governments repeatedly tried and failed, and eventually abandoned, efforts to reopen schools.  Children will be offered second class education at best.  That may work, to a limited degree, for well motivated children with consistent parental supervision.  Expect much less success for all the rest.

Social and recreational interaction was interrupted.

• School sports were stopped, including practices, training, games, and facilities.  For many, that can include a whole year of skill development, performing, and advancement, a potential disaster for youth counting on a final year to demonstrate skills to help with college admissions.
• School sponsored social events, such as dances, proms, plays, and other recreations were dropped.
• School organized or sponsored service activities have been canceled.
• Children were ordered to stay at home.  Enjoyment of friendships and development of camaraderie among peers were interrupted.  Usual exchanges with friends and neighbors, and the normal creative interactions, have been stifled.
• The personal exposure to a variety of views and interests and backgrounds became limited.
• Summer camps were closed and seasonal outings were taken off the table.
• Recreational facilities were closed, including parks, sports venues, and pools.
• Movie theaters and other entertainment offerings, such as concerts and spectator sports, became unavailable for warding off youthful ennui. 
• Visits to extended family members declined.

Opportunities for character development have been curbed.

• Churches were closed, including worship services, participation in sacred sacraments, associating in youth groups and instruction, joining in varieties of spiritual development activities, and involvement in service to the needy.
• Similarly, the activities of service organizations are curbed, limiting youth participation and volunteer experiences.
• Summer job opportunities became fewer, whether for wages or as summer internships.

Children’s health has been put at risk.

• Regular doctor visits were for a time banned, and then later merely discouraged.
• Routine treatments for chronic ailments were missed.
• Vaccinations and other traditional child medical treatments have been skipped.
• Dental visits were put off, as have been visits to the optometrist.
• Medical attention has not been sought except for what was considered serious ailments or until they became serious ailments.
• “Elective” procedures have been put off.

What do we offer the children in place of what has been closed to them?  As mentioned in this litany of childhood harm, local authorities ordered children to remain at home, but what kind of homes?  Not all children have the safe, comfortable, well provisioned and lovely homes we would wish or that officials envisioned.  Many habitations, rather than a haven and venue for learning, are without parental supervision, are dirty, uncomfortable, and unsafe, exposed to crime, drugs, and gang activity.  Children have looked to schools and other facilities, now closed to them by the lockdown, as places of refuge.  Lockdown policies can quarantine children into zones of hazard.

As summed up by a recent opinion piece from the American Institute for Economic Research, “Shockingly, it now appears that suicide rates among the young are on the increase, which is concerning since suicide is the leading cause of death for those under the age of 25.” (“CDC Has Become Centers for the Destruction of Childhood,” June 25, 2020)

What do we offer the children in place of what has been closed to them?

Children are the age group least vulnerable to the virus, the fewest to contract it, the quickest to heal, with by far the lowest mortality rate, and the tiniest record for contagion.  They have been covered in masks and fed on a daily feast of fear.  The irony is that the age group least affected by the virus is the group most deeply harmed by the lockdowns—against which they can do little to protect themselves.

Of What We Know and What We Are

Recently, while reading in Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I thought back to when my two oldest daughters attended nursery during Sunday School hours at church.  We were then members of a congregation with many young families.  There were so many children that they divided the nursery into Senior Nursery and Junior Nursery.  The dividing line was between those who had turned two by the start of the year and those who had not yet reached that august age.  My older daughter—who is a real sweetheart and has since become the mother of daughters herself—was very proud that she was in Senior Nursery, while her sister was in Junior Nursery.

The mysterious relationship between my reading of the Romans and those events of not so long ago is that both emphasize how brief and transitory this life is.  Whether our mortal life is allocated more than 70 years or fewer than 7, the time all told is rather short, and I dare say mercifully so. 

