Voice of Reason

Over the weekend I worked alone at our place called The Patch. No radio, no TV, no FB. My phone stayed on so I could talk to my bride and text with our kids and friends. But other than that I was isolated and intentionally alone.

This post began to brew over a year ago with the ambush of the police officers in Dallas. But there have been almost daily events since then that have brought the question to my mind over and over. In this time frame our country seems to have hit a new level of hatred and violence and intolerance. On all sides. People hurt, people killed, all sides hate and loath the other side. Rhetoric is gaining vitriol as never before. And the blame is being spread across the entire culture. It simply does not matter which side you are on, you will have some of the blame splashed across you. It's Trump's fault, no it's BLM fault, no it's Alt-right fault, no, no, no.

And in this moment where are the voices of reason? Where are the men and women of higher calling to point us upward and outward? Where are those who will call us to be our best selves? It seems we had some of those in our history.

JFK "If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can make a world safe for diversity." "

MLK "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

Abraham Lincoln "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer "The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves it children."


And as I look back across this list of men with higher expectations I realize that each died at the hands of those who most fiercely hated. Is it our DNA and destiny that we ignore the voices of reason? Is the voice of reason only heard in the aftermath of the destruction? Will we only listen when all else has failed? When we have shed enough blood on both sides? When we have ignored our noble being to destroy those who disagree?

If there was a guarantee that out of the debris of destruction that man's nobler side would emerge, then I would encourage the final destruction so my grandkids and their kids could live in a world where words like mercy, compassion, integrity, moral strength, helpfulness and honor would be the defining words of the culture. Sadly our history does not point to that sort of redemption. Our history points to a continual spiral towards hate and sectarianism, bloodshed and oppression. The good old days were no more forgiving than the new old days.

Perhaps there is not a national stage in which the voice of reason can be heard. No one is listening. So perhaps the voice of reason is spoken quietly, at bedtime into the ears and the minds of those we are chartered to mature. Maybe somewhere in those still moments of bedtime we can whisper the words of wisdom, be the voice of reason in a world gone mad. Frankly, I see no other venue. Schools are a battle zone, churches are politically co-opted, government can no longer govern because of partisanship. Home is the last moment of sanity. And the true moral disgrace is to fill those young heads full of the same hate and bigotry and violence that our culture seems so fond of. Perhaps the voice of reason that I long for is simply my voice, spoken quietly to the ones who will listen.

Godspeed to you young parents. It is my hope and prayer that you will be a stronger voice of reason than my generation ever was.
Don