Spoken Word Messages - Page 83

It would seem that there are always among us some who find pleasure or profit in defaming the character of others. And those who are so inclined don't always confine their activities to people they know. They are often disposed to undermine people they have never known, and to presume knowledge they have never had. From such malicious attacks it is often difficult to protect a man's good name while, yet he lives, and often more difficult after he is dead.

Many definitions have been given of religion. There is little to be gained by adding to them, but we should like to quote again from one of those most often quoted: “Pure religion and undefiled—before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted […]

All this may have been long ago—and it may not have been just as it now appears to have been—but we seem to have remembered or to have read of a time when the demarcation between good and evil was more sharply defined and better understood than it now sometimes seems to be. Perhaps it was not so at all. Perhaps only distance gives it that appearance. But in those days—call them old-fashioned, call them puritanical, or call them what you will—from this distance it would seem that there was a reasonably well-marked borderline, each side of which was known for what it was. Now all this—if it be true—had its inconsistencies, to be sure; for perhaps no man is wholly bad and no man is wholly blameless, and perhaps no line, however sharp, can always draw the mark between them. But this fact must not be ignored—As long as evil appears in its true colors, as long as it is known for what it is, and as long as those who tamper with it, do so with their eyes open, the number who touch it will be smaller.

There is an old phrase, of unidentified origin, which says that "Talent without character is more to be dreaded than esteemed." Using character in its meaning of moral responsibility, we would extend the statement further: Authority without character is more to be dreaded than esteemed. Money without character, power without character, knowledge without character, science without character, men without character—all are more to be dreaded than esteemed. Ours is a day in which inestimable forces have been placed in the hands of men, and our fears have multiplied as these death-dealing devices have increased.

There is a spirit abroad, typified by the seemingly harmless phrase, "Why not take a chance?" This popular proposal has no doubt induced many people to gamble away many things, perhaps the least important of which is money. The spirit of gambling is a progressive thing. Usually it begins modestly; and then, like many other hazardous habits, it often grows beyond control. At best it wastes time and produces nothing. At worst it becomes a ruinous obsession and fosters false living by encouraging the futile belief that we can continually get something for nothing. The spirit of gambling further fosters the fallacy that the someone who loses is ultimately going to be someone other than ourselves.

One of the most difficult things in life is making decisions and taking responsibility for them. Indeed, the mental and moral burden of making decisions usually weighs men down much more than hard physical labor. Often there is much at stake to increase the tension: success or failure, happiness or unhappiness, right or wrong, and even life or death. And because decisions are so difficult to make, people often seek to share with others the responsibility of making them—and often attempt to avoid making them at all.

There is an old and simple truth, so commonplace as to be frequently ignored, but so vital that it never should be. It is the truth that knowledge alone will not save us. There are infinite examples of this, some of which we mention merely to indicate the inexhaustibility of those we do not mention: A man may know how to take nourishment, but if he doesn't, he will starve. A man may know how to breathe, but if he doesn't, he will die.

There is an ancient but ageless statement accredited to Aristotle which says that "Some men are just as firmly convinced of what they think as others are of what they know."1 Perhaps we have all seen men so confident in their own opinions and so accustomed to over-riding all opposition that they come almost to believe in their own infallibility. Perhaps we have all seen those who, once having set out upon a course, think it necessary, right, or wrong, to continue as they have begun, for the sake of what they believe to be their pride or prestige. Being right is exceedingly important—so important that men will go a long way, at times, to seem to be right, whether they are or not. But danger comes when we become so blindly convinced of being right that it is difficult for us to recognize when we are wrong and even more difficult for us to admit when we are wrong. Even those who usually are right should never, for their own safety and for the safety of those who rely upon them, come to believe that they could never be wrong.

It is a deep-seated satisfaction to any parent to have a child who knows how to receive instructions and how to carry them out; to have a son or a daughter who does precisely what he is told to do when he is told to do it, without excuse, without protest, without resentment or reluctance. […]

There is a common phrase which is descriptive of one of the most prevalent practices of humankind. In the unbecoming vernacular, we call it "passing the buck." It is an old and much-cultivated technique, by which many a man has shrugged off many an unpleasant duty. Frequently it involves shifting work to others which we ourselves should be doing, but more often it involves shifting responsibility to others which we should be assuming. Sometimes it is accomplished by procrastination, sometimes by straight refusal to face an issue, but more often by an oblique shifting to other shoulders. Men are especially anxious to shift responsibility where controversy is involved. Often to decide an issue in favor of one person means to decide against another. And often to decide an issue at all means inconvenience and unpleasantness. And so, both in public and private life, we use all manner of devices and hide behind all manner of fronts in order to have done or to have said something which it is our responsibility to do or to say, while making it seem as though it were coming from some source quite beyond ourselves.