This life is filled with the rich, the beautiful, as well as what is poor and ugly, and mostly what is very much temporary and does not matter.  The emperors of Rome came and went so quickly, few living to die of natural causes.  They scraped and fought and intrigued and connived to possess what they could not hold for long and which at the end left them nothing.  The royal purple for the emperors at last was little more important than whether my daughters were in Senior or Junior Nursery.  It all mattered about the same.

Some things do matter, greatly.  While they can involve tangible things, all that in this life of lasting value is intangible and survives the universal tomb.  Now I am watching my children cope with the mighty challenges that life concentrates into the years of transition from adolescence to adulthood.  Life’s calling, personal dedication, education, careers, marriage, family, truly life-changing decisions come at these young people inexorably in relentless and rapid succession.  They have tangible elements of mortality to employ as tools to aid and markers to help measure the evaluating and making of these important decisions.  They wade into deep problems when these material tools are mistaken for the real things.

As parents we watch, support, counsel, encourage, but the decisions are no longer ours.  With no small amount of concern, and with generous measures of satisfaction, we can witness these whom we love the most exercise their own free will to lay out the remaining course of their mortality.  For Mom and Dad, this period of life has been rich, sometimes painful, and frequently joyful.  It is for us a harvesting time, even while for our children it is mostly a time of planting.  

I am reminded that, with each graduation, one proceeds from the top of a staircase onto the bottom step of a new one.  When my daughter left Senior Nursery, she was at the bottom of the classes of Primary.  The seniors in high school become the freshmen in college.  The college graduate becomes the “newbie” at work.  In my employment I frequently am called upon to consider candidates for jobs.  Shall I tell you how little impressed I would be to learn that a particular applicant had been student council president or editor of the yearbook?

I believe that so it goes in the heavens.  We eternally progress from stage to stage, with Jesus Christ as our Guide, Leader, and Teacher, each stage well done qualifying us to begin the next, bringing us ever closer to become more like our Father in Heaven.  The value is in this very real becoming.  Our greatest worldly achievements of rank and fame bring with them into heaven as little weight as our grade school awards convey into adulthood.  With much concern God watches how we make our decisions, how we develop our character, with satisfaction and joy as we choose what is good and act well.  Like wise parents, God cannot and will not choose for us, our choices at planting being part of His joy in the harvest.

Again, as I recall my children in nursery, and my grandchildren there today, I reflect that there is so much that I would tell them but which they would not begin to understand.  There is a treasury of what I have learned in over 5 decades that I would share but that would be completely incomprehensible to a granddaughter or grandson in primary school. 

Then I reflect that compared to my Heavenly Father, my treasury is the knowledge of an infant, that I even today am such a little child in terms of what I know.  Indeed, were I to know all that there is available to know in this life, it would still be so very little compared with what our Father in the eternal worlds knows and has for us to learn when we once again live with Him.  A modern Apostle, Dallin H. Oaks (a former university president), once remarked that an omniscient God is not all that impressed with our Ph.Ds.  

But if I do well with what He has given and taught me, I have received the living hope from His Son that I may come step by step in the presence of the Father to know all that He would share, which is everything.  That is humbling and exhilarating.  I am glad that I have not really very long to wait, and that I can learn my first lessons even now.

Of the Meaning of “Still” and the State of the Union

Notice how frequently these days when discussing the state of the American union, or any parts thereof, people rely upon the word “still.”  That is a bad sign.  When someone says, “I am still able to see my own doctor,” he or she implies that continued access is in doubt.  Rather than reassuring, it insinuates caution and reveals anxiety.  What do you hear when someone says, “At least I am still married”?

You do not commonly hear people using “still” in connection with things that they are sure of.  If a baseball player boasts, “I can still hit the ball out of the park,” is he likely to be in his prime or in the twilight of his career?

Allow me to offer for your consideration a dozen recent objects of STILL in public discourse about the condition of the nation:

·         The United States is still the largest economy in the world.

·         The United States still has the strongest/best military in the world.

·         The dollar is still the world’s reserve currency.

