Spoken Word Messages - Page 83

Men make money in many ways. And making money—or at least making a living—is important. Everyone has to do it one way or another, either by his own efforts or by the efforts of others. But more important than merely making a living is making an honest living. Sometimes some men aren't satisfied with an honest and ample living. Sometimes they want quick and easy affluence—and compromise themselves to get it, sometimes by means which are morally fraudulent, but which seem to be legally safe. But, as many a man has later learned, quite apart from moral issues, making money by false means is seldom legally safe, and those who benefit thereby have no quiet thoughts and no assurance of safety.

It is a puzzling paradox that often those who enjoy the fruits of freedom work against the very freedom which has given them privilege and protections.  Why should it be so? There may be many answers. And one may be that some people really don't know when they are well off. They are the chronic malcontents. It wouldn't matter what way of life they were privileged to partake of, they would always be dissatisfied and against whatever is. There are people like that, and it doesn't appear that anyone has ever been able to account for them.

There are disturbing times in the lives of all of us, sometimes because of personal problems, sometimes because of the problems of the world in general, and sometimes because of our perplexity as to life itself. Often questions cry out: Here am I in the midst of the universe. What part of it am I? What purpose underlies it all? In times of peace and of happiness, in times of our own personal wellbeing, the answer sometimes seems nearer—or perhaps the question troubles us less.

Quite commonly we hear the person who proclaims his right to live his life as he pleases, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. He says that his life is his own and, bluntly, what he does with it is none of anyone else's business. Usually he recognizes, in part at least, the restraints of civil law, because he wants to keep out of the hands of those who are sworn to uphold it. But beyond that, he says that no moral law or social convention, no public opinion or private counsel, is going to have any effect on his way of living—and he doesn't care who knows it.

Sometime ago someone coined the phrase "tolerance without compromise," which would seem to deserve further comment. To be tolerant of others it is not necessary to partake of their beliefs or of their manner of living. In fact, one may be tolerant of another and still vigorously oppose everything he represents, yet grant him his right to represent it. Tolerance does not imply that we must get on the band wagon, that we must think or act with the majority, or that we must compromise our sincere convictions.

Pioneering is an important factor of progress—which brings us to the question: What is it that makes a pioneer? By this term we do not mean merely those who leave established communities and old countries because of the difficulty of making a living where they are and the promise of making an easier living elsewhere.

There is in our language a dangerously disarming phrase by which people often persuade other people to compromise principles. It is the phrase "just this once." "Just this once" has a siren-like lure. It is the forerunner of the phrase "just once more." It is the beckoning voice of a false friend that leads us from safety to a false position, first "just this once," and then "just once more." "Just once more won't matter." "Just once more, and then I'll quit." And so we sometimes move from one false step to another, often deluding ourselves into thinking that this is the last time. In some social and personal matters, many of us live somewhat this way.

The thought has been often expressed that there is no such thing as a basic morality, that the laws to which men are accountable for their moral conduct change as do any other laws, from time to time and from place to place, according to custom and convenience. However much this may seem to be so, let us look where it would lead: To say this would be to say that whatever is condoned by any people or any generation is right for that people and for that generation—that anything any society may decide to do is right for them to do.

From the Book of Genesis, we recall the account of Abraham pleading with the Lord to spare the city of Sodom if there were but fifty righteous to be found therein. "And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous . . . then I will spare all the place for their sakes."1 Then Abraham, knowing or fearing that not fifty could be found, said unto the Lord: ". . . wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?"2 And the Lord said, "If I find there forty and five [righteous] I will not destroy it."2 Upon Abraham's continued pleading the Lord promised not to destroy the city if but ten could be found who were worthy to be spared. But the ten were not to be found.

As children we are excused for many mistakes because of our ignorance. And often later in life there are times when we would like to claim the same immunity which brings again before us the question: When is ignorance excusable? This would be easier to answer if all ignorance were of the same kind— but it is not.

