My wife, Diane, suggested that I write about the word, "Resolve". I was intrigued. This is a word of great strength. It is a voice of the determination of the strongest backbone: it can also be a word of great patience - the kind of patience required to understand humanity, or resolve a conflict; and finally, it can mean the intellect and emotional strength needed to untangle and make clear complex situations.
It describes the kind of solid strength, wisdom and temperament that we human beings need - in order to be as positive, as resourceful, as productive , and as happy - and as caring toward our fellow traveler whether they are biological family, extended family of friends, or more important, those who are different from us whether that is in complexion, thought, values, words, or deeds.
We have to go beyond our own individual wishes and needs to those events, ideas and realities that call for the greater good for our fellow human beings, our country, and our planet. No longer will the annual New Years Resolution with a half life of three days get the job done.
Unlike the New Years Resolution, none of the definitions for the word "resolve" can be listed and announced as an "I am going to do list" just because that is what is expected at New Years by tradition.
Building ideas around the depth of meaning of the word "resolve" is more complicated than that. It requires first a start on initiatives by tapping into our inner strength to measure our depth of intention and commitment. So we will know the strength of our resolve.
Resolve builds in that quite place with in each of us where love rules, faith resides, purpose calls out, and thoughts reside and from where first ideas rise to the surface, sometimes scary, but none the less, doable ideas.
To paraphrase the 53 year old hymn of Jackson and Miller "Let there be Resolve on earth and let it spread to me and you."
I want to resolve to have the resolve to do my job as a citizen of this democracy where President Lincoln made it clear that "It is a government of the people, by the people and for the people."
Iwant to resolve that my job is not over when I cast my ballot, but that I have to take the initiative to write letters to my governement representatives and tell them what I want them to do, or not to do, in the course of governance.
Should I feel the passion of opposition about what my representatives have voted to be done, then I must go forward and try to change that outcome through using the process of good government and exercising my rights and my responsibilities as a citizen of the Government.
I resolve to no longer sit silently by as my nation's government enters a back door to war. I resolve to no longer agree with my representatives spending more money on the destruction of human life than they spend on improving the quality of human life.
I want them and us starting with me - to provide the resources to seek the knowledge that will lead to good health and well being of all people everywhere.
I want our government and us starting with me - to resolve to provide needed resources to temper life's daily challenges and the fears that large numbers of children and young adults face living here in America.
The dialy life challenge and fear these young people and children start each day with is of starvation, freezing cold, being shot or dying from disease. Here, in this country. There are more than 1.3 million children who are homeless some part of every year. This is not some where out of sight in a distant third world country. Its right here; some are likely only a few miles from here.
On any given day there are 200 thousand children homeless in this nation. Families with children are the fastest growing segment of homeless people. More than 42% of these are children under six years old (according to the National Center on Homeless families).
I want the resolve to use my constitutional duty and right as a citizen to work to channel money away from war and to maximize the opportunity to solve national problems lilke this.
I believe that only when we work as a world society toward the idea of conquering and preventing killer and crippler diseases, ending malnutrition and replacing despair with hope , by providing excellent optimum educational opporutnities which all people deserve for the strength and sanctity of human life.
Only then, will we begin to slow the habit of warring and eventually - maybe - in some great and future time to come - we will war no more.
Think about the people in your life; then consider the fact that at our DNA level you are more than 99% alike, actually about 99.8% the same.
It is this tiny fraction of difference between us that makes us unique. It is this fraction that affects the color of our eyes, hair and skin. It is this tiny fraction of difference that influences our risk for disease and our response to drugs.
Our genes also are likely to contribute to some of the ways we feel, think and act. But keep in mind genome scientists say that many other things, such as how you were raised and your access to medical care can influence your behavior and your health.
To my mind it is these differences, even though they may be small, that make each of us unique individuals and as members of society - interesting, and for the most part, endearing.
Never-the-less, this small difference is what sometimes requires us to use the most patient form of resolve to understand humanity and often to resolve our personal conflict with ideas and views that are different from our own.
My paternal grandfather was a congenial man, with the fine Irish trademark of humor and kindness. Yet, I know that in the late 1800s he and hs three brothers stopped for the night in a rooming house in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
His brothers walked on ahead uptown to a cafe. And, before my grandfather could join them, a mob of some size caught him and he was tarred and feathered, then ridden out of town on a rail. His difference was he had an Irish accent.
He told me that he should not have stopped because the sign outside of town where the mob dropped him said, "Irish Catholics don't let the sun set on your head in this town."
In my own youth I saw signs that said "Negroes, don't let the sun set on your head in this town." And these signs were not always just in the south.
Five years or so ago a friend of mine was beaten severely in a very cosmopolitan city before he could enter the hotel where he and his long time partner were staying, just because he was a gay man.
Perhaps it is because I have a number of close, good friends, many for 40 years or more, and some are Irish, some are black, some are gay or lesbian couples; I have a number of Yankee friends and yes, a few southern gentlemen of a differnt culture. Many have children.
I have found them to be good neighbors and cherished friends. All of whom love with their degree of passion, strength, gentleness and depth.
When touched by grief that we all encounter they all suffer the universal anguish such occasions provoke. These are very good people.
This is where I need the patience form of the word "resolve" to try to understand the likes of those people who attacked my grandfather and the others who beat my friend because he was gay.
I don't think I have the patience urged by the word resolve to truly understand those who react to differences and conflict with at best , disrespect, and far too often violence.
Jesus was a victim of this disrespect and violence and still it continues these 2000 plus years later.
Jesus was a man who could take the word "resolve" as his cloak. He certainly was a rebel for his times. He broke the traditional culture when he threw the money lenders from the temple. An act which required great strength of backbone.
He talked with people he was not supposed to talk with, like the woman at the well. He welcomed all who came into his presence with love and respect. Jesus' admonishment to "Love they neighbor as they self" was his greatest commandment, theologians say.
He carried a message of peace and love. He had the resolve of patience to understand humanity and he worked to resolve conflict. He certainly was no weakling; he had the resolve to be different, to lead to face his own horrific death.
He was a leader without visible portfolio. He pointed to new directions for harmony and a better life for human kind. He charged us all with the responsibility to carry on his message. To change the world to a better place, a place of peace and the many faces of love.
We can each begin to change the world starting this minute by focusing more on our common humanity rather than on our differences. Certainly there is much to do. There are many large wheels to be turned to bring about positive changes to a more humanitarian world.
Each of us can decide which if any, of these wheels we want to put our should into. Perhaps it is none of existing wheels. It may be another wheel of our own design. But, right this moment we can resolve to carry forward the good feeling we get in the quiet time from the place deep inside each of us and those good feelings we receive from the companionship of friends and to pass those feelings on to those we meet just by reaching out, with a hand, a smile and a caring "how-do-you-do?"
Bradie Metheny