·         The United States still is a free country.

·         America still is the land of opportunity.

·         The Supreme Court still can be counted on to defend the Constitution.

·         By hard work and best effort you still can become anything you want.

·         My children will still have a better life than I have had.

·         My children will still live in a bigger house than the one I grew up in.

·         In this country you can still get the best healthcare.

·         America still has the deepest, most liquid, and efficient financial markets.

·         At least the air you breathe is still free.

Undoubtedly, you can think of more for the list.  Then, there are some things we do not hear people saying “still” about any more:

·         America is the best place to get an education.

·         Americans make the best cars.

·         I can freely speak my mind.

·         I can trust what I hear or read in the “news.”

·         You can count on the elections not being rigged.

I forbear going on.  You can add more if you wish.  There are some topics where the doubt is too palpable for people to venture “still” in their expressions.

If we leave the discussion at that, then we have a sad commentary on the sad state of the union.  The expression of “still” in our conversation can reveal a desperate clinging to the past with a forlorn wish that things will work out for the future, without doing the good works to make the good future happen.

I would suggest, though, that “still” can also mean “not over,” or “not gone.”  We need not settle for “still” and do nothing about it.  That which we value can be reclaimed from assault and reinforced, the erosion stopped, the tide turned.  After all, John Paul Jones is famous for winning a naval battle from the deck of his sinking—but still afloat—flagship, because he used it as a platform from which to regain what was lost.  “I have not yet begun to fight!” is still part of the American heritage.

Of American Prosperity and Failing Villages

The Internet has been a boon for small businesses.  No longer is the market of the small business limited to the local community.  The Internet—together with an efficient system for making payments— allows customers to find the business and do business from near and far.
 
I am thinking at the moment of the used and rare book trade, although I have frequented other lines of small businesses via the Internet, including finding hard-to-get plumbing parts.  I love to walk into a book store, especially a used book store, and more often than not I leave with a new acquisition or two in hand.  I recall not very long ago buying a set of the debates surrounding the ratification of the Constitution.  As the bookseller rang up my purchase he asked whether I had found what I was looking for.  I told him no, that I had found what I was not looking for.  That is the way it usually is for me and a book store, the surprise and wonder of it, the discovery of things of which I had not before been aware or did not know were available to me.

It is a problem that there are not that many small bookshops around, maybe at most one in a town, two or three in a city.  I understand that it is a tough business.  You have to be willing to let musty old volumes sit around on your shelves for a long time, and those books are costing money while they sit there.

The Internet helps solve that.  You can search for a title or an author and find perhaps several sources of the book, long out of print, in bookshops scattered around the country, in towns and villages where you may have never been and would be unlikely to visit.

I have remarked how much I loved a couple of readers we used in grade school.  I could not even remember the names of the books or their authors, but I cherished them for the enthusiasm that they taught me for economic growth and development in America.  I learned a lot more than reading from those books.  I learned that America was a growing and developing country, always becoming more, richer, grander, harnessing the optimism of its people who came from many places but found in America a place where there was joy in the hard work of the present because you owned the results of what you did and what you did was build a more prosperous future that you passed on to your children and their children, who built on it in their turn.

Through the Internet I discovered that the books were written by Mabel O’Donnell, entitled Singing Wheels and Engine Whistles.  They told of the fictitious town of Hastings Mills built in the early nineteenth century on an Illinois prairie, a town that grew to become the prosperous city of Hastings by the early twentieth century.

The town and characters were a literary fiction, but they captured the real spirit and efforts of what happened all over America at that time.  Elsewhere I have quoted a passage from the first book, Singing Wheels, in which the founder of the town, then numbering but a few dozen cabins occupied by hardworking people with dreams, shared with his son the dream of how the town would grow, transforming the surrounding prairie into prosperous farms and the town into the prosperous center that would serve them all.

