So much has happened since my last blog post in December!  

I had been planning on doing one in January but wanted to wait until after the Inauguration and then life got busy and we had a death in the family right at the end of the month and here I am a week into February.  

But I’ve always said, my goal is quality, not quantity, and there’s no blog police that are going to fine me for not having done one a month every single month. 

Long term I still have, and will always have, a deep and abiding faith in the resilience and innate goodness of the American people and our collective love and appreciation for democracy, the rule of law, and the desire as a people to have a positive impact on the world around us.

In the short term however, it is apparent that we as a nation and the world at large will have to endure the worst instincts of the worst of us, if for no other reason than because elections have consequences, and a nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.  

The frenetic volume of consequential and concerning changes being made during the first few weeks of the second Trump administration remind me of LBJ’s conversation with Governor Wallace decades ago.

He asked Governor Wallace what he wanted to be remembered as, someone who built something, or someone who hated.  The easiest thing in the world to do is to tear down the work of others, to be the critic.  What’s much harder is to build something of value that endures.  

Another thing I have been thinking about in recent days is the words of Mohandas Gandhi who said “whenever I despair about the state of the world I remember that the way of truth and love has always won.  There have always been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall.  Think of it, always.”

I also think of Edward R Murrow’s statement that “we must remember that we are not descended from fearful men, that no one man can terrorize an entire nation unless we let him”.  

There are many questions before all of us in this time of testing.  The next 2 years will show us yet again what our fellow countrymen and women value when the midterm elections take place.  

But will it?  

When 89 million voters chose not to vote at all, which is more than either presidential candidate got (77 & 75 million respectively), that should be a massive wakeup call for anyone who cares about the future of our nation.  

A few years ago I did an op-ed entitled “Apathy is How Democracy Dies”, and a few years before that I did an op-ed that said the 21st century will be an Independent century, and I have seen nothing since then to make me second guess my views on either of those two points.  

We are 25% of the way into this new century, and as typically happens, the early years of a century are still being formed and molded by leaders shaped by the prior century.

Within the next 15 years we will start to see those who were born in or came of age in the 21st century start to take wider control of our society, and only then will the full story of this century begin to be written, just as the Greatest Generation was the determining factor in the middle of the 20th century and for decades to come after that.  

For 10 years now I have been telling everyone that my mindset for getting involved with nonpartisan reform efforts was as a father, to try and do what I could to fix our system of government so my child and her generation didn’t have to.  

While there have been definite bright spots nationwide from Alaska to New York City over these last 10 years, it is clear to me now that my goal, however noble, will not be achieved before my kid has to vote for the first time in 18 months.  

My new mindset is that she and her generation will get to be a part of helping to change it all for the better. 

I just hope it will be sooner rather than later so I too can enjoy the ability to actively vote FOR someone instead of having to continue to pick the lesser of two evils as I’ve had to do for the first 30 years of my voting life.  

Speaking of my kid, she likes to tease me about how much I like trains (my family has an old Lionel train set from the 1950’s), but it got me to thinking this last month about a metaphor involving trains.  

Imagine for a moment that America is like a big train station, and at the station right now are two trains, a Democratic train and a Republican train, but both look pretty gruesome for different reasons and an objective bystander would have serious questions about whether either of them could get to the final destination of that bright shining city on a hill that Reagan spoke of.  

There’s a third train under construction nearby, nicer and way more advanced than either of the other two trains, but it’s obscured from view and the people in the train station can’t see it.  So as a result a lot of them get onto each of the D and R trains, even though they have concerns.  

That new train, as amazing as it will be, is worthless if the people don’t know about it, and a moot point if most of the people in the train station aren’t even wanting to ride a train (ie the 89 million who didn’t even vote in 2024).  

For the last 10 years I’ve been a small piece of trying to help build that better train, and incentivize the D and R trains to re-tool and make better versions of themselves to compete with the new train, but it has become clear to me that not enough people are working on the apathy issue of those who don’t want to ride any train at all.  

In my last blog post I shared the prayer that Eleanor Roosevelt carried with her during World War 2, of making sure one is living a life worth dying for.  

In order to be able to live with myself over the next 4 years while I continue with my primary obligation of being a stay at home parent for my child as she finishes high school and goes to college, in my spare time I will be focusing on trying to do what I can to reduce the apathy in our country.  I invite you to join me, because I certainly cannot do it alone.   

Finally, I want to leave you with a poem called The Clattering Train that was a favorite of Winston Churchill’s, that was first published in 1890 after a deadly train accident where the engineer had fallen asleep, and that he recited in the House of Commons in 1935.

Churchill used it as a metaphor to warn of impending war. For me I use it as a warning about the continued negative effects of apathy in our voting populace.

Who is in charge of the clattering train? 

The axles creak, and the couplings strain. 

Ten minutes behind at the Junction. Yes! 

And we’re twenty now to the bad—no less! 

At every mile we a minute must gain! 

Who is in charge of the clattering train? 

Why, flesh and blood, as a matter of course! 

You may talk of iron, and prate of force; 

But, after all, and do what you can…. 

Man is in charge of the thundering train! 

