decision 2020: honor, dignity, compassion + peace

i spent time today working on our school’s veterans day program which will be held next week. it’s a program which for the past 25 years has been honoring those who have given service to the protection of our great country. each year it honors hundreds and hundreds of men and women. it is one of the best days of the year. i don’t have words to explain the beauty of veterans day at perimeter school, but it will be live-streamed next week and i promise to invite you all to watch.

as i worked on program elements today, i couldn't help but think about so many of the men and women i've had the privilege to meet over the many years of directing. so many faces and stories. and i'm heartbroken wondering what they must be feeling lately if they’ve paid even a bit of attention to what is going on in our country — all the anger and angst. all the ugliness.

these men and women who have been willing to sacrifice their lives for this great nation, for freedom, for you, for me. what must they be feeling to read and hear some of the anti-american rant and the negativity which surrounds. perhaps you haven’t had the opportunity to sit at the feet of someone who has served and sacrificed or the chance to be in the presence of someone who watched their brother or best friend lay down his life. maybe there hasn't ever been a chance to stare into the eyes of an 85 year old man who had to leave his home at 18 and grow up fast. it might change the way we use our words and the attitude of our lack of appreciation.

regardless of your opinion on the issues, regardless of the candidate for whom you cast your vote, regardless of your convictions, regardless of your desire for change, regardless of what happens this evening, regardless of your party … please, friends, let us do our part. each one of us. we can each be responsible for ourselves.

there is a certain dignity, respect and compassion which is missing from so many on both sides of our political fence. i refuse to see it as one person or one party’s fault, but as the collective downfall of our out-of-control culture. and, unless, we change the direction of our words and the destructiveness of our ways, down we will certainly fall. down and down and down. and, i'm afraid to say, this will have little do with who wins the race at the end of the day. we will all—each one of us—lose. 

but let us, instead, walk into this evening in a spirit of humility. let us check our pride and all opportunities for provocation at the door. let us, instead, honor those who have gone before us. honor those who are figuring it out with us. honor those who are doing their best for us. honor those who have come to different conclusions. honor those we can’t completely understand. honor those who are like us and those who are not. honor the one who created and sustains each one of us — honor God.

honor. dignity. compassion and peace. respect. encouragement. grace. mercy and humility. let these be the words we write in our personal narrative tonight. 

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, havingthe same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

philippians 2:1-11

may God bless America!