There are times in the lives of all of us when someone has to see that we do what we should do, and that we don't do what we shouldn't do. In our early years we become accustomed to having parents make many decisions for us, and to having teachers tell us what to do from day to day Before we are fully accountable, such assuming of responsibility by others would seem to be essential to the process of growing and learning. But sooner or later we find ourselves in circumstances when neither parents nor teachers are near-by to hedge us about and to tell us what to do and what not to do. And for such times we must know for ourselves right from wrong and must decide for ourselves which is which.

The month of June is traditionally a month of beginnings and endings. For many it is the end of school and the beginning of the serious pursuits of life, and many students come forth from their years in the classroom wondering what they can expect of their education and what the world expects of them.

There is an old and well-worn proverb which says that "one man's meat is another's poison"1—thus giving recognition to the fact that men have many points of difference. Food that is agreeable to some is injurious to others. Clothes and colors that are liked by some, are unbecoming or distasteful to others. Medicine that is beneficial to some reacts negatively on others. People and personalities who are attractive and entertaining to some are unattractive and boring to others. And so, we might go through the whole list of human likes and dislikes, of preferences and prejudices, of compatibility and incompatibility—all pointing to the proposition that what may be true of one man may be untrue of another. But there is almost always danger in generalization, even in the generalization which says that there are exceptions to every rule.

There are few of us but who have been touched somehow by death. We may or not have been touched closely by it nor yet have kept vigil with it, but sooner or later along our lives, most of us are 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 so often seem to come with such untimeliness. But we rebel when it so little considers our wishes or our readiness. Yet 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? Such decisions would be terrible for mere men to make.

We have heard much of such words as arbitration, negotiation, and conciliation. They have come to be technical terms, with many shades of meaning, but their over-all sense implies the settling of disagreements without physical force or open warfare. Such proceedings often involve important organizations or powerful nations. But something similar may also be needed in dissolving private difficulties, both with children and with adults. There are many ways of handling children even as there are many ways of handling grown men.

On excellent authority we may say that "there is ... a time to every purpose under . . . heaven."1 And we should like to consider this a time for remembering. Looking forward from our youth and looking back after youth has passed, present two vastly different pictures. As parents we see the future in our children. But as children we see the future in ourselves. When we are young, parents may look very old to us, even as we look very young to them. And all of us change so gradually that we may not know when it is that we are looked upon as being old by others. The generations come and go, with time moving all things on their way, with children becoming parents, parents becoming grandparents, and youth growing up to take their places, while others move on, as life endlessly unfolds.

All of us at times are disappointed in the actions of others. Perhaps there is no one who doesn't disappoint someone some time by something he does or fails to do. But it should not be thought so strange that we should sometimes have cause to be disappointed in others, because, being honest, we must admit that there are also times when we have cause to be disappointed in ourselves. All of us do, unintentionally, and perhaps intentionally at times, things of which we are not especially proud. We say things that we later regret; we give way to thoughtlessness, carelessness, neglect. We often fail to live as well as we know how to live. But it is not so much in our disappointment in people that danger lies, but in our failure to distinguish between people and principles.

Despite all adverse elements, the past century or so has been one of profound unfoldment of glorious truths. The mind of man has been permitted by the Almighty to penetrate what to us have heretofore been unknown realms. But amid all this there is much need for man's humility. Because we have learned a little of what happens and a little of why it happens, we may make the mistake of supposing that we know more than we do. Knowing a little something of the laws and using a little something of the forces of the universe, we would do well to remember always that we are but the timid discoverers and not the creators thereof.

There is a statement accredited to Benjamin Franklin which says, "Sin, is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful."' Perhaps few truths are more important for youth to learn than this. Young people sometimes profess to feel that instructions and counsels and restrictions are arbitrarily imposed upon them; that there is no basic reason for such precautions except that parents and other elder advisers seek to saddle the standards of their generation on the succeeding generation.

The needs of our lives are many—but they are perhaps not so many as we sometimes permit ourselves to suppose. Like the children we are, we are often inclined to pray for things we think are essential to our happiness, but which, in fact, may have little to do with our happiness. As do some children, we sometimes seem to want what we want regardless of the consequences to us and regardless of who else has to go without to give it to us.

