Letter to My Great-Grandsons

Dear Trevor and Dylan,

Since you are leaders, please consider starting a youth movement: KAG (Kids against Guns) by organizing school KAG clubs that parade on schoolgrounds, and invite other schools to join.

Nothing would work better to control the gun mania than to get kids to throw away their toy guns, pile them up for parents to see, and plead with their parents to destroy any guns that they own.

Teens turned the nation around in the 60’s and could do it is 2014….and YOU could start the whole movement.

I have a lot of faith in you.
Love, Pop

Burying Deeds with Dirt

Why do history professors enjoy burying deeds with dirt?

Like branding great heroes by reporting they chased a skirt

Presidents are targets of their biased, cruel , ugly, games                                                         Senators and Reps are losing their earned good names.

Like a jealous dwarf finds pleasure in cutting giants down

The loser likes making an achiever appear as a clown.

Little men whose deeds are nil, relish getting us to sneer

At leaders whose accomplishments they want to smear

Cub reporters loved showing a general’s driver- affair

And one president’s burlesque theater’s balcony chair.

The Peace Corpse is buried in a bedroom of a star of the stage

A debtless nation is eclipsed by the antics of chasing a page.

There is no end to how the great are interred by filthy smut

If one catches and reports  great men kissing, or patting a butt/

Let’s give credit, where credit is due, label those who plant evil seed

Bury the dirt slinger deep, and honor the great for his noble deed.

Let”s esteem those who cut through brush to break new ground

Who suffer rumors, pain, and weariness without a sound.

So professors, please focus our attention thoughts and mind

On hero’s thoughtful achievements which  benefit mankind.

© Roland W. Anderson

The Lewd, Crude, Rude 2012 Election.

TV and admen sure made the airwaves impure

I pray you escaped, or if infected, found a cure

So your vote was thoughtful, helpful and sure.

The phone spoiled each nap with a viral infection

As someone boringly voiced his biased selection

Of some stranger running in the coming election.

It’s all over, but the dirty, stinking stench still lingers.

Diseases carried on checks from billionaire’s fingers

Still poison our nation like hornet’s cruel stingers.

Let’s purify the way we chose leaders of great note

And prohibit money from buying ads and the vote.

To keep our country moving, buoyant and afloat.

© Roland W. Anderson

I need you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watching and reading the daily news filled with stories of deep divisions between people and countries, I have asked myself—Will we ever be able to overcome the chasms that divide us? After giving this a great deal of thought, I believe at least part of the answer lies in the simple recognition that we need each other.

I need you, neighbors in China, India, Japan, Ghana, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, France, Israel, Spain, Syria, Palestine, Australia—and every other country.  I grew up, was educated and have lived my 92 years in the United States of America.  I am proud of its history, accomplishments and its people.  At the same time, we know so little about your particular language, economy, culture and history. I long to learn more about you because I believe you have much to contribute to the family of nations that would enrich us all, and I covet that enrichment for America.  I also believe there is much about our life in the United States that you would appreciate if you knew about it.  I am eager to share and to have you share with me.  I need you.

I need you, Mr. Republican.  I’ve been a Democrat ever since Franklin Roosevelt won me over.  I’m “dyed in the wool,” so to speak.  I am convinced that my religious faith requires that I care about the poor and listen to the ordinary person more than I listen to the rich and important.  I believe Democrats stand for that.   I am equally convinced that your faith has led you to your Republican ideas and view of life.  I’ve been so focused on Democratic ways of thinking that I need to pause and learn from Republicans.  So let us open our minds and hearts to each other.  I need you.

I need you, Ms. Roman Catholic, Mr. Lutheran, Mrs. Pentecostal . . . and Christians of all stripes.  I was reared in a Presbyterian home, graduated from a Presbyterian college and seminary—I’m a Calvinist through and through.  As a youth, I was taught that you are wrong and that my beliefs are right.  As an adult, I want to learn what God has revealed to you.  I am certain that your experience can increase the breadth of my faith, and maybe I have something to contribute to yours.  We will never know this while we are apart.  So let’s get together.  I need you.

