Valerie Hess

As we enter another major election cycle, I call on my fellow Americans to rise above petty politics and a sense of entitlement, and to become strong for the sake of themselves, those who depend on them, and their nation. To that end, I offer the following creed and commitments:

1. BE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE. Learn to save 10% or more of your income. Plan for the future: retirement, health issues, educational needs. Focus on experiences with those you love and not accumulating more things. Get out of debt. Debt is not good for individuals or governments.

2. BE A GOOD CITIZEN. Pay your taxes. While it is good and right to use all legitimate deductions, do not seek to find spurious loopholes. If we as citizens don’t pay for the services we expect, we have no right to them. Vote. If you don’t like the ways things are happening in government, work constructively with others to change it.

3. GET HEALTHY. This includes eating nutritiously and appropriate amounts, exercising regularly, not smoking or using recreational drugs, abusing alcohol or prescription drugs, and having a good attitude. Have friends, be connected to your neighbors, to your family, to a faith community or larger organization that challenges you to be your best. Don’t expect “the system” to take care of you if you haven’t taken care of yourself first.

4. BECOME EDUCATED. Go to school for as long as you can. When you are finished with your formal education or technical training, continue to read. Limit TV and Internet time. Strengthen your mind by learning new things, traveling as you are able, embracing new people, foods, and ideas.

5. WORK. The world does not owe you a living. If you are able-bodied and on welfare, seek vocational training and get a job. You were born to contribute in creative ways. If you have a job, do it honestly and with integrity, in a balanced and sustainable fashion.

6. VOLUNTEER. We need to remember John F. Kennedy’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.” Find a way to give monetarily and/or time-wise to causes and people that inspire you and need your help.

7. PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT. Polluting out water, soil, and air will only come back to harm us. It already is. Plant a garden, even if it is in a pot in a window sill. Don’t litter. Recycle. Don’t waste water. Don’t drive your car unnecessarily; take public transportation or walk or bike (see #3).

8. BUY LOCAL AND AMERICAN MADE.  When possible, get your food from a source under 100 miles away from your home. Support local businesses and American-made products when you can.

9. PROTECT THE NEXT GENERATION. Children are the future. They need to be protected and cared for. Speak out against abuse and domestic violence. Find ways to help a child in need in your neighborhood.

10. WORSHIP SOMETHING BIGGER THAN YOURSELF. Whether you are religious or not, find something bigger than you are and commit to its guiding principles. Join with like-minded people and challenge each other to be the best possible version of who each of you are. Live in such a way that the fruit of your life will continue after your death. Make each moment count.

I offer these as a way to get this country back on its feet and moving forward in a positive direction again.

Reading Wil Hernandez’ new book on Nouwen has inspired me to focus more on people. Nouwen was known for his ability to focus on people. It is so easy to be distracted by things going on around us while we are talking to others. An experiment is to keep eye contact and listening focus on someone no matter what other things are going on around. Even if it is just a short conversation, give the person in front of you your complete attention. I know for me, this will take practice and training.

One of the things that we could all do very easily is pray for those who will be born today and those who will die today. This could be a way to serve people all over the world, offering newborns and the dying up to God for God’s care and compassion. It is a way for us to love our neighbors.

I just had a blog go live here on this topic.   http://msfl.arbor.edu/blogs/  Let me know what you think!

http://conversationsjournal.com/2012/04/welcoming-the-darkness/ This link has a couple of reflection questions below the text, which I have reprinted below for convenience:

Welcoming the stranger. I hear that and instantly think of inviting people over, opening the door to angels. Those are good and important things to do. However, as we come through Lent into Easter, a seven week season of rejoicing in Christ’s defeat of the most dreaded stranger ever, death, I have learned that I am a stranger to myself in so many ways.

What is it like to welcome myself? Many writers, past and present, talk about the dark recesses of the soul where things reside that are hard for a life-long Christ-follower to admit are there. Anger, jealousy, rage, envy, greed, gluttony, vainglory, pride: a veritable laundry list of sins reside deep in my soul. I try very hard not to get to know those foul residents, to keep them as strangers. They are forgiven and cleansed in the blood of the Lamb, I remind myself; therefore, I do not have to have anything to do with them, like a bad neighbor, I can justify ignoring. Or the old ostrich idea that if I put my head in the sand, then maybe all that gunk really isn’t there.

Not.

I am learning slowly—oh so slowly—that I need to embrace these foul residents of my interior life. Like Mother Teresa scooping desperation out of the gutters of Calcutta, I need to invite these wretched aspects of myself in. I need to face them, ask them who they are and where they come from. I need to hear from them what there is to learn from their presence in my life.

For example, anger was such a necessary protector in childhood. It kept me from greater evil. Yet, I am no longer a child. Just as I no longer get out the Barbie dolls which are still in the closet, I don’t need to get my anger out to use as a weapon of defense any more.

Or greed. I needed to hang on to material things because I was trying to hang on to myself. Inviting greed in to chat helps me see the depth of my pain and the wound that needs help and healing. I learn that Jesus is holding on to me; I don’t have to try to do it all by myself.

As I learn to welcome these dark elements in my soul, I find that I am also more able to welcome Jesus and his love, something that has been a stranger to me in functional ways. In the welcoming of Jesus’ love, I become less of a stranger to myself. I walk through each day more at peace internally and externally, more at home in my own essential being, and therefore able to be more welcoming to others.