Nothing new here

I got nothing new today, really. The best I can do is repeat myself. On the other hand, my same old, same old does bear repeating.

• H.L. Mencken summed up politicians of all stripes through the ages more than a century ago with his oft-repeated quote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

The political class and advertisers are taught to frighten as many people as they can, then present themselves or their product as the solution. When you feel afraid, my best advice is to consider why the speaker wants you scared, then refuse to let your fear guide your decisions.

• Sometimes you just have to pet your pet until you are unspeakably calm again.

• Jesus was asked what the most important law was, and he answered with two: Love God and love your neighbors. Yes, I said that yesterday, and I would repeat it daily until you’re bored and it sinks in, whichever comes first.

Darkness wants us scared and angry and suspicious of each other. Light shows us our common humanity. Darkness gives you the thought, “Yes, we have a common humanity but you don’t understand!” Light shows us how much we have to learn before we, ourselves, truly understand.

Sunrise comes later every day, and sunset comes earlier, this time of year. We have six weeks or more of this before the days start getting longer again, but make no mistake, it won’t be long before the light begins to conquer the darkness again. It’s always that way, and this winter will be no different.

The guy who wrote Ecclesiastes said there’s nothing new under the sun, and there’s nothing new in this blog post. I’m praying that maybe this time it sinks in.

Happy Non-Election Day

Every two years, Wisconsin has a wonderful first Tuesday in November in which there is no election. Although there are monster elections elsewhere, as in New Jersey and Virginia, Badgers get to stay home today.

Although I have never gone as far as my late lamented friend-I-never-met Wally Conger, who refrained from voting altogether, I tend to agree with him that voting is a futile exercise that “only encourages the bastards,” in that it lends an air of legitimacy to the corrupt enterprise responsible for most of the misery rampant in the world, most significantly the horror of war.

Freedom does not depend on choosing the right ruler — no political leader cares about you or your loved ones anywhere near as much as you do. A friend I see in the mirror regularly once wrote, “Freedom means understanding that I am the boss of me.”

One man I gladly cast a ballot for, Lee Sherman Dreyfus, once said, “Government should defend our shores, deliver the mail and leave us the hell alone,” and that’s where I stand most days. I can think of no task that government assumes that the rest of us couldn’t do better and more efficiently. Any politician who wants my vote needs to be committed to liberty and ending war — as a result, very few politicians earn my vote.

My ideal world would be one where we all voluntarily buy into what Jesus called the two greatest commandments — Love God and love your neighbors, understanding that by “neighbors” we mean every human being on this speck of dust in the universe.

Alas, it is not an ideal world, but I for one do buy into those two laws, and my soul has been more at peace ever since I made that decision. Therefore, I heartily commend the idea for your consideration.

In the meantime, I plan to very much enjoy this bi-annual Non-Election Day.

Day Five

And then there’s Friday — TGIF, the herald of the weekend for those on traditional work weeks, the day when we kick into high gear to finish what had to be done over these five days.

Zig Ziglar talked about tapping into the energy that gets things done on the last day before vacation begins. Imagine if we act every day as if there was a well-deserved one- or two-week break waiting at the end of the line. Imagine if we live like we’re dying.

Fridays are the last day before a two-day mini-vacation, so they’re sort of like that.

There is also a sense of regret, because if we had applied this end-of-week earnestness every day, more would be done by Friday, but bygones are bygones and so we do what we can today.

And at the end of the day lies the weekend. Five days into this seven-day cycle, we give ourselves a little unstructured time. Is that a fair trade — five days of effort in exchange for two days of rest? Probably not; that’s why people tell you to find a job that you love so you’re never actually “working” in the sense of work being something you’d rather not endure.

But enough talk about work and getting things done. It’s Friday — time to relax and get busy with so much stuff that you’ll need to go back to work Monday to get any rest.

Day Four

There was a time when I thought of Thursday as the most challenging day of the week. The Monday energy and momentum was all but dissipated, and it wasn’t Friday yet so the weekend still seemed far away.

Even this series of encouragements starts to feel lame. Monday was the “first day of the rest of your life,” and here we are on the fourth day of that journey, and where are we? Four days in, probably not that far along the way — I mean, we’re talking the rest of your life here, which is hopefully a long time ahead.

Yeah, I can’t think of much to say about Thursday. On the other hand — totally random thought here — Sept. 8, 1966, was a Thursday, and that night an ambitious little TV show called Star Trek premiered, and from that Thursday evening first step came a pop culture phenomenon that continues to this day.

Yeah, Thursday is not the most glamorous day of the week, but big things can happen even on a Thursday.

Day Three

And then suddenly it’s Hump Day and you’re in the middle of the week, and a vague sense of panic drifts in, because you don’t feel like you’ll be halfway through the week’s tasks by noon, which is time’s halfway point.

Feel free to be comforted by the fact that you started, and see how far you’ve come, even if your dream was more grandiose than this. It’s more than nothing, isn’t it?

And if Day Three has arrived and you still haven’t started, well, then, you can start now.

The end of the world will indeed come someday. Everything has an expiration date. All things must pass. If today is the third day of the rest of your life, you are 24 hours closer to the end. That does lead a sense of urgency to everything.

No need to panic, though. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” In the meantime, you can rest assured that tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, will come, and there’s every reason to believe you will have the time that perhaps you should have taken yesterday.

Yes, time will run out one of these days, but it is a waste of time crying over wasted time. That’s the very definition of a vicious circle.

Even if the weekend comes and not enough of your Monday vision was executed, guess what? Here comes another Monday. Most “drop dead deadlines” are not literal.

This is not a reassurance so that you can waste another minute. After all, if you have a firm end-of-business-Friday deadline, you now have three days to do five days of work, for example.

But end of business Friday is only end of business Friday, and life will go on after that. You can resolve here to do those five days of work over the next three days, and you can also resolve here to do better next time. We learn.

Day Two

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.

When you sit down and motivate yourself with the old mantra, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” intending to turn a corner and make a new path, sometimes you end up with the same old, same old anyway.

Don’t despair. Just decide that today is the second day of the rest of your life, and go on and do all the stuff you meant to do on that first day.

Just because you didn’t work miracles on the first day doesn’t mean there are no miracles to be worked. Go for it.

The Gift of All We Need

There once was a girl from Nantucket who wondered what might lie outside the city limits. What she found there astonished her no end.

“There is a world here beyond what I thought were limits,” she said to herself. “My goodness, there are not even any barriers here to define what limits there might be, because there are no limits at all. I have only scratched the surface of who I am and who I can be.”

For she saw that she already was all she needed to be to thrive in this world. She needed to learn some skills and hone others, but the Lord had already equipped her, much as He had all of us. The Creator does not build junk, although we are certainly more than capable of trashing it with abuse and neglect.

“I leave my imaginary limits behind,” the girl said. “This is the day the Lord has made and given to us. This is the earthly vessel — mind, heart and soul — that the Lord has given to me. Let us rejoice and be glad. Let us see where these gifts may bear us.”