On the way to looking something up the other day, I ran into something else equally as interesting, almost serendipitous. Looking up some information on the Christian ‘7 Deadly Sins’, I stumbled onto what Gandhi considered his version of the same. Intrigued, I decided to take a detour and see what the little man had to say, after all, being raised Christian only gives you the view from one side of the mountain. As youngsters in a Catholic/Christian upbringing being taught the fear of God by our nuns and priests, we were all too familiar with the ‘7 Sins’ as well as the ‘7 Godly Virtues.’ I must admit I had failed to remember Gandhi’s version but, I imagine, that they ring as true today as they did back in the 1940s when he first shared them with the world: Wealth without work. Politics without principle. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Knowledge without character. Worship without sacrifice. Pleasure without conscience. Some pretty heady stuff, yes? And, as timely today as they were almost seventy years hence.
We are sitting on a mountain of problems in this country at present and no one, NO ONE, seems to want to do anything about them. Everyone who has the power to do anything about any of this just runs around in circles pointing their collective fingers at everyone else. Democrats vs. Republicans. Conservative vs. Liberal. Business vs. Working class. And everybody waits. We wait for the next election, maybe a mid-term election. In the fall, we wait for spring or better yet, let’s wait for summer, things are always better in the summer. And we wait. And we wait. No wonder nothing gets done. We’re all too busy waiting. Most of the problems that we now face are monetary in nature, but the political climate must be changed before we can start to fix the business end. In the past, in every state capitol and even in our nation’s capitol, at the end of the day, everyone sat down with everyone else and had drinks and dinner. What happened to those days? Somewhere, something seems to have changed and not necessarily for the better and WE are paying the price for it. Not the politicians. Not labor or business. It’s US. In the U.S. of A.
Back in the day, we had people who looked out for their countrymen- we used to call them ‘statesmen.’ Now, that word seems old-fashioned. But, these were the folks who looked out for the next generation, these were the people who did what was best for the country, these were the people who tried to produce a certain moral character in the population at-large and get people together for the good of the country; leaders like Paul Douglas, Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen and Howard Baker, to name a few. What we have to do is put aside our petty differences and do what must be done for the good of our country. And, if we take the lead, then the rest of the world will follow and then we can get back to the business of living our lives in peace and harmony, which is the way the ‘Great Statesman’ upstairs would probably like to see things.
At least, that’s the way I see it. MLProko ©2010 www.mikeproko.com
Life In America 