I need you, believers who are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Animist . . . and of all faiths.

I suspect you feel the same need for God’s love as do I.  We have so much to learn from each other’s religious beliefs and to learn about each other.  We are starving ourselves when we should be feasting on our knowledge of one another and our mutual efforts to be faithful to God.  Let’s share the sameness and differences—but let’s share.  I need you.

I need you Ms. Atheist, Mrs. Agnostic, Mr. “Disbeliever.”  We have treated each other with suspicion and disdain for too long.  If I discover why you doubt or deny the existence of God, it may make me reexamine my faith.  If you discover why I believe in God, you might reexamine yours.  In either case, it will open our minds to each other and give us a new appreciation for how others view things.  I need you.

My need for knowledge requires that I search for truth—not only as I have learned it, but from others as they have learned it.  I talk a lot because I am eager to share the rich experience of my years.  However, I also listen a lot because I want to feed on the rich experiences of the lives of others.  So I need you!

It sounds idealistic to believe that we will be able to listen to each other when wars continue to divide our world and when the two political parties in the United States build a wall down the aisle of Congress even as my own Presbyterian denomination wages bitter debates over social issues.

Has there ever been a more urgent time than now to put aside our differences in order to gain the benefits available to us from one another’s religious, philosophical and political viewpoints!  I need you.  We need each other!

© Roland W. Anderson

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand why states bordering the Gulf of Mexico

who direly need help after being battered by hurricane rains and wind

elect legislators who fight a strong central government needed to aid it

And the revenues to support it.

I don’t understand why those  suffering from drought

Who need federal funds to assist them

Want to weaken Washington and lower taxes

I don’t understand why our citizens won’t realize

That it is our wars that have caused the huge deficit,

Not our programs to help the needy and secure each citizen.

I don’t understand that Americans blessed with financial success

Do not empathize with those who are not so blessed,

And provide revenues for programs that lift those less fortunate.

Shouldn’t  we support fellow citizens in trouble?

Don’t we need a strong government, functioning for ALL of us?

I love my family and work hard to support it.

I love my country and am willing to work hard to support it

I don’t understand why those who have all the blessings

This nation has to offer

Are so  unwilling to support a larger government for our larger population

And pay their fair share.

I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND.

© Roland W. Anderson

There’s a Difference

There’s a difference

Between a bankrupt nation which attacked another because it’s lust for oil made it greedy

And a country that is financially broke because it cares for, feeds and heals the needy.

Between a  citizenry hell  bent on bowing to, promoting and honoring the wealthy

And one that plans a future by sacrificing to make its children wise and healthy.

There’s a difference.

Between the C.E.O who exploits employees to build his mountain of silver and gold,

And the boss who builds a family of workers who are well paid, praised, and extolled.

Between the swaggering  braggart, who like a Texas cowboy wears a gun on his hip

And citizens marching together to build harmonious peace by buttoning their lip.

There’s a difference

Between the corporation’s impersonal concern as it rushes to grasp it’s financial goals.

And humans with values that view people as breathing, God created, precious souls.

Between the man who tramples broken bodies along the road in his rush to success

And the one who is very aware: stops, lifts, and heals the wounds of the helpless.

There’s a difference

Between distorting the American Constitution by using its principals as road blocks

And discovering its canals to freedom, progress, and growth, when we open the locks.

Between an America that pampers and honors rich barons by making them royalty

And a land of common folks who joyously share its financial burden because of loyalty.

Yes, there is a difference.

© Roland W. Anderson

My Country

My country, ‘tis of thee, for thee I ache.

The court changed  the meaning of our Constitution

“of the people , by the people and for the people”.

 Their  amendment reads:“of the corporations,

by the corporations, and for the corporations.”

Corporation CEO’s loll on deck chairs of their yachts,

While former employees sit, sobbing,  on the curb of their  foreclosed home.

NRA officials  mop up blood from our schools, And Mexican streets,

Clean the rubble from bomb damage  of several nations.

So the world won’t see its evil and give it a true label.

They  cry: “It is not the guns it is the perpetrators”

And gun owners echo their scornful cry,

While families of the victims  weep helpless tears.