As school doors open again to receive the youth of our generation, it may be well to say something about what is commonly called academic freedom. We know that in the halls of learning there must be freedom to speak the truth—freedom for the discovery of new truth, freedom for the acceptance of new truth, and also (sometimes overlooked) freedom for the acceptance and preservation of old truth. In other words, there must be freedom for the presentation of facts as they are. But with our insistence upon academic freedom, we must insist equally against academic license. Grave difficulty always follows when men fail to distinguish between freedom and license.

One of the vital factors in the success or failure of any generation, or of any people, is the attitude which men have toward work. By some, work is looked upon as a privilege and a pleasure; to some, it would seem to be a doubtful duty; to some, a distasteful necessity. No doubt at any given time there are those who do not work because seemingly they cannot find work that is agreeable to them; and no doubt among this number are those who would particularize to a fine point as to the kind of work they are willing to do. Of course, work that is congenial or possible to some is not congenial or possible to others, because no two men are identical in their gifts or skills; and it goes without saying that the ideal situation is for everyone to be able to do the kind of work he likes best to do—in other words, for everyone to have a job made to his measure. But conditions are seldom ideal, and there are times when it may come to a choice between doing work which we don't especially like to do or doing no work at all.

Each year many of our youth leave home, some to attend school, and some for other purposes; many, of course, for the first time. And it is not uncommon to bear these youth of ours, in their confidence, reassure their parents and those whom they leave behind, as to their ability to take care of themselves, and as to the needlessness for any anxiety concerning them, as they venture forth in a world that has many ways, both good and bad. But with parents and others who have lived longer, a certain feeling of panic is more than understandable, because of what they have seen of the hazards of the road and of the wreckage, in terms of human happiness, that can and does follow errors of judgment, foolish decisions, and the keeping of bad company.

There is an age-old question, the answer to which is earnestly important to all of us at all times: "What is truth?" There are those who would define it as a relative term—those who would say that what is commonly thought to be true by the constituted authorities of any particular time or place is true for that time or place. That is to say, what is generally believed to be true today is true for this day. But to say this is also to say that what was believed to be true yesterday was true yesterday.

One of the most important things in this world is getting along with the people we have to live with. The question of peace itself revolves around our being able to do just this. Living literally alone is seldom possible, and seldom desirable, but living in daily association with others means either fighting with them or learning to get along with them There are many apparent ways of getting along with people—some of which are acceptable and some of which are not.

There is a widespread philosophy which perhaps has always been more or less prevalent, but which sometimes seems to reach epidemic contagion. For want of a better term we identify it by the vernacular phrase by which it is commonly known: getting on the band wagon—riding the popular thing regardless of the principles or the consequences involved; glibly giving allegiance to him who holds the purse strings—until someone else holds them; joining what is popular without, too much thought as to what is right; jumping on and getting what we can out of it. In yielding to this so-called bandwagon philosophy it would sometimes seem that we don't care much where the wagon is going so long as we are with the crowd and so long as the ride lasts. This, no doubt, to some degree has always been so.

There is a challenging phrase to the effect that "success is never final." It is true that there are many who seem to be successful up to a point—and then something happens. Some win honors and achieve distinction in school years who seem to fail in meeting the real issues of life.

This week in the valleys that fringe the Great American desert, we pause again to commemorate the lives and labors of the pioneer empire builders of the inland west. It is ninety-nine years—one year before the centennial—since they made their entrance into this forbidding wasteland, and, with hard work and the help of God, here created one of the garden places of the world.

On this question of trying to run away from our troubles and from ourselves: We all, of course, have our share of burdens. Some seem to carry them better than others, but there are times, no doubt, when many of us become discouraged to the point where we wonder if facing life is worth the effort. Perhaps not many of us seriously harbor the idea, and yet the shadow of its suggestion may sometimes cross our thoughts. But when life becomes overbearingly complicated, when problems hang oppressively heavy, or when the courage to face consequences fails us there are some few, unfortunately, who become so despondent, so panic-stricken, so baffled, that they contemplate running away from life itself by removing themselves from the scene of this world's troubles and tragedies.