In the second book, Engine Whistles, the grandson of that founder is chatting with a train engineer about what made the town into a thriving city of 12,000 inhabitants, and growing.  The engineer proudly tells the boy, Tom, that it was the railroad that put Hastings on the map, and the vision of the men—including his grandfather— who brought the railroad to Hastings.  At first Tom agrees, but on second thought Tom argues that there was more to it than that.

“A railroad doesn’t make a town,” he said with a thoughtful look in his blue eyes.  “The railroad didn’t make Hastings.  My grandfather did.”

“Come, now, lad,” boomed engineer Bill, a note of amused disagreement in his voice.

“Yes, he did, too!” insisted Tom, hurrying on and allowing no time for argument.  “He came west in a covered wagon when there wasn’t even one cabin in the valley of the Big Turtle.  He knew it was a good place for a town, and so he built a lumber mill.  Then he cut down trees and sawed lumber so that other people could build homes, too.  He’s the one who made the town!” (Mabel O’Donnell, Engine Whistles, p.37, 38)

As a child growing up in south Florida, I saw that story playing out around me, as each year new homes, businesses, churches, highways and much else were built.  Economic development was the way of life.  When I was a teenager my family moved to western New York, to a much older village, much like Hastings, built in the early nineteenth century by men of vision, a village that thrived into a bustling business, industrial and even cultural center of some 10,000 people. 

But I arrived in the village’s twilight.  It still numbered 10,000 people and still retained something of its old spirit, with several manufacturing and business establishments and even a college.  By the time I and my schoolmates left—and it seemed that most of us did leave—the college had folded up, as had all but one of the manufacturing firms and many of the businesses.  I understand that the biggest employer now is the local hospital system, a close second being the ugly sum of the various state and local government agencies.  People were very happy to get a new state prison built nearby.  The heavy taxation and regulations emanating from Albany made business too expensive and leached away the village’s future.  Just recently, driven by tax burden, the remaining inhabitants of the village voted to give up their village charter.

A different story, that one, but one that has its echoes in too many places.  I wonder whether that was the America that the Dutch, Germans, Italians, Irish and others who built the village had in mind for their descendants. 

I am very glad that I found Mabel O’Donnell’s books through the Internet and was able to buy them and read them again.  You will have to get your own copies, though, as I am passing mine on down to my grandchildren.

Of American Exceptionalism and Human Happiness

It is clear to most Americans that America is a unique and extraordinary place, not only unlike anywhere else in the world but in important ways better.  That is not a boast.  It is proven reality that needs to be recognized and understood.  It needs to be understood, because America’s uniquely important position in the world is neither accidental nor imperishable.  We need to know why it is, what made it, so that we can know what we need to do to preserve and promote it.

As one place to start, we have a federal system of government with the central organization founded on a powerful written constitution, inspired of God, focused on the worth of the individual, with a government answerable to the people, restricted in powers and authorities divided among three separate and co-equal and dependent branches.  With some lapses and unhappy seasons, the American people have largely and successfully steered the nation safely and well between the rocks and whirlpools of tyranny and anarchy, however loud and aggressive those forces have been.  The 1930s of the Roosevelt years were an unhappy season of tyranny, while the Civil War was the agonizing response to the challenge of anarchy.

To point out another field of evidence of American exceptionalism, we have a very exceptional military system that has yielded important and valuable results for Americans and for the world.  Unlike anywhere else in modern history or nearly all of ancient history, the American military has always been subject to civilian authority, ensuring that it has been servant to America and the ideals of the American people, never our master.  Historian Victor Davis Hanson described recent American military history in these words:

When we list the rogues’ gallery of thugs and killers that the United States has gone to war against in the last three generations—Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim il-Sung, Ho Chi Minh, the Stalinists, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden—while providing postwar aid rather than annexing conquered land, it reminds us that no other country has had either the capability or willingness to take on such burdens.  (Victor Davis Hanson, “Is America Periclean?”, The New Criterion, October 2011, p.12)

Our freedom from oppression by enemies or by our own government has allowed free enterprise and human opportunity to thrive here like nowhere else in the story of mankind.  Our system does not cause these, it merely allows and protects them.  People by nature seek growth, progress, advancement, development, innovation, achievement, and all that goes into creation.  It is part of our divine nature as children of the great Creator, the Father of growth and progress and happiness.  All of these things go into what humans find as happiness.