American’s lust for drugs   funds  the Taliban and drug cartels,

as well as arming them with weapons made in the USA,

Make users insensitive to responsibity,

 and oblivious to the decaying of America.

Citizens:  let’s disarm these traitors

 and take back our country.

It all starts when sane citizens wake up,

ignore those TV persuasions,

And we use our minds and head for election booths.

If you were persuaded to put foolish faith

 in Norquist. Murdoch and the Kochs

Please  relent , and recover our “Trust in God.”

Let’s replace lobbyist- bought politicians,

With statesmen who want to unite and not divide our nation.

Supply the Court with sage judges,

Who realize the Constitution should not be a dam,

But a highway on which to march forward.

Let’s convince our citizens to holster guns,

And trust safety to officers of the law.

The best gun control is remove them from all potential abusers

Just consider how many youth we could educate,

How we could improve our education institutions,

If we used the billions spent on war and armed forces

To produce the  best leaders again for building world peace.

Let’s urge our youth to put aside their  electronic toys,

And start using science’s discoveries

To make our nation green, and save our world from disaster.

Look deep into your child’s eyes and pledge a better future;

As did our forebears like Jefferson, Madison and Washington.

Citizen:  Let’s take back America.

© Roland W. Anderson

I thought I was smart.

I thought I was smart to continue to smoke

When all evidence said the danger was not a joke.

Now my COPD causes me to cough and hack

‘Til I have hernias and my lungs are black.

Was I smart? Or a fool?

I thought we were smart to use fossil fuel for flame,

Paid no attention to scientists’ warnings and claim.

Now global warning is eroding our lovely existence

Andwe can’t unite man to cause a resistance.

Was I smart? Or a fool?

I thought I was smart to buy, treasure, and own a gun,

And watched NRA convince and buy off everyone,

Including the public, the Congress, and even the Court.

How else would we be such a murderous bloodthirsty sort.

Was I smart? Or a fool?

I believe in the people of this great land,

And the time has come for us to demand

Change, for the good of our country and heirs,

Tell the destroyers: This is our country: not theirs.

Am I smart? Or a fool?

© Roland W. Anderson

The Power of the Vote

Much blood was shed for the right to vote for you and me,

That vote gave birth to, sustained, and preserves our liberty.

It determines whether we flow forward or dam progress,

Our choices for president, judges, and members of Congress.

The vote established benefits like Social Security and Medicare,

And once guaranteed that our laws would for rich or poor, be fair.

It may be your vote that determines the fork in the road we take

So please study each issue and vote the best for our country’s sake.

One vote has the power to maintain or change, to build or raze,.

One vote may overcome the world’s disdain, and regain its praise.

One Supreme Court judge, sitting smugly in his isolated, ivory tower

Overturned the electorate’s choice through one vote’s power.

One vote gave to billionaires’ and corporations rule of our land.

One vote, you treasured vote, could be the one to demand

That our government, “of, by and for the people” be reborn.

Stop being ruled by wealth, pulled apart, twisted and torn.

Your vote could choose those to vote the Court’s folly dead.

Your vote will decide how those who govern move us ahead.

To me, my vote is priceless, I hope each American’s is too.

And I hope your vote, bought by so much sacrifice, is also dear to you

Let’s make November 2012 America’s day of great note

The day you and I take America back with our vote.

© Roland W. Anderson

Doing the Dream

 

It is a wonderful exercise to sit back and dream.

Dreams have few obstacles to dam the stream

Of new ideas and plans that are bold.

I do not mean to criticize, find fault,  nor scold

But dreams can be like a stagnate puddle

If they do not leave the comforting  cuddle.

Great dreams must take on flesh and bone,

Make the blood flow and the muscles groan.

Great dreams call for action: daring and brave,

Climbing new steeps, building a high wave

That sweeps to the future that wise men crave.

A future that won’t be won by dreams that relax

But with hearts dedicated to put dreams to acts.

Let’s not go back to the source of history’s stream,

But move onward to do the dreamer’s dream.

© Roland W. Anderson