Wow, this has been quite a week for me. Wrapped up a long-deferred music project I was working on, wept a bit at my dear late dad's grave, (this past week being his birthday week) played a little banjo for Lakewood legend Weldon Carpenter's birthday party, ordered all those pesky meds, and then, unfortunately, I ran into a few more heated Lakewood discussions
...and......I also voted by mail.
Of all the things I've done this week, that was about the toughest thing to do.
Oh, NEVER have I been so tempted to let this election pass.
But no, That's not how I work.
In this world, you are either a part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.
You have to rise and engage. The Great Old Book tells us that there is a "time for every purpose under Heaven", and rising and engaging is what we NEED to do, at least while we are here on this earth. This, I do believe. Granted, that there are a number of well-meaning religious sects that wash their hands of civil matters; leaving the kingdom of this world to the rest of us, but while I cannot fault their logic, neither can I find rationale for ignoring the multitude of problems that swirl around us.
Lately, as Lakewood's resident so-called "peace-making banjo player", I've sometimes been accused of being too silent on current issues, especially lately, or even worse, being a "peace-at-any-price" kind of guy.
Uh, uh. That's not me. Never was.
While I can see why some people could come to that conclusion, it's just not that simple for me. There are a couple of long-ago formed reasons for my pacific behaviors, I suppose. First of all, being an educator, I've never been real comfortable with pushing my political or religious opinions on others. (so for that reason, don't expect a particular endorsement here from me, unless you're good at reading between my lines...)
Then too, there is my innate philosophical yearning for pursuing conflict resolution. I try, much as the Quakers like to say, to see "that of God" in everyone, or, in terms of Eastern metaphysics, being perhaps like the Yin Yang; seeing a bit of bad in the good, and a bit of good in the bad. Still, the lion and the lamb never did lie down together in the Bible, or anywhere else, for that matter, or as my former pastor put it so well: They might one day do so, but if they do, only one of them will get back up!
There have indeed been other times in my life where compromise with evil was simply not possible. "Fight or flee" then becomes the reality, and fight, I did. I have never EVER backed down when it counted, and that includes being silent in the face of evil.
In the past few months, I have had several terrible personal confrontations regarding this whole Lakewood "war". These were with friends (and former) friends. To date, two of those confrontations are essentially unresolved and quite frankly, might never be, so while you might not have heard too much from me publicly, I can assure you that my private life has not been above and beyond Lakewood's woes.
I continue to be deeply disturbed and absolutely fed up with what has happened to our community. The lack of a visible end game, the lack of community engagement, and a strong inner feeling that there is more to the story here tears at my rational thought processes.
More than all of this has been the alienation of former acquaintances, at a time where friends and acquaintances are perhaps more important than ever.
So for whatever all of this may worth to you, I'll just offer a few "observations" of my own here.
1) Thank you Jim O'Bryan for your civic leadership generally, and for your community involvement, particularly. You have made us all very comfortable at times, and very uncomfortable, at other times. That's EXACTLY what the free press should do. We have agreed and disagreed, and that's all good too. What should never be forgotten is what a groundbreaking asset to Lakewood that this Observation Deck forum and paper has been for all of us. At a time when many community papers were closing around the country, offering an opportunity for all of us to make a public contribution has been an invaluable gift
On a personal level, I want thank you publicly Jim; for your kindness to my family, and for your patience in allowing me and so many others to express ourselves in discussing the pulse of this city in our own words.
2) Once and for all, each of us needs to continue to RISE AND ENGAGE and face down this awful civic conflict that has come between all of us, but we need to do so honestly and fairly too.
There are certainly well-meaning people on many sides of Lakewood's many controversies, but all too often, emotions have trumped the facts. We need to focus on what is factual in our quest for more answers, and there still are, (to my mind at least) simply too many unanswered questions remaining before this whole Lakewood debacle can finally be laid to rest.
We need to continue to pursue answers to these questions relentlessly. At the same time, we need to be scrupulously honorable in our pursuit of factual accountability. We must never succumb to a sensationalist or mob mentality.
The Rule of Law must be trusted to prevail.
Let the story therefore unfold and be told.
At the same time, I will be forever reluctant to RISE AND ENRAGE. Some people really go for the negative political attack ads, name-calling, innuendo and stuff like that. I was totally put off, for example, by bringing up that Kucinich/Assad photo. The good Congressman is, after all, a peacemaker, very much like I aspire to be. The very words of Jesus called peacemakers "blessed", and that's good enough for this banjo player.
By the way, if some of you wanted my vote, you didn't get it by negativity.
Please VOTE. ADVOCATE. SPEAK OUT.
Rise and engage. Just don't rise and enrage.
FWIW
Back to the banjo...