ON ...

On My Sense of Duty to My Country

1984 

How do I benefit from my country?  A heritage, an identification, a society of people of which I am a part, a history, a future – these are some of the ways in which I benefit from my country.  My country offers me earth, air, water, a place where I can associate my being with the land; a place where I can live out my life.  My country functions as an organization to which I belong and from which I derive the benefits that the organization gives me.  My country gives me a language upon which I am.  My country separates me from the rest of the world, makes me different, gives me the opportunity to be different, to be human, and to live, grow, and die.

I have emotional ties to my country, to the land to which I was born and grew up in.   Often I desire to return to my home, to my birthplace, to where I grew up.  I have a sense of satisfaction, of happiness which is tied to that area from which I came.  A lot of the emotional growth that I have undergone as an individual, the acquiring of my values, and identification of myself with a society was done in the land to which I was born.

I have an intellectual bond to my country; there where I acquired my intellectual talents, where I struggled and wrestled intellectually with my country’s problems, its politics, its history, its future.  There’s an intellectual heritage that is passed down to generations, my generation and succeeding generations, that associates me with my country and from which I benefit.

Out of all of this, I feel comes a responsibility, a sense of duty to my country.  This sense of duty should preclude illogical nationalistic arrogance, superior feelings, isolation, and protectionism – for all of these are harmful to the country which must coexist and should be respected by the rest of the world.  This sense of duty should include dedication, service, love, responsibility, rationality for the good of the country, its ideals, its people.  It should include a never-ending struggle to change those characteristics of the country which are inconsistent with democracy, self-respect, freedom for all, the right to equal opportunities, fairness of government and laws, and the good-will and striving of government and its people for the benefit of all its people.

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On My Worship of God

1984

I was born into a Christian family. And because of this I went to Church, not too often for there were limits to my parents dedication and beliefs, but enough to have the beliefs of the Christian Church implanted on me.  My belief in God and my love for him have grown over the years during my adult life.  What accounts for this is hard for me to say.   As I have grown, I have had problems and uncertainties of the emotions, of the intellect, of the physical, and of the spiritual, and as I faced these problems, I found consolation, help, and relief in worshipping God and in believing in Him and in Jesus and in the teachings of the Bible. I have also found emotional, intellectual, and spiritual satisfaction and happiness by attending Church, in prayer, in my beliefs, and by the worship of God unrelated to any personal problems.  I believe that my introduction to the church through my family was in important event in my life which later helped me to turn to God.

My worship of God is very important to me.  It gives me comfort and peace, it gives me a sense of importance and a sense of purpose, it provides me guidance and a time to reflect upon myself, my being, and values.  For me, the act of worship is a special event, a special action, one unlike any other that I do.  To take time to praise, to communicate with, to love, to try to understand a force, a  good, a power that moves us, watches over us, guides us, loves us is indeed a very special event for me.   I try to enter into my worship with complete honesty.  I feel that if I am comfortable with God, during my worship with him, I can feel comfortable in my dealings with mankind.  If not, then I am dishonest to myself and am being dishonest to others.  I believe that through my worship I reach nearer to that form of humanity that is good, is right, and serves me and others.

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On the Importance of Marriage and Family

1984 

There was a terrible, awful felling of emptiness and loneliness when I lost my family, a son, and wife, through divorce.  There was a sense of belonging that I had with my family which no longer is there and for which I long for a return.   It was towards my family that my thoughts turned during my working hours.  It was for my family that I yearned to return to when I was away from them.  It was around my family that all things revolved, my work, my socialization, my interests.

What was it that I got from my wife?  I gave love and I was loved.   I shared my life, my inspirations, my aspirations, my joys, my disappointments, my understandings; and that of my wife, she shared with me.   I had a person to share time with, to reach out with to the world to take it on, to share jointly the experiences of living.  I helped her bring a baby, a son, a person, an object of deep love and attraction into the world and I got a child that I wouldn’t trade for anything.  The love, and along with it the trust, that existed between her and I gave me a special feeling, a special warmth, a special confidence, a special consciousness that only the union of man and woman, their marriage, can provide and does provide.  When that love is gone with no hope or desire for its return then one’s consciousness can only want to end the marriage.

