Shade Tree Wisdom 1/21/11

Crisp, a slight wind, wonderful for the morning walk, just right for contemplating.

But first, here is a riddle.
:What falls, but doesn’t break,
And what breaks, but doesn’t fall?

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s inauguration. His speech, at least the general tone, hopeful, optimistic, is remembered with some phrases recalled word for word. One example was this line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”. And this, he spoke of “A torch being passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century.”

I look at those words again in 2011 and wonder what has happened to that climate in America. Today I see both left and right tearing down, dissecting, analyzing, deriding, and generally sneering at, or making fun of, this dreamer.

For today we are more used to having a president telling us what we can have, what the government can do for us, how government, like a wise old grandfather, knows always what’s best for us all.

But here he stood on the steps of the Capital in Washington D.C., with snow flurries etching the leaden sky, offering us a dream, and hope, and reminding us what we were as a Country, free, with an obligation to our country.

We stood for something, and were not just so much flotsam in the events of the day, but were needed, even wanted, and had a role to fill, each in his own corner of this world, to make the entire thing strong and viable.

A look at the world and we must ask, “am I part of the problem, or am I praying for a solution?”

Hark to a Phrase from a Hymn.
“Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way, Led us from night to never-ending day, Fill all our lives with love and grace divine, and glory, laud and praise be ever Thine.”

So we pray, “Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget." Amen.

GPD 1/21/11

Oh yes, “Night falls, day breaks”.