NRPV

"It is not by muscle or speed that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment," Cicero wrote over two thousand years ago. And we still don't get it. Neither the media nor our whirligig culture, it seems, has the time or stomach to suffer complex answers to complex questions. In a political and intellectual environment accustomed to sound bites, your intellectual rigor, Mr. President, and your willingness to consider paradox and conflicting values has been touted as indecisiveness and inexperience. Yet, in the way of encouragement, it is your commitment to thoughtfulness, more than any other trait, that gives so many of us hope. Visceral answers may appeal to the "muscle and speed" Zeitgeist, but your contemplative vigor and compassionate imagination renews our faith in possibility. I would like to believe that for many of us who voted for you, that great act of ethical evaluation began with our heart's desire for a new direction that was more inclusive of the whole creation and its competing interests and less focused on the exclusive limitations of personal and national interests. The visceral, muscle and speed set, of course, will reject your concern for the global other as anti-American. But anthropologist Loren Eiseley in an article titled, "An Evolutionist Looks at Modern Man," correctly, I believe, rejected the evolutionist's proposition that we have survived as a race because we are strong. Eiseley suggests: "Humanity has not really survived by toughness [Cicero's muscle] in a major sense--even the great evolutionists Darwin and Wallace had trouble with that aspect of humankind--instead we have survived through tenderness." Here Eisley sounds a lot like a homeless, itinerant teacher who 2000 years ago said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." We can do all that we can to protect ourselves, write laws, print money, or even give the market free rein, but in the end, we will survive when we learn to cooperate instead of compete. I'm grateful for your unitive worldview that recognizes that when we experience ourselves as separate from each other and the rest of creation, we automatically create a mentality of scarcity and a systemic sense of competing for limited resources. The other person's gain becomes my loss. And I must become constantly vigilant of my rights and interests, even if that involves the dehumanizing use of torture, preemptive war, or nuclear weapons.

In today's global village we desperately need leaders who are able to speak the language of "all of us" and know how to communicate beyond the vocabulary of "me" or "us." We need leaders who understand a world that does not always agree on the same value systems. I am thankful that pride and self-righteousness do not interfere with your willingness to talk to other world leaders.

And finally, Mr. President, I'm very grateful for your commitment to a budget that is a step toward restoring the value of the common good and addressing what Jim Wallis has called "a sin of biblical proportions:" the growing inequality in America during recent decades. I can almost see you smile in agreement at the end of the century (1999) words of that wise old prophet William Sloan Coffin: "If we Americans aspire to become a more caring people, democracy and multiculturalism will more than survive; they will thrive. In this century we Americans have created a world for some of us; it's time, in the next century, to create one for all of us." Thank you Mr. President for launching us into a time when the building of the beloved community, at least in vision, seems a little less remote. May we do our part in supporting your vision to build this beautiful community that embraces all of us.

Sincerely,

Bob Muth

Tags: Government Accountability