What is it that I have gotten from my son?   The single most unique and amazing experience of my life was the conception of my son, his growth within his mother, his birth which I witnessed, and his growing from infant to baby to little boy to age seven where is his at now.  The love that came to me from this experience is an emotion, a feeling that has enriched my life beyond explanation.  The love that I have for him is wondrous.  I have always thought, starting with his birth, that truly God give him to me and that whatever little or much has been given to me or will be given to me, God, by this single gift, proved to me that he loves me, that whatsoever else should happen God exists.  My son now will go his way pretty much separate from me, as all sons eventually should do although in our case it was sooner than we wanted.  But nevertheless, I did have seven years of an unbroken family with him and I look forward to knowing him for the rest of my life.

My marriage and my family was the foundation upon which I built my life.  Now, alone, I miss that foundation but hopefully, and God willing, I will continue to build but with a different perspective.  Perhaps someday there will be another with whom mutual love will lead to a union, a marriage, maybe even a family – I hope so.

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On the Meaning of Government

1984 

Government is to my country, to my family, to my fellow citizens, what my mind and my soul are to me.  The success or the failure of government’s decisions and actions affects my will being, my feelings about myself, my child’s future, so many things that are dear to me.

I look to government to so organize as to promote the most effective, efficient, and wisest administration of those deeds that have been levied upon government by the people’s will, through their elected representatives.  I want from government a dedication of its conscience to trust, hard work, thoughtful reflection, and a sense of the best long-term plans to benefit future generations.  To me the people of government should be those who were selected for their qualifications and promoted for their merit, and receive their power to make decisions due to their proven performance and demonstration of judgmental properties that are superior to their peers.

As a citizen and beneficiary from government, I have a responsibility to promote good government.  This responsibility includes becoming knowledgeable of the organization and structure of government and the content of its given mission, giving thoughtful deliberations to what I know of the performance of government and expressing publicly the conclusions from these deliberations.  I have a responsibility to I promote those elected representatives that I believe can best reflect the peoples’ will to the government and check the government to carry out this will.

Those governments that are servants to the people and the peoples’ will are as government should be.  For governments should not exist for their own perpetuation and strength but rather as administrators and action entities for the deeds that need to be done to serve the people and their nation.

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On the Meaning of Work

1984 

To me, work has for a long time been an activity that is the pursuit of self-realization, self-expression, and satisfaction.  It is though work that I find the talents and desires that are inherent within me and through work I leave lasting accomplishments.  There is a religious nature to my work.  Through work, I gain a sense of salvation from those bad habits, mistakes, and flaws that are a part of me.  I find goodness.  What I hope to accomplish through my work is a sense that I am doing something useful, contributing to the furtherance of a worthwhile activity, taking care of my welfare and my loved ones, and providing a service.

Work is self-expressive.  I want to create a respected product, one that is admired by the community for which it is intended.  Although work is for me a self-rewarding preoccupation, I do not want it to overwhelm me but rather to have control of it, to enjoy it, to use it, to benefit from it but not to allow it to become an unhealthy preoccupation, an extreme.  I want my approach to work, my attitude about it to be a reflection of my personality.  The way in which I work relates to my background, my heritage, my talents, and the skills that I have diligently worked to acquire.

Why should I not continue to work until such a point that I am no longer benefiting from it, benefiting my employer, or am unable?

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On Christ

1984

For me Christ was a person.  He lived like all of us live.  He was borne, he grew, he suffered, he felt pain, he felt happiness and joy, he knew the temptations of humans, he had a consciousness, he saw the world as we do.

Yet he obviously was different.  He was able to teach, he was able to preach, he was able to inspire, to lead, he was able to do all these things in exceptional ways.  He saw the essence and understood the meaning of man’s nature, of man’s being, and was able to offer a sound wisdom and guidance to man to live by.

And yet he was different again.  He did miraculous things.  He healed, he changed the nature of matter, he read minds, he looked into the future, and knew the past.  He was able to overcome the physical laws of the universe, and to create things from nothing.   Who yet has been known to do such things that were witnessed by so many?

And then still yet he was different.  He died and revived.  He predicted his death and told those who would listen who he was.  What should we make of this?  Only that it is beyond comprehension and that is the nature of God.

And yet after all the above has been said and done there still yet is the most impressive thing about Jesus remaining.  And this is how his comes to us, who he was, the life he led, the values that he showed, his unselfishness, his lack of concerned about unimportant things, his total dedication to important things, the love that he had for his followers, for us.  And because of this we have by his life a model to live by, to emulate, a goal to reach out for.

For me Christ is important, he is worthy of my attention, my thought, my study, my worship.  He gives me answers, he saves me, he helps me.

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