MODERATION: THE NEW DIRTY WORD?

I remember the days when I was pleased to call myself "a moderate Republican". Whatever happened to that appelation? What happened was the extreme right wing of the Republican party took over and decided, in their cockiness after the 2004 election, that there was not room for anybody who didn't espouse the sacred principles IN TOTAL of the G.O.P.: fiscal conservatism, pro-life, pro-war in Iraq, unrestrained free markets, et. al. I became increasingly aware that I was not fitting into the Republican corset and was beginning to find it too suffocating. Mind you, I was not quite ready to call myself a Democrat, but I found myself more and more on their side on many issues. The term "independent" still had currency for me.

Now I note that one of the true moderates, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, has bolted the Republican party, partially for the pragmatic reason that he sees his ass being whipped by a very conservative nominee for Republicans to run against him in the Republican primary and, to some degree, because he finds himself isolated by his disageement with so many of his right-wing peers. Senator Olympia Snow, one of the true Republican moderates, decrying the unnecessary loss of Specter, noted in the New York Times today: "We can't continue to fold our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden our appeal." AMEN.

A party that today stands as strictly ANTI and offers no true PRO solutions to the economic crisis of today and limits its membership only to those who totally espouse their every principle is doomed to fail. It is incumbent upon a party in opposition to offer an alternative plan which offers their version of solutions, those positive actions to make things happen.

Until the Republican party offers solutions and not just criticism, they have lost me---and. I'm sure, a lot of others who at one time were unashamed of being termed moderates. Any resemblance to the G.O.P. I once knew is purely coincidental. Has "moderation" become a dirty word? Funny, I thought it had more than four letters!

OLD LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN

Three years ago, at a Wednesday evening service at our church usually conducted by laypeople, I did a reflection and reading of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne and George Herbert, both 17th century Anglican clerics and poets. The group liked it and asked me this year to do a Sunday forum from 9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. prior to the Sunday service. Some people seem shocked that an old underwear schlepper and sporting goods marketing man could like poetry. Well, folks, it's that old left brain, right brain stuff---we're all a mix. Plus, I was an English Literature major...This is how I started my talk.

I am often asked how I got so interested in poetry. I came from a family who deeply appreciated the written word, so, from the time I was a child, I was constantly exposed to literature in many forms, and I recall many dinners where my father and step-mother would talk about books or poems or current events at the dinner table with my brothers and me. In other words, my brothers and I absorbed a lot from a sort of literary osmosis: it was always there, seeping into our consciousness.

Then an important happening in my sixth grade year of school really clinched my love of poetry. I had a wonderful and beautiful teacher in the sixth grade named Jean Bruner, who was tall, willowy, with flowing brown hair and lovely blue eyes---an older woman of perhaps twenty-four---on whom I had a twelve-year-old crush. Miss Bruner assigned us in English class to memorize and recite a poem to the class.

I went home and informed Patricia, my step-mother, who was a second mother to me, not the wicked witch so often associated with the term “step-mother”. She and I talked about some possible poems, and I picked from an anthology John McCrea’s “In Flanders Fields”, a famous poem of World War I written by a Canadian doctor in that war, who died in 1918 in France from pneumonia complicated by meningitis. I duly studied and memorized the poem and then started an audition for Patricia in my best sing-song style, so often used by kids in classes.

"In Flander's Fields the poppies grow...
between the crosses row on row..."
TA-DA-TA-DA-TA-DA-TA-DA

Patricia raised a hand and said, “Stop. That’s not how you say a poem, you’ve got to get the meaning across. You have to read it with feeling and understanding. Don’t worry: the sense of the rhyme will come through if you recite it properly.” Patricia and I practiced and practiced until she felt I had it right.

Then my big day at school arrived, and I waited my turn in class nervously. As it turned out, I was the last to recite. I recited it with all the feeling I could muster, and, if I say so myself, I nailed it.

Miss Bruner then made my day, as she in her husky contralto voice said, “Alexander, that was beautiful. “ Turning to the class, she said, “That is how a poem should be read.” Wow, what a sixth grade moment!

And here I am, almost seventy years later, still hooked on poetry. Thank you, Miss Bruner and Patricia!

HOW TO FORGIVE

I attend twice a month on Tuesdays at 7:30 a.m. a Men's Ministry group at my church. They are all a bunch of gray beards, like I am. The diversity of successful backgrounds is amazing: doctors, lawyers, high-powered execs, engineers, priests, Ph.Ds---you get the picture. And they, as a group, don't wear their religion on their sleeves. Some of them, besides me, actually swear on occasions, tell jokes, and take a drink, this last quality being very Episcopal in nature. After all, there's an old saw among Episcopalians that wherever there are four Episcopalians, there's always a fifth!

The meeting theme this morning was "God is Love; therefore, so am I" and "How does God's Love affect our daily lives?" We broke into two groups of six or seven each and discussed this theme at our table, and then a spokesman from each table summarized the discussion. Both groups found that the discussion eventually led to the idea of forgiveness as a paramount aspect of God's Love and how difficult it is for many of us to forgive the hurts inflicted by others, but, the older we get, the more we are able to begin to forgive. As one fellow half-jokingly put it, "Maybe not forgiving takes too much energy for us old guys."

