Tag Archives: John F. Kennedy

“Where There is no Vision…”

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The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men (and women) who dream of things that never were.

I ran across this quotation from John F. Kennedy last week in a classroom and was stunned by its wisdom. Kennedy knew that “obvious reality” would not resolve the difficult situations that faced the world in his day, that resolution of those problems would only come through those who dared to dream, or envision. I immediately thought of the verse from Proverbs, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

The “obvious reality” that we face each day is a necessary evil. We must have this ego-contrived structure to keep this dog-and-pony show afloat. But, there is another reality…i.e. “Reality…that we need to draw upon to address the problems in our world, a world of dreams and visions. Venturing into that world is a spiritual adventure, a journey into realms where it feels as if “no man has gone before.” But if we cling only to the “obvious’ we will continue to stew in our own juices, never able to “get over ourselves.” I discovered relevant wisdom from the East from an unknown source this morning, “Known is a drop, Unknown is an ocean.”

This obsessive slavery to the known “obvious reality” is apparent in our current Congress. The God that Congress currently worships is “Getting Re-elected” and not the Judeo-Christian deity that most of them purport to worship. And, to them, it is quite “obvious” that they must get re-elected as that only will allow them to pursue their agenda. But, there are more important things than the “obvious” and one’s own “agenda”. If a legislator is enslaved by the desire to maintain his/her office, he/she inevitably prostitutes him/herself to an electorate just to maintain electoral viability. And when that happens, “there is no vision and the people perish.”

Now it must be noted, we can’t lay all of the blame on Congress. We elected them and they reflect the values of our culture. We too are enslaved by the “obvious” and balk at venturing into the Unknown where true value is found, where our spiritual roots can be explored.

 

Lessons from the School Yard

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It was a crisp October Monday morning in 1961 in Magnet Cove, Arkansas. The mighty Magnet Cove Panthers had fallen ignominiously (again) the previous Friday night en route to another 2-8 season, Orval Faubus was championing our racist raison d’etre each day, and that damn Catholic John F. Kennedy was in the White House. But, it was morning recess time and the BMOC (Big Man on Campus) in the 3rd grade announced to the boys on the playground, “Everybody with high top boots run with me and let’s chase the girls.” Oh, was I so proud! I had high top boots and they were pretty new! Now, I was not used to being in the “in crowd” due in part to my own alienation, certainly not irrelevant to my perception that I was from an impoverished family. But, on this autumn morning, by damn, I HAD HIGH TOP BOOTS! And for a couple of weeks this social agenda predominated in that class of 27 kids and I had the delight of belonging! (By the way, the girls were meeting secretly at the same moment nearby and answering the question, “What are we gonna do today” with, “Well, let’s go out there and be cute and let the guys chase us! You are right. Nothing has changed in fifty years.)

Well, in the following years, the BMOC’s would change, usually with a bloodless coup d’etat, and the agenda would change and even mature with age. But the pattern was set. We boys and girls learned the importance of determining which category we belonged in, where the power lay in the social contract, and hooking our wagons to the one that seemed most palatable and which one was most likely to predominate.

Today I belong to several group (even though I’m still alienated as hell!) For example, I am a Democrat, I’m a heterosexual male, I’m a licensed counselor, and I’m an Episcopalian…to name just a few. But, I’m far removed from the playground and my affiliation has gone far beyond the “high top boots” phenomena. My identity supersedes these superfluous labels. Each of them are important to me, but there is something (might I say Something, or even “Someone”) more important—we are all “one flesh” and…if I might segue…, as Rodney King said, “Why can’t we all get along?” The categories are so ephemeral.