In my grade school years in south Florida we had a reader, Singing Wheels, that captured this American entrepreneurial spirit.  Recently I was able to find and buy a copy of that reader.  Written by Mabel O’Donnell, the book not only helped teach me to read, but it helped make the American spirit part of my way of seeing my country and the world, a source of inspiration to me as a young child that has not ceased to inspire into manhood.  Here is a brief excerpt, in which the young boy, Tom Hastings, and his father are talking on their hillside above their very new town only recently planted on the Illinois prairie. 

“Yes, Tom,” said Pa . . . , “I guess that’s what we are, Ma and you and I and the rest of us—pioneers.  We have opened up new country and have built new homes.  But the people who follow will turn these rich prairies into farm lands, and towns will spring up. . . We won’t be pioneers long.”

. . . There was a thoughtful, faraway look in Pa’s eyes, as if he were dreaming a dream which he hoped might come true.

“All that hillside is ours, Tom,” he said.  “Bought from the government for only twenty dollars.  Before another year comes round, the cabins will begin to climb the hill.  And there on the very top, there by the two big maples, will be our house, a frame house built from lumber sawed in our own mill. . . .”

Just as quickly as it had come, the thoughtful, faraway look left Pa’s eyes.  “Yes, that is the way it will be, son.  But don’t forget!  It takes hard work to make dreams come true, and there is work aplenty for all of us.”  (Mabel O’Donnell, Singing Wheels, p.82, 83)

For 21^st Century Americans there remains work aplenty for all of us, not the least of which is preserving our heritage of freedom, ever under attack from the ever present advocates of tyranny and anarchy.  The next generation and much of the world depend upon our success.

Of the Spirit of America and the Spirit of Tyranny

Last week I experienced two memorable events, each in its own way pointing to the spirit of America. One, appropriately enough, was called “The Spirit of America,” the annual presentation of the U.S. Army’s Old Guard, headquartered at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia. The program chronicled the history of the Army from its first days in the War of Independence to the present.

There is no reliance upon hyperbole in saying that the U.S. Army has been one of the most effective instruments in the history of mankind for the promotion of freedom. Without the Army, independence would not have been achieved and very likely not even attempted (the Army came into being a full year before the Declaration of Independence).

The very existence of the United States has been a beacon and stimulus to people around the world to strive for and obtain freedom. Would the colonies of Latin America have sought liberty without the successful example of the United States? How significant was the example of America to the struggles of the peoples of Europe to cast off their monarchies? To what extent did Great Britain learn from its painful mistakes administered by the citizens and Army of the United States and provide for a gentler path to liberty for its many colonies around the globe? The Army has been a reliable and effective protector of that beacon of American freedom.

With direct action, the U.S. Army became the essential element that gave force to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Without the victories of the U.S. Army over the rebels who rose up against freedom and constitutional government Lincoln’s Proclamation would have been a scorned piece of paper that offered false hopes to millions laboring in slavery.

In the Twentieth Century the U.S. Army helped bring World War I to its end, the western republics triumphing over the central monarchies. It was the U.S. Army that not only played the central role in defeating the dictators of central Europe and Japan in World War II, but wherever it went the U.S. Army left free republics in its wake, including among the vanquished nations. Again in Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, and Panama the U.S. Army fought for freedom and against tyranny. Throughout the Cold War the Army—together with the other important branches of the armed services, equally effective instruments of freedom—remained strong and active to protect the free world against totalitarian communism.

