Enoch’s Thoughts

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, which is generally regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. It ended with the challenge to “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” In commemoration, All Things Considered broadcast an article (here’s a LINK) about four young Americans who responded to Kennedy’s challenge in different ways.

Tuesday the reporter visited Kennedy’s cemetery, and asked a 21-year-old if he thought that those words still have power, and he replied that he thought they did. He said he had heard them repeated multiple times during his school years, and he noted that he was just returning from his sixth trip to New Orleans to help rebuild flood-damaged houses.

When I first heard the article, I did some soul-searching of my own, and I have to admit that I don’t feel the same as I did when I was that age. I know that I have changed, gotten more realistic, perhaps more pessimistic, but it also feels like the country has changed, has become more self-centered. Of course, I must admit that that feeling may just be me.

One conclusion I reached during this self-analysis is that I am a man of small vision. Sometimes I wish it weren’t so, but it seems to be the product of many of my characteristics. Many of those characteristics are positive, but multiplied together they give me a narrow rather than a broad focus.

So my contributions to society over the years have tended to be small, relatively common things. Church tithes and United Way donations, blood and platelets, hoisting and moving and connecting things.

Perhaps I can claim some credit for the fact that my children are very giving, although I suspect most of that came from their Mom, an exemplar of giving if ever there were one. Various of my children have been to Haiti, Peru, or New Orleans to minister and rebuild, and they have have contributed time, effort and blood of their own to people in need. Some are supporting youth sports, and all of them make me proud.

I hope I’m wrong, about myself and the country. I hope we all still ask what we can do for our country, for our fellow citizens, even for the world.

When I got home yesterday, there was a package in the mail, bearing a couple of those rubber wrist bracelets. They were a gift from el Oasis, a Christian-based youth support center in Chile. Years ago we agreed to support a nephew when he moved there to work with disadvantaged youth. Eventually his organization convinced him that, with his experience, he could be even more effective for them supporting and managing workers like himself, so he moved back to the states. But he “handed off” his support to an enthusiastic local worker, and we have continued to support “Frizz” and his work.

That was good timing for the mood I was in. Even though my vision and my support are small, they are enough for Frizz to want to send me a token. I can live with that.