We see before us these days a generation on the move. There is much of going back and forth, much of running to and fro—much of seeking new sights, new scenes, new situations; and there are many who always seem to be possessed by the urge to be going somewhere, but who never quite seem to be arriving where they want to go. It would be interesting to know how many of us who are on the move actually have business of consequence or purpose of importance, and how many of us are deluded into thinking that merely because we are moving we are getting somewhere.

As days of patriotic observance come and go, there is much said about freedom. Like all other principles with which men are concerned, freedom in theory may be one thing and freedom in practice may be quite another. It is a term comparatively easy to define academically, but sometimes difficult to define in the everyday relationships of life—difficult to say where encroachment begins and ends, to say when it is violated and when it is respected, because men have so many different ideas of freedom, and so many misconceptions concerning it. There are some, for example, who are committed to the principle of freedom for everyone, and others who want it only for themselves.

It is universally true that we intend doing many things we never get around to doing. There may be many reasons for this. Sometimes we underestimate our capacity and hesitate to begin; sometimes we overestimate it and clutter our lives with more commitments than we could possibly carry through in all the years that are ours. Sometimes we sit and wait for supposedly ideal conditions, but so-called ideal conditions rarely come. If the men who have most enriched the world had waited for ideal conditions before beginning their work, we should have had few inventions, few masterworks, few discoveries. Men have written and painted thought and planned, worked and searched, often in poverty, sometimes in illness, frequently in unsympathetic surroundings—and against hunger, against discouragement, against misunderstanding.

There are many in life who seem to discover a formula for success, according to their own time and circumstances. Some find it earlier, and some later—and in many different ways, some seemingly with little effort, and some at great cost. When success, so-called, is earned, we cannot help admiring the achievement of those to whom it comes—those who by determination and against difficulties accomplish what more timid men would hesitate to begin or, having begun, would faint or fail. But, like many desirable things in life, there can be too much, even of what we sometimes call success—especially if it comes too early or too easily—and especially if it outruns humility.

The question of authority and of unity in the home is always before us. When there is conflict and confusion at home, it is disheartening and discouraging to parents and children alike. Where such conflict and confusion do exist, there may be many reasons for it, among those more frequently named being the restlessness of war, the impact of so-called modern thinking, the complexity and rush of life, and many other causes, all of which must assume their share of the blame for a weakening of the ways of discipline and a relaxing of respect for authority. But there is yet another provocative reason that should be frankly faced, and that is this: Sometimes children are not in harmony with the home, because the home is not in harmony with itself. Sometimes parents are not of one mind or of one purpose.

It is about that time again when another school year is left behind, and countless students face the record of their own past efforts, to be graded, and graduated or failed, accordingly. Sometimes, when our performance has not been our best, we may hopefully suppose that the record could be forever closed. But there come […]

There are few of us but who have been touched somehow by death. Some may not have been touched closely by it nor yet have kept vigil with it, but somewhere along our lives, most of us are sorely bereft of someone near and deeply cherished—and all of us will some day meet it face to face. Perhaps most of us feel that we could accept death for ourselves and for those we love if it did not often seem to come with such untimeliness. But we rebel when it so little considers our wishes or our readiness. But we may well ask ourselves when would we be willing to part with or to part from those we love. And who is there among us whose judgment we would trust to measure out our lives?

There is prevalent among us a kind of counterfeit humor concerning which we need an occasional reminder. It is the kind of so-called humor that passes from person to person because someone has mistaken a bad story for a good joke. But a story which has indecency as its principal ingredient is not genuinely humorous, even though listening groups often break into loud laughter after someone has told one.

It is always appropriate to comment on the glorious theme of motherhood, although it would be difficult to add anything to the halo that already surrounds this name, so noble have been the traditions, and so deeply cherished in our hearts are the memories of the mothers of men. Of course, not all mothers have lived up to the highest ideals of their sacred trust; nor have all children; nor have all fathers.

"And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle1" Surely in some ways it would seem again to be "about the eleventh hour," and surely we may ask again of any of us to whom it applies: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" In our great need for emphasizing some of the things which the Ten Commandments tell us not to do, we may sometimes forget some of the things which they positively instruct us to do, among them: "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.”2

It is often apparent that we expect much more of other men than we expect of ourselves. Especially do we expect more of those who lead us. Indeed, those who accept the privileges and the obligations of leadership learn that they must be prepared to have their lives and their actions scrutinized and to justify the confidence imposed in them. But we must not expect the impossible—not even of our leaders. We must not expect them to produce a miracle for every difficulty.