This idea did not originate with me. Our grandfathers knew these things. They were commonly understood until recent generations witnessed the armed services and even national defense itself become open questions with left-wing academics seeking to reintroduce into America, and dress in pseudo-intellectual clothes, the exploded Old World programs of tyranny and rule by elites. That the idea of the liberating role of the American military can seem fresh and insightful is a mark of how much the religions of tyranny have found a place in popular media and even in the education supplied in many government schools.

By contrast the spirit of America silhouetted the other event to which I referred. This was the speech of President Barack Obama before a joint session of Congress, outlining his latest plan to restore job creation that has been so effectively undermined by his economic policies. If you reach through the cloud of rhetoric, President Obama’s proposal does not rise above expanding the size of government and raising taxes on successful people and entrepreneurs. That is not the spirit of America.

That is the spirit of the old nations of Europe and Asia from which our forefathers fled to found something entirely different in the New World. That is the spirit where people get ahead by the favor of those in power, and the people in power take what does not belong to them to reward their supporters and hangers on. A leading news story of this week is the scandal of a bankrupt “green” factory that was awarded nearly half a billion dollars by the Obama Administration and used as a television backdrop to announce how government subsidies to “green” industry would pave the road to national prosperity. That idea is today just as bankrupt as the business. It seems that what made this business green was the color of the money that Washington elites poured into it from the U.S. Treasury.

Together the two events demonstrate what the spirit of America is and what it is not. The first is a legacy of personal sacrifice by free soldiers for the freedom of others. The second, the spirit of tyranny, would sacrifice other people for the expansion of government and the power of Washington elites.

Of Living on Earth and Preparing for the Heavens

The Prophet Joseph Smith, writing from the dirty damp pit of a crude jail on the frontier lands of western Missouri, where he and other Church leaders had been imprisoned beyond the effective reach of Constitutional protections of freedom of religion, admonished the Latter-day Saints not to set their hearts too much on the things of the world. At that point in time they had left nearly all of their things of the world behind them. They were being driven at sword and gunpoint across the cold November plains, the Governor having declared that all Mormons were to be “exterminated.” They received kindness and shelter from the people of Illinois and soon built what for a time became the largest city in the state, a city they called Nauvoo, the Beautiful.

Yet the Prophet’s admonition continued to ring true, as it does today. Under divine inspiration Joseph Smith wrote that, “there are many called, but few are chosen” to have the close association with God that the Father desires for all of His children. “And why are they not chosen?” His answer is important for any who would seek to rise above the vicissitudes and decay of this world and find happiness here and eternal joy in the world to come. In short, they are not chosen to receive the blessing and powers of God, “Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world” that they fail to learn and understand that the things of God “are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven” and can only be exercised by those whose eyes are fixed on heaven (Doctrine and Covenants 121:34-36). In other words, it takes a focus on God and heaven to receive the things of God and heaven.

As one draws closer to God through the companionship of the Holy Spirit, the less important the things of this life and this world become. The brevity of mortality becomes ever clearer as does the recognition that the conditions of immortality that prevail after the resurrection are the more normal and real human condition. Mortal man lives some seven or eight decades, while immortality never ends. Where does it make sense to place our focus? College degrees, political advancement, business position, and public recognition shrink in comparison with eternal values of family, friends, kindness, and personal integrity. As a modern-day Apostle declared, the omniscient God is not going to be impressed by your Ph.D. Neither will the Ruler of the universe be awed by your title of CEO.

This is not to say that achievement and accomplishment in this world are not important. They are very important, but only from the perspective of what they mean for you with regard to your life in heaven. An ancient American missionary explained that mortal life “is given us to prepare for eternity”. It is our responsibility to “improve our time while in this life” (Alma 34:33). Education, political achievement, business accomplishments, and the many other ways that we can improve upon our time are important because of how they prepare us.

It is the why that makes them important, not the what. Why did we learn, why did we seek to work in politics, why did we devote so much effort for our business accomplishments? If the answer is, to achieve public recognition, gain the praise of our fellows, increase our personal comforts—even to be admired by others as a good person—all of those may seem fine while mortality lasts, but for us they die with us. Fortunately, the hollowness of those purposes is felt in this life as a warning to us.

