First of all, for anyone who is saying, “It should be, ‘So shines a good deed in a weary world’!” I’m glad you enjoyed Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Now go read The Merchant of Venice. 😉
Today I began decorating my apartment. I wrapped lights around my balcony and hung a lighted garland around the walls of the living room. After finishing, I sat for a few minutes just to enjoy. There is something about the tiny beams of light piercing the darkness that reaches my soul like no other Sign of Christmas.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light! Isaiah 9:2
Looking at the lights, however, I couldn’t help think of the passing of President George H. W. Bush yesterday and his most famous reference to “A Thousand Points of Light.”
Anyone who knows me knows that I was not a fan of either President Bush. My political leanings are far to the left of his, and I know he suffered further in my estimation from my extreme dislike of his predecessor. I saw his policies as a continuation of the small government, let those in need take care of themselves philosophy, just dressed up in “kinder gentler” language.
But lives prove words, and by the dignity and generosity with which he lived his post-presidential life, staying out of the spotlight except to help others, and actively supporting the current president, no matter the party, have brought me to believe that he did believe in his words. He believed in the importance of individuals coming forward living lives of service and not forgetting their brothers and sisters. I believe that he saw those thousand points of light in his essential belief in the goodness of the American people.
I know this type of eulogy opens me to criticism by those on my side of the street. I know I am softening some ugly realities by focusing on a couple of phrases that were not always matched by his actions (and certainly not the actions of Congress). But none of us are consistent consistently, and taking the man’s life as a whole (at least what we know of it) he was a type of statesman we no longer see.
These words of care and generosity are such a world away from the rhetoric coming from the White House today, where such sentiments would be brutally mocked as unmanly. Will we someday look back at today and see it as a simpler, gentler time? I pray by all that’s holy, not!
There is value sometimes in just being a good person, not an ideologue; in looking out for the feelings of others, rather than mocking political correctness; and trying to find ways to be kind, rather than to win. Of course President Bush didn’t win re-election, and that speaks as highly for him as anything else.
As always, I invite your comments.
Image: Greg’s holiday garland 2019
Bush should be remembered as the man who made the Middle East into the mess it is today –and will be in the future. And you do not mention his frequent groping of women.
I knew that I opened myself to this type of comment with this post, especially with my own positions as a liberal, but I didn’t see this as a discussion of policy or decisions. (With which I disagreed). Rather, I was focusing on a contrast in character and approach to what we have today.
It is my experience that no man in my lifetime has lived up to the presidency, and no president has left the office with his hands clean. I have preferred some to others, but there is a clear contrast between these words and the crass reality in which we live today.