There is no compromising with death. We may differ much in our preparedness to meet it but not in our ability to avoid it. And the prospect would be dark indeed except for the event which this day commemorates: the return from death to life of Jesus the Christ, the son of God, the "first-fruits of the resurrection," by whose triumph over death all mankind are assured a like coming forth from the grave.

We often see men of much promise who move ahead in life so far and then seemingly fail to fulfil their promise. We often see men who, from all outward indications, would seem to have much that makes for happiness, incentive, and purpose, but who nevertheless lapse into listlessness, unrest, and even into deep despondency. Something happens, the cause of which may not always be apparent to the casual observer, but the retarding results of which are unmistakably apparent.

Sometimes we permit ourselves to assume that everything we call by the same name has the same qualities of character. It is almost as if knowing one man whose name is John, we conclude that all men named John are like him. Consider for example, the word "efficiency." Its various shades of definition all boil down to getting things done with the least expenditure of time, effort, energy, money, material, or whatever it takes to do whatever it is we want done.

Perhaps most of us at times feel a wholesome dissatisfaction with ourselves, but it would seem that we more often feel dissatisfaction and impatience with the failures and faults of others. When we set about to have someone do something for us, it often annoys us if it isn't done as well as we think it should be. We are perturbed when others make what seem to us to be wrong decisions. We are annoyed when we see someone else miscarry an opportunity, or miss the mark in any activity. Most of us are inclined to do our share of sideline coaching and to be critical of those who are doing the playing. It isn't easy to sit by and watch someone else fumble, when we are convinced that we could do what they are doing in less time, with greater skill.

In dealing with the problems of men there are two approaches that might be made. One is that all men are alike; the other, that all men are different. Both together are true; either without the other is false. All men are alike in many things, and all men are different in many things. Men are different partly because of differences in environment and experience, partly because of differences in opportunities; but beyond all this they are different because of differences at birth, and before birth, concerning which we know little, but the results of which we see dramatically and unmistakably.

It is sometimes cynically said that every man has his price—by which it is intended to imply that there is no honor or honesty, no virtue or verity, no patriotism or principle that will not be violated or compromised, provided a sufficient amount is offered. It is regrettably true that many men have been known to change their views, and even their so-called convictions for various considerations at various times. It is regrettably true that men have been known to sell their influence, to barter their votes, and even to perjure themselves, for profit or preferment.

The phrase "defense in depth" has often been used as descriptive of a broad and flexible system of multiple strength, as contrasted with a thin and rigid line of fortification.- There is another source of multiple strength that is a safeguard to any nation or people that has it, and that is "thinking in depth." Few if any great discoveries and few if any great developments come solely through the efforts of any one man—even though history sometimes accredits them to one man. And in the urgency of war, many minds moving toward a common purpose accomplished what would seem to have been the scientifically impossible. Neither one mind, nor a few minds, nor many regimented minds could have done so much.

Perhaps all of us have been embarrassed when we have been asked questions we could not answer. But we need not be, necessarily, because anyone can ask questions that no one can answer. And very often the best answer is the frank admission that we don't know. Surely there are many times when it would be better to say this than it would be to fumble in confusion. If we admit we don't know, our frankness may increase the confidence of others in us, but if we pretend we do when we don't, it doesn't take long for others to discover it, and their confidence drops accordingly. This isn't true only with adults; it is true also with children.

Truth and facts can be very stubborn and inconvenient at times. And with all of us, there are perhaps some things we wish were true and some things we wish were not true. And so, by a process of rationalization, so-called, we often talk ourselves into or out of many things, admitting all the evidence that would take us where we want to go, and excluding all the evidence that would not.   In other words, we sometimes first decide what we would like the answers to be, and then work back to make them seem to be what we would like.

Often quoted, and ascribed to various sources, is this doubtful declaration: "I don't care what you say about me so long as you mention my name." This statement, however we may disagree with it, gives recognition to the basic fact that we are attracted to the things we know. A name heard often enough, even though unfavorably, attracts attention, whereas an unknown name may not. What we know nothing about has no part in our thinking. But if we know a little about something, we may want to know a little more, and if we know much about it, we may want to know all about it.