July 19, 2004
Bertrand Russell, the British author, mathematician, and philosopher once said, “Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.” The older I get, the more I appreciate the fine education I received at Yazoo City Public Schools from first grade to high school graduation. I did not appreciate it then, but I now know mine were some of the finest teachers in America. Thank you, Mother, for enabling us and insisting that we get a good education! Our teachers taught us to THINK for ourselves, and not follow the pack. One teacher said, “Five percent of the people in the world do most of the thinking, and the other 95% are perfectly happy to let them do it. Decide now in which group you will live.”
In religion as well as politics, there is a comfortable zone into which it is easy to slip; accepting the thinking of the majority. Actually the comfort is a disguise for mental laziness. When I was a Southern Baptist, a fine denomination with many wonderful disciples, it was important to those in power that one identify himself as a “conservative” (and I mean THEIR definition of a conservative). Failure to do was proof one must be a “liberal”, right? Actually, on many issues I am conservative. I can say the Apostle’s Creed with vigor, without flinching, because I have wrestled with every tenet it professes, and believe it encapsulates what I believe as a Christian. But on social, economic and ethical issues, I am closer to the “liberal camp”. For instance, Southern Baptists raised millions of dollars each Christmas and Easter with their “Lottie Moon” and “Annie Armstrong” mission offerings, named for a foreign and a home missionary, respectively. “Why were Ms. Moon and Ms. Armstrong never ordained?” I asked. “Were they not ministers?” Talk like that can get you thrown out of the grand old SBC, as I can testify! Actually, I saved them the trouble and “churched” myself. I guess that is another way of saying I did not (and still do not) fit neatly into “schools of thought” or “pack thinking”. A word of warning: if you think for yourself, accept that you will never be completely comfortable; especially if you worry what others think of your thinking.
Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”
Robert Frost put it another way:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
So in a couple hours, I’m off on another road, this time to Washington DC. I hope to accomplish at least some small good while there. As we Methodists say, I will keep an “open mind, open heart, open door.”
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