This is my 94th column and I am just now saying this, but thank you for spending your limited time engaging your mind with mine on a weekly basis.
That expense is not taken lightly, and none of us in this paper want to waste your time, me most of all. When I write, I always imagine someone extremely important looking over my shoulder. I edit by removing things I think wastes their time.
Today I feel the watching eyes of a battered soldier, one who fought for the freedom of this country, who would pass slam out if he could see how far the United States of America has come since 1776.
If both you and I imagine that battered soldier in the room next to us now, what reason would we give him for taking time out of our day to read and think? He has caught us both in the act of reflection and thoughtfulness, enjoying the fruits of the freedom he fought for, but why?
I would tell him I’m here to make popular what has been forgotten, and use that information to add context and perspective to our lives.
I’m not a historian, and likely neither are you.
I’m not a scientist or philosopher or professor, and odds are you aren’t either.
We are here together today as a community who cares about life and has a desire for our perspectives to be widened, strengthened, and challenged.
That’s the heart of the newspaper column.
Libraries hold books and universities house professors, and yet the backbone of our society is people like you and me, people like that battered soldier.
Our goal with reading isn’t publication or degrees or experimentation, our goal is much broader, and much more demanding: to live a life worth living, to get to the end and be proud of what we have become.
We spend our time and resources every day we live, and we have more resources and opportunity than most anyone in history, so that soldier would have to wonder at how big our goals must be with so few obstacles and so many resources. Wouldn’t you?
But what are our goals and dreams and ambitions?
Would that soldier be proud of them—glad to pay the price he paid for your family?
How awkward would it be to come to him empty-handed, or worse, with scraps.
Very often we think that 1776 was the birthday of our country, but that was just the day we agreed to fight England. The war was far, far from over.
Maybe today is a day to remember, reflect, and reignite.
The war of your life is far from over, but today could be the day we make decisions to become someone that battered soldier and his thousands and thousands of contemporaries could be proud of.
Take time to reflect, and then get out there and be the man or woman you were born to be. Don’t skimp on the fireworks, corny jokes, or the chocolate eclair—for heaven’s sake, make us proud!
Momma didn’t make the stuff for you to hold back.