Okay, it’s confession time!
Sometimes it’s pretty hard to know what to write about every week. I have no clue as to how to pay off the
national debt without starving the people, how to lower taxes enough to
stimulate economic growth, how to satisfy the unsatisfiable or to reassure the
cynics (especially the professional cynics).
What I try to do, however, is to ask the right question at the right
time and hopefully get the right answer.
I know and very much admire a preacher who handles
indecision about what to preach in a most forthright way. He makes indecision the topic of his
sermons. Specifically, he writes an open
letter to “the Almighty” about his indecisiveness. His letter addresses all of the blessings,
for which of course he is invariably grateful, and then he tackles the many
outrageous injustices and burdensome misfortunes from which so many people
suffer. By so doing, he has his sermon
and his obligation to worship accomplished in one fell swoop.
Since writing is often therapeutic, I proceed to get the
maximum benefit out of the writing process.
Just as my former pastor Mark prays out loud about his preaching
indecisiveness, as I write, I proceed to wonder out loud, so to speak, about
some of the wonders of both our past and present. Here are some examples:
In his book “Don’t Know Much about History,” historian
Kenneth C. Davis tells us that Paul Revere never made it to Concord to warn the
people that the British were coming. He
and two others, a young doctor named Samuel Prescott and William Dawes made the
ride. (Dawes’ great grandson Charles Gates Dawes would become the first
Director of the Bureau of the Budget in Harding’s administration and go on from
there to become Coolidge’s Vice President and, finally, Hoover’s Ambassador to
Great Britain.)
Revere and Dawes were arrested and held temporarily by the
British, but Dr. Prescott was the one who completed “Paul Revere’s Ride” which
was written nearly a century later by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The real purpose of Longfellow’s poem was to
inspire the volunteers being called up by President Lincoln to patriotically
fight the Civil War. I wonder why Longfellow
made Paul Revere the hero of Sam Prescott’s ride!
How about this ironic historical twist? Thomas Jefferson, father of the Declaration
of Independence, gets all kinds of kudos from conservative “constitutionalists”
for being a “strict constructionist” of the Constitution – the document he had
no part in writing or even influencing.
Yet his greatest presidential achievement was in clear violation of the
Constitution when, as president, he authorized the Louisiana Purchase in
1803. A strict constructionist will tell
you that nowhere in the Constitution is the president granted the power to
purchase foreign territory. Still, he
was Thomas Jefferson, not Barack Obama!
Here’s another one.
In his brilliantly perceptive book “Battle Cry of Freedom,” James
McPherson relates some pretty slick thinking on the part of Abraham Lincoln who,
up until his election, had no administrative experience at any level of
government. Yet, Lincoln had the savvy
to let the South be the aggressors in the Civil War. If Lincoln had pursued the South and had
Congress declare war on the newly declared Confederacy, he would have suggested
to potential allies of the South that the Confederacy was, in fact, a separate
nation. If the Confederacy had been
really slick rather than trigger-happy, they would have been in a better
position to force Lincoln’s hand. Had
they concentrated on building their newly created “nation” rather than firing
on Fort Sumter, they might have built up their industrial capacity with the
profits from their cotton kingdom and thus they would have been in a better
position if the North had attacked them.
Come to think of it, however, much of the leadership of the Confederacy
was made up of West Point graduates. I
suppose they just had to fight!
There’s a wonderful little anecdote about Teddy Roosevelt’s
“purchase” of the Panama Canal, that piece of property that Mr. Reagan insisted
we bought rather than stole from the sovereign northern South American nation
called Columbia. Unhappy over Columbia’s
rejection of the offer we’d made to construct a transoceanic canal in their
northern province of Panama, TR decided to try a different tactic. “Negotiating
with those little creatures in Bogotá is like trying to nail currant jelly
to the wall,” TR supposedly grumbled at one point. So, bombastic Teddy stopped negotiating and
sent the Navy to Panama in November 1903 while he simultaneously recognized
Panama as an independent state from Columbia.
Shortly thereafter, when explaining his actions to the cabinet, he
turned to Attorney General Philander C. Knox and asked if he had made a good case
for our action. “No, Mr. President,”
Knox is said to have responded. “People have been charging you with seduction
in this case and you’ve just convicted yourself of rape!”
Both history and current events provide the reader with a
rich vein of wonderment. To wonder is to
ask and be open to the answer whether or not it fits your original view of
events.
So, that’s what I try to do especially when I’m stuck. A preacher prays, a writer writes. When you’re stuck, ask yourself the kinds of
questions that most readily stimulate your capacity to wonder.
Ask a question that gives you an answer. If it’s the wrong answer, find the right
question!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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