Man, in the shape of a modest chap 

In fustian trousers and greasy cap; 

A trifle stolid, and something gruff, 

Yet, though unpolished, of sturdy stuff…. 

Only a Man, but away at his back, 

In a dozen cars, on the steely track, 

A hundred passengers place their trust 

In this fellow of fustian, grease, and dust…. 

The hiss of steam-spurts athwart the dark. 

Lull them to confident drowsiness. Hark! 

What is that sound? ‘Tis the stertorous breath 

Of a slumbering man—and it smacks of death! 

Full sixteen hours of continuous toil 

Midst the fume of sulphur, the reek of oil, 

Have told their tale on the man’s tired brain, 

And Death is in charge of the clattering train! 

Those poppy-fingers his head incline 

Lower, lower, in slumber’s trance; 

The shadows fleet, and the gas-gleams dance 

Faster, faster in mazy flight, 

As the, with sleep-sealed eyes, 

Prone and helpless a log he lies! 

A hundred hearts beat placidly on, 

Unwitting they that their warder’s gone; 

A hundred lips are babbling blithe, 

Some seconds hence they in pain may writhe. 

For the pace is hot, and the points are near, 

And Sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear; 

And signals flash through the night in vain. 

Death is in charge of the clattering train! 

Am I living a life that is worth another American dying for it?  

It’s a heavy question I’ve never considered in that exact way before in my 48 years of life. 

Yet it’s a question that has stayed with me for several weeks since I saw it in a poem at Pearl Harbor Hawaii.  

There is a large wall plaque along the water that is inscribed with a poem that Eleanor Roosevelt carried with her every day during World War 2.  It reads: 

“Dear Lord, lest I continue my complacent way, help me to remember, somehow out there, a man died for me today.  As long as there be war, then I must ask and answer, am I worth dying for?”

If you know me, you know I’m someone who has had a lifelong reverence for our servicemen and women, who is guided by that reverence and tries to honor their sacrifices in my daily life.  

I was also raised Catholic and had it drilled into my brain that Jesus died for all of us, but up until I saw that plaque at Pearl Harbor, the other version I had thought most about the last 25 years was Tom Hanks’ line at the end of Saving Private Ryan. 

His character tells Matt Damon’s Private Ryan with his dying words to “earn this”, and decades later a much older Ryan asks his wife in the Normandy cemetery to tell him that he’s a good man, that he’s lived a good life.  

Of course it should not matter whether or not our country is actively at war or not before we start to think daily about the sacrifices others have gone through for us, but the point is clear…none of us have accomplished anything in life without the contributions of countless others, many of which occurred long before we were born.   

Each and every one of us truly stands on the shoulders of heroes, from our parents, to our teachers, our friends, our relatives, to our men and women in uniform, to strangers on the streets.  

Pay it forward. Be a good human. Contribute positively to society. Leave this blue marble better than you found it.

In this month where so many are celebrating holidays that bring out the best in humanity, peace on earth, and good will toward all, I cannot help but wish that I could get everyone to think even deeper and ask themselves if the rest of the year they are living a life worth dying for.  

And maybe, as the Stevie Wonder song says, some day at Christmas we will not fail, hate and fear will be gone, and love will prevail.

We are less than 48 hours removed from not just another consequential election, but perhaps the most consequential election in our 248 year American experiment with self government.

A clear majority of those citizens who chose to care enough to exercise their most sacred societal duty have decided, whether they know it or not, to send a message back in time to our founding generation that they are not concerned about checks and balances, moral decency, logical reasonings, or those pesky things called facts.

As President Lincoln so aptly put it– “If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and reassert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.” 

Our nation was born in the Age of Reason, but we now live in the Age of Emotion.  So what do we do, those of us who will not abandon logic to embrace lies, who will not trade facts for fear, who will not sell our honor to service hate?

We will do what we have always done.  We will take time to process the loss, gather ourselves, dust ourselves off, and continue our efforts to be the change we wish to see.  For the battle between darkness and light will be with us for as long as humans walk this earth, and while defeats will happen, we shall never surrender.  

Yesterday I mourned and grieved as if there was a death in the family, and there was.  The America I thought I knew had perished.  Maybe it never existed outside of my heart and my mind.  Maybe it never will exist in my lifetime. But I want it to. I need it to.

I do not yet know what the final shape or form will be of my efforts on behalf of the cause over the next 4 years, but I do know what we need:  

We need everyone to not lose heart, to not lose faith

We need empathy, even for those we disagree with

We need resolve, to never forget that our cause is just

We need to trust, that while the arc of the moral universe is long, that it bends towards justice

We need people of good will towards all to keep running for elective offices from sea to shining sea, even if they lose, because our kids are watching

We need to continue our efforts to educate and inform our fellow citizens about the many nonpartisan reforms that will get us all better candidates, and that the sooner we pass them, the faster all of the issues we all might care about can be truly fixed and addressed.  

That is the opportunity before us all. 

I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, toil, and tears.

One of the things I love about life is that we never stop learning new things. 

The sentiment behind that 5 P’s phrase I was familiar with, but I had never heard it until I read it recently in a book by former Secretary of State James Baker.  It was a phrase his father drilled into him from an early age and he took it to heart.