On the other hand, if the purposes of our achievements in life are in line with the values of heaven, then the real achievements, of which the worldly indicators are at best imperfect measures, will be with us now and remain with us forever and be amplified in the eternities. If our education has enabled us to live more wisely and to lift up our fellowmen, if our political efforts have been intended to promote human freedom and to give recognition to the worth of the individual, if our business accomplishments have been intended to unlock the creativity and achievement of ourselves and our fellows (which as a side effect contribute to the welfare of all) then in short as we have lived with an eye single to the glory of God we will have developed characteristics and built relationships with family and friends that will serve us well in the eternities. Then and only then can we envision with faith the Lord saying to us at the door of the eternal worlds, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” (Matthew 25:21)

Of Signs and Deception

A well-known principle of propaganda is that if you are going to tell a lie, the bigger the lie the more believable it will be. Most people are so trusting that they do not want to believe in the enormity of a big lie. They do not want to believe that someone can intentionally say something appallingly false. Rather than disbelieve the liar, they will want to disbelieve the person who exposes the lie.

One of the biggest of lies is asserting something to be exactly the opposite of what it is. Such is the warmonger who claims to be the leading pacifist, the thief who claims to be the victim of theft—and accuses the real victim of being the criminal—or the bigoted radical who accuses opponents of intolerance.

In recent travels on the streets, roads, and highways I notice at this time of the year the beautiful Fall foliage—and the many political campaign signs. While for some there might be a distaste for seeing these, I feel to rejoice in the signs as evidence of a vigorous system of subjecting our political leaders to public vote.

Having said that, I do draw the line at the steady growth of the mega-yard and curb signs, the five-foot by eight-foot broadsides. So, already inclined to dislike such construction-size boards, I have been particularly disturbed to see what appears to be a planned series of Obama-Biden signs advocating policies that these two Washington insiders have long worked hard to oppose.

I have noticed three in this series. There may be others. The ones that I have seen show the names of the two candidates, followed by a motto reading something like, “Better Schools,” “Lower Taxes,” and “Energy Independence.”

If facts matter, and I believe that they still do (even if they are optional in the mass media), such messages on the signs of these two politicians should be jarring to the honest in heart. The political record of Obama and Biden are unequivocal on these three issues. They both have strongly and consistently opposed school reform, supporting doing more of the same old stuff that has been steadily undermining the quality of government-run schools since the 1960s.

Both have been leading advocates for raising taxes and opposing tax cuts. Even in the current campaign they advocate new tax hikes. They try to disguise their intentions with the assertion that their proposals supposedly would reduce taxes on 95% of Americans (including the 40% who pay little or no income taxes), while raising them on the rest. Either they failed with the simple math, or they hope that voters cannot or will not be able to apply simple math, but you cannot get enough taxes out of 5% to pay for genuine tax cuts for 95%. In fact, their proposals are just another camouflage for the old tried and failed policies of tax and spend. Not only does that always put more power into the hands of the politicos who take and then redistribute, but it is a highly dangerous thing to do in the teeth of an economic downturn. Taxes fall on income and investment, and whatever you tax you get less of. Now is not the time for less income and investment.

And as for energy independence, both Obama and Biden support programs that will yield little and have yielded very little new energy—at very high expense in government subsidies—while staunchly opposing expanded use of the energy resources that are abundant in the United States, particularly oil, coal, and nuclear energy. Independence seems to me to increase reliance on your own resources. Obama and Biden are consistent supporters of policies that keep U.S. energy resources under lock and key.

This should not be surprising from two candidates who campaign on change while advocating the oldest political formula in the history of government, that government knows best, that decisions about spending, whether for health, education, or job creation, are best made by power brokers in the halls of Washington power centers, rather than by families in their homes. Calling that change may be the biggest lie of all.