Memorial Day Message: Honor and Civility
Hi All,
CLICK HERE for the audio I recorded for Memorial Day, 2009…
Six minutes about your responsibility to live big, and to honor those who died for your liberty to treat it with respect.
That’s the 2009 version, and I’m going to stick my two cents in right here with the 2010 message…
I’m looking at the blogs, and listening to the conversations around me. The absolute disrespect we are hurling at our political leaders, and those who disagree with us…it amazes me.
It is a dishonor to those who gave our lives so we can have liberty.
Look, I understand what happens when you have a computer and the ability to speak your mind without having to interact directly with those who can read your words.
We allow our anger and our frustration to boil over. We participate in a free-for-all of hostility and hatred. The consequences for that kind of hate speech are minimal.
Or are they?
The fabric of our society is our CIVILITY. To disagree with the positions of our elected officials while honoring them as people and the process that allowed them to become elected in the first place.
It’s the same process that allows them to be voted out of office.
When we write and say things out of hatred – when we make it personal – we tear at the fabric our society was built upon.
We stop hearing each other. We make it easy to make decisions by listening to the voices of intolerance, bigotry and narrow self-interest.
Simply put, we become dumber.
And this is no time to be dumb. We need the best minds. We need an informed electorate now more than any other time.
Calling each other names plays into the hands of those who wish us ill.
It also happens to be a favorite tactic of those who kill and blow themselves up because someone’s religion or skin color is different.
It’s Memorial Day weekend. Honor those who gave their lives for your liberty.
Discuss. Debate. Disagree.
Organize. Make sure your elected officials know what you want, and why you want it.
Work to vote your favorites in and vote the ones you disagree with out.
And honor the sacrifice of our veterans by cherishing the values that a prosperous society needs to stay prosperous.
Your Friend,
Larry Hochman
First Post: Let The Wild Things Be Wild
4:00 pm on a gorgeous Thursday afternoon. About 70 degrees out. Perfect time to mow the lawn. I’ve been getting grief from Jill, my 16 year old about the length of it, and our usual lawn mowing kid hasn’t started the season yet.
So I gas up, check the oil, and get into it.
The front lawn looked like a beautiful, lush meadow. The grass was ten days tall and wildflowers were everywhere. The center island had its flowering bushes in full bloom and the dogwood tree was incredible.
But of course conditioning kicked in. No one wants to have the only house in the neighborhood with the overgrown lawn. So I started in on the front yard.
There were two patches that had the most beautiful purple wildflowers. They come around every year about this time. They last three or four weeks, then die off.
That is, they last unless they get mowed over along with the rest of the grass.
Each year I watch the bees come by and pollenate these wildflowers. Sure, there are plenty of other flowers for the bees. Lilacs are also in full bloom right now, not to mention thousands of other varieties.
But these are my flowers. They’re on my lawn.
It was an easy choice. As carefully as I could, I mowed around the patches of wildflowers. I even cut into them slightly where there was an opening. I tilted the lawnmower up in certain places to get to patches of grass in the middle the flowers.
I treated them with the TLC that something wild and beautiful deserves.
And I looked back at my work when I was finished. A very nice, neat, “proper” front yard. Fits in nicely with the rest of the neighborhood. There’s something to be said for order; compliance to the standards of those around you…when you aren’t compromising your own principles.
And I looked at the brilliant bursts of purple. No doubt some of the neighbors won’t be in love with the “weeds” I left in the yard. No one else in the neighborhood seems to have those blooms on their lawn.
But the processes of nature, the way we allow the natural world to flourish around us…for me it was more important than falling in line.
I’ll take the annoyance of a few folks. To see something express its beauty and its purpose, and to play a role in allowing it to unfold…it’s magic.
*** ***
We have people in our lives who are those purple flowers. They don’t do things the way the rest of us do. They don’t stay in line. They upset what we think is the proper balance of things.
But they bloom so beautifully.
And they feed a process we may not see, but is more important than any simple conformity.
Yeah, you can cut them out of your yard. You can wall yourself off from their wild, uninhibited nature.
Or you can delight in the God force they have to express.
And you can get swept up in it and become a “wild thing” yourself.
I know what my choice is.
Naturally Yours,
Larry