Another fellow, a retired doctor, came up with a concept that he has tried to live by in times of stress, that rang all our bells. He recalled at staff meetings when he would be dealing with some example of incompetence or foul-ups which could drive him up the wall when a nurse said to him, referring to the screw-up, "You've got to remember he (or she) is doing the best he can."

Now, whenever the doctor is driving and some reckless driver cuts him off in traffic, and he feels the spleen beginning to rise, he simply, like a mantra, says over and over to himself, that man is doing the best he can. He says it starts to work on him in a few seconds, and he calms down.

I think he has a point. We are all imperfect beings who screw up regularly and need forgiveness. Is it worth becoming infuriated and letting it ruin our day? Is it worth carrying that old wound around and reopening the wound by scratching at it constantly? Just letting go doesn't mean you'll forget the wound, but it can make living with it a lot easier.

I am going to give this technique a try. Just remember: we're all doing the best we can. Maybe it isn't always good enough, but it's the best we can do.

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE...

At Eastertime, we had a good part of our family visiting from the frozen north and basking in Florida sunshine. One of them, my fourteen year-old grandson, Drew Davis, is an absolute computer whiz, moving at the speed of light, befuddling his old grandfather,who was raised in the linear age of one step at a time, with his computing skills.

At Christmas, my wife gave me an iPod. Guess who showed me how to set it up and left me the most concise literate directions on how to do it? I now have 794 songs on my iPod and simply hope I'll live long enough to play them all.

Thanks to him, I can now offer, for your listening pleasure, a choice of music while reading my blogs. It's just another service---and enticement---for you, our viewing audience.

"Old Blue Eyes" will come on, singing "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)". If you would prefer another selection, simply scroll all the way down or hit "Control End" and choose from the five selections.

Ain't this modern world awesome?

And, while I've got your attention, have a wonderful Easter!

CINDERELLA MISSED THE BALL

Well, fairy tales don't always come true---that was proved again last night. Cinderella went to the ball, but, on the way, she had a tragic accident---and was eaten by the Big Bad Wolf from another fairy tale. I am of course referring to the N.C.A.A. basketball championship game between Michigan State, the representatives of the downtrodden masses and folk hero for Everyman, and North Carolina, that well-oiled machine and wearer of the black hat.

Sorry, folks, but that's the way the old basketball bounces and virtue doesn't always triumph. The Tar Heels did a demolition job on the Spartans, building up an insurmountable 55-34 halftime lead and then coasting in neutral in the second half to an 89-72 romp. And they did it with surgical precision at mach three speed. I have never seen quicker--and so many---hands stealing balls, blocking the lanes and controlling rebounds. It was the consummate team performance with all starting five and a host of talented subs all making it look oh so easy.

Michigan State had become a kind of symbol for our hard times of today: a working class bunch of over-achievers rising to the occasion and surprising the sporting crowds with their path to the final. And playing in Detroit, that urban symbol of today's malaise, was the perfect setting to play out a potental morality play.

Life does not always provide storybook endings, as we have all learned. So, our condolences, Cinderella, but our admiration for the Big Bad Wolf from Carolina. I sure don't want to meet him in the woods!

OH, BRAVE NEW WORLD ORDER

I think it is safe to say our new President received a baptism-by-fire in European diplomacy this past week. He learned how intransigent and individualistic the French and the Germans can be. In fairness to the French and the Germans, after what they have experienced in American leadership and diplomacy the last eight years, they are immediately on guard and suspicious of American leadership. They are used to principles set in concrete by Bush and Company from which there are no compromises, and the lectures on democracy that go with them. By taking a rational and listening position, Barack Obama struck a new and welcome note and opened the door to interchanges among the leaders to forge a new alliance based on mutual needs.

When you have a meeting of EU heads-of-state and the other G-20 leaders, you have a collision of egos, all making appropriate soundbites to satisfy their regional constituentcies and to make personal impressions on the world stage. In this atmosphere, our President struck the right posture of modesty and showing a new American attitude of global cooperation and interests. It is welcomed on the world stage.

No, he didn't get the stimulus commitment from the other world powers he had wanted, but, realistically, I don't really think he expected them to agree readily to such packages in view of the deep anger and suspicion about the bank and Wall St. crises and toxic messes so prevalent around the world. Timing is everything, and he has at least struck the right posture for future discussions and opportunities to persuade, especially when you are trusted by the people you are trying to persuade.

The New York Times, in an article a few days ago, commented how the old days of Pax Americana and Pax Britannica setting the standards and policies of the world order are over. And maybe that's not such a bad thing, as interrelated the world is today and the necessity for greater cooperation on so many fronts for so many countries. We need to pay attention and listen to each other.

Mind you, I still think America has to be a leader. But, as the more enlightened international C.E.O.s have known for some time, you can lead and still listen to your people and be receptive to new ideas that are not your own. Barack Obama has that opportunity now. With patience, understanding and civility, he can establish himself as that leader and, we all hope fervently, lead the world into a new era of peace and growth. Oh, brave new world---I hope.