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

Made in the USA

All four of us were pleased when the Officer chose us

To go to the village school and guard the children.

We all had kids at home in the USA

And were the school kids glad to see us?

They cheered when they saw the American flag

And knew they would be safe on the way home.

The other three rushed into the school,

 While I herded students together.

Then

A taxi barreled up and into the school

There was an explosion, the school burst into flame.

Screaming students, bodies  aflame, flew onto the road

Then

A bomb from no where burst fifteen feet away

Among my herded students

Whose limbs were torn from bodies

Blood and guts everywhere

I reached for my rifle and

Then

Another bomb exploded near me,

Knocking helpless me to the ground

My gun,  where was my rifle?

I reached for it,  but my arm would not move

I tried to stand and could not,

My left leg was gone, disappeared.

 There was blood all over me,

Blood and body parts all around me.

But I had to help.

I was commissioned to help.

Again I tried to stand,

Tried?  No, I could move nothing.

But I had to stop the bleeding.

I pulled at my shirt with my good arm

Ripped it apart and looked for some way to cut it.

Oh,  the pain, the blood,

The  paralyzed feeling.

But I must move,

I saw a little boy try to stand

I must help him, he is screaming and scared.

So am I.  And I cannot help him.

Where was some sharp edge to cut up my shirt?

Ah,  only inches from my nose a sharp piece of metal

Part of the bomb that burst near me

I reached out with my one good arm,

Despite the agonizing pain.

It now was hard to breathe,

 I knew I must act before passing out.

Then

I saw the  print on the  metal bomb piece

It was difficult to focus my eyes

I must learn what it says

It perhaps will help me

So I strain and strain to  read it

Then

It came up clear:

Made in the U.S.A.

I groan, I curse, I die.

© Roland W. Anderson

Let’s Stride Forward

The only advantage of looking at what was

Is using it to take the path of what will be.

One looks backward to row a boat forward,

And discerns lessons from yesterday

Helping us to move  wisely ahead  into tomorrow.

The panic that grips so many people today

Makes them fear to take a road ahead.

So they turn back to rutted roads oft’ traveled.

It is a sign of illness to believe  time can be reversed

Time travels only  in one direction: toward the future.

One  self-destructs by forsaking the future for the past.

My past is a catalog of vivid or dim  memories:

Thousands of dear friends and some despised enemies,

A mass of successes and some unhappy failures.

Many days of joy, and some days of sorrow

I am grateful for every remembered incident.

And for every meaningful relationship,

For each was part of my learning.

Each has helped me to step into new experiences

And to plan for future  reaching for achievement.

Just think:  we live in a new environment.

I’ll travel by plane or train not buggy nor stagecoach,

My roses will grow with fertilizer; so,

I do not chase the ice wagon to get the

Steaming manure just left by the horse.

I’ll clean my teeth with an electric brush,

And not have to use cigar ash, potash, but Colgates.

I don’t need to tote a gun to the local bar,

Thank heavens for the computer to write this piece

Rather than to labor with pen and ink.

My chief concern is for our country’s future course.

It is so sad to see many oldsters beguiled,

And young converts bewitched

By believing they  should or could recapture

days of long ago without paying a dear, dear price.

By calling the movement the “Tea Party”

Which masks the public’s knowledge of what it truly is,

Hoping that the name will start a groundswell

Of retreating to live in the old days.

re-adopting eroded outworn ways.

And turning around against the tide of time,

Which inevitably will march into the future.

America’s hope is not to return to the days of yore,

But to heed the pledge of the past guiding our future:

To form a more perfect union of a nation,

whose representatives think and plan the best

 for the people who have elected them

And to obry the call of the future.

To  raise the funds to pay the debts made yesterday

And put us to work building a great tomorrow.

We should not take the backward step of marching in yesterday’s parade.

We must take the forward steps and stride together in tomorrow’s pageant.

© Roland W. Anderson

The Road Best Traveled

I’m tired of being negative about people who are negative.

And finding fault with those who find fault.

I’m fed up complaining about those who say “No”

And trying to shut up those who try to shut me up

I don’t like being on the defensive

Or fending off the offensive

And  allowing others to determine my moods.

It’s no fun  spending my energy on being reactive

Allowing others to bend me into what I am not.

I have priceless beliefs and strong convictions

I believe society is a family affair

That each of us happily depends on others

And that others expect to depend on me.

I believe that living well together is expensive

And I am eager to share my part.

And expect my neighbors to share theirs.

So I want to go on the offensive

What I believe is so important that I want others to hear it

To share it,  to live it,  and proclaim its  value to the world.

I want to spread our light to dispel the present gloom,

To see the scowls disappear and joyous smiles replace them.

But I refuse to close my ears and mind

For answers that I seek may be from another’s brain

And answers that my neighbor’s seek may be in mine.

Can we not listen to each other?

Can we not see the value of another’s thinking?

Can we not allow ideas to unite us rather than separate us?

What made us Americans so reluctant to accept someone else’s values?

What caused us to be so edgy and bristly with each other?

Has the terrorist won by getting us to war against each other;

To distrust each other, and stop honoring each other?

Did 9/11 make us fearful of every  thought  that comes from another?

Surely you are as eager for peace as I.

Certainly you want  better days ahead.

I am as  sure that you want me to hear you

As I yearn for you to listen to me

But I refuse to continue to speak to deaf ears,,

I will not negotiate with some one whose mindset is to say “No”

Or yes.

And I refuse to listen to those with the single agenda

Of unseating a duly elected president

I am eager to hear a remedy for our illnesses.

My heart cries out for those who seek unity

And respect for each other

Which to me, and, I hope to you, is the American way.

Our present course leads to disaster

It’s up to us to take a better road ahead.

© Roland W. Anderson