As he sits here looking out on the stately River Tree this morning, as winter wanes and spring sticks its proverbial head out, the old codger finds himself thinking about just how fast things change — in our country, in our world and closer to home as well.
Sometimes you feel like puttin’ on your hard hat and hunkerin’ down for incoming. Gets you sweatin’ a little. It’s not all hostile fire, though.
We’re continuing to work with faith groups, including evangelical denominations, the Mormon church, the St. Louis Archdiocese and others, both locally and regionally, to explore how we can work together to encourage a greater awareness of the importance of faith and how it lifts us all up to being more joy-filled, loving, caring and productive human beings and citizens. A tremendous challenge and a tremendous potential blessing.
Thanks to the Missouri/ Kansas Army Recruitment Command, the governor, Wayne Wallingford, Missouri legislative leaders, DESE and — we hope and expect — the collaboration of the leadership of the national Department of Education, we’re moving forward with what will be Missouri and other state Civic Seals of Recognition to encourage civic and ethical awareness and engagement on the part of our young people and their community schools, civic and other organizations, businesses and civically focused citizens.
And, thanks to Rep. Bryant Wolfin, the Republic-Monitor and our local schools, we’re continuing to move forward with plans for a series of bipartisan, issues-related columns and school- and potentially community-based forums to encourage issue awareness and solutions.
Potential topics to explore:
■ The place and potential benefit of ecumenical faith in our society.
■ How we deal with racial and ethnic differences in our society.
■ How we encourage more functional and productive citizenship.
■ How we encourage more accurate and functional information availability for our youth, our citizens and our communities.
■ How we encourage an embrace of health and wellness methodologies and equitable availability of the same.
■ How we encourage accurate information on — and address the economic, social and political imperatives of — climate change.
■ How we maximize the embrace and functionality of citizenship.
Remember that flash fire of “stuff” we all seem to be facing right now? These last few days, the old codger had what can only be called a “come to Jesus” moment that grabbed him by the lapels and bade him to consider:
“Emotion, passion and adrenaline give us direction — but do they lead us to solutions?”
You know how we deal with it, whatever it is? We sit down, and we look at solutions.
Let’s do it.
God bless everyone of us. Please reach out to Kevin, Rob, Bryant or us with your ideas about topics.
In this 250th year of our existence as a nation, it’s well past time that we embrace who we are. We are Americans. We are citizens. We must grab the steering wheel and take charge of our fate.