The version I was more familiar with was that “chance favors the prepared mind” or that “when opportunity knocks be prepared to open the door”.  

With the 2024 election less than a month away, I find myself getting more quiet, more within myself, more contemplative, more calm, more centered, awaiting the much anticipated results, focusing on what I can control, and not on what I can’t.  

I’ve heard that commanders have a weight lifted off their shoulders once the decision has been made to begin a battle, and yet it is quickly replaced by another burden, that of worrying about the outcome. 

When Dwight Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander for the D-Day Landings in June 1944, after he gave the “go” order he sat down while he was waiting for everything to be put into action and wrote two different statements, depending on how the operation went. 

In one he resigned after the landings failed and took sole responsibility for their failure.  In the other he applauded the efforts of the men who made the landings successful.  

I always found that so interesting that someone who was always so prepared, which is why he was so successful, would still be prepared for the possibility of defeat. 

Most leaders and competitors will tell you that they have a mindset of “failure is not an option” and therefore they don’t give a moment’s thought about it. 

It takes a truly humble leader to be willing to admit that even in spite of their best efforts to prepare, that failure can still happen.  

On November 5th, despite billions of dollars and countless hours of preparation, one of 3 possible scenarios will take place….either a complete Democratic failure, a complete Republican failure, or some mix of the two where both sides claim some partial victory.  

So in the days and weeks after the election, depending on how long it takes to get results, as Sean Connery’s character says to Elliot Ness in The Untouchables, “what are you prepared to do?”

Are you prepared to do the hard work to ensure that our democracy survives and thrives?

Are you prepared to work with people you might not agree with to accomplish something greater than yourselves?

Are you prepared to not go back to sleep until the next election?

Are you prepared to turn your focus to helping push for and educate the public about nonpartisan reforms that put voters first and give us all more and better choices across the board in future elections?  

Leading up to the election, are you prepared to go vote?  Are you prepared to help get others to the polls if they need a ride?  Are you prepared to help encourage people who don’t usually vote to get out and have their voices heard?

And if you’re not prepared for any of the above, I would ask you to think about 5 other P’s and what you would say to them:

to the brave young American boys and men who fought and died to defend our young country in Plattsburgh in 1812,

to those who fought and died to keep our republic whole at Pittsburg Landing and Pea Ridge during the Civil War,

to those who fought and died for freedom from tyranny at Peleliu in World War 2, and

to those who fought and died at Pleiku in Vietnam so that others may enjoy the same freedoms, choices, and opportunities as we have.   

Let me start by saying unashamedly that you are a victim of clickbait, but I assure you it is for the most honorable of reasons, and won’t happen again.  

(And in the interests of full disclosure, I have never had anything more than a speeding ticket in my life and fully intend for it to stay that way.)  

But now that you are here, I hope you will do me the honor of continuing to read below.  I am confident it will be time well spent.

The title of this month’s blog post was inspired by my recent reading of Martin Luther King’s book Why We Can’t Wait that was published in January 1964.  Among my many wishes for our country, I wish I could get every American to read it.  It’s chock full of relevancy for modern times.    

In it he recounts the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and one of the chapters is a reprint of his famous Letter From a Birmingham Jail that he wrote in Spring 1963 in response to a joint Op-Ed by other religious leaders around the country who while speaking supportively of the overall concept of the movement felt that MLK’s and the SCLC’s (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) efforts were essentially out of line (my wording).  

Many times while reading it (the whole book is only about 200 pages) I found myself reading it in his voice, and was moved to more than an occasional tear imagining what it must have been like to have gone through what they went through as civil rights protestors, from fire hoses, to police dogs being ordered to bite child participants, to just everyday life being treated as second class citizens, or much much worse for 300+ years, and somehow still finding the strength within themselves to consciously turn towards the light, to expect good things to happen in life, to still love this country and want to be a part of it.  

I imagined myself sitting in the jail cell with MLK that spring of 1963, cut off from his leadership team and all information, wondering how things were going, if the supporters were losing heart, and then at his lowest point, reading that Op-Ed from people he respected, and wondering where things went from there. 

It is so true that we cannot connect the dots looking forward in life, only backwards, and while he was a man of supreme faith, in God and in his fellow human beings, I’m sure he must have been restless to some degree wondering what the future would hold.  

Could he have imagined that in a few short months the March on Washington would be taking place?  Or that a few months after that the President would be assassinated?  Or that in a little over a year he would see the 1964 Civil Rights Bill passed into law?

I suspect that one thing he did know with every fiber of his being was that he had to keep pressing forward for as long as it took, and as long as he could, however he was able to, because the second you give up trying, the injustices you are fighting against win.  

I have so much empathy for the man, his family, his loved ones, his supporters and colleagues, for what he and they had to endure while he was alive and then to lose him, a giant of nonviolence, to an assassin’s bullet, and in the prime of his life with young children.  

It is devastating to me, a 48 year old white father of a 16 year old in the year 2024 living in the Deep South.  I cannot begin to imagine the devastation, grief, and other myriad of emotions felt by those who knew and worked with and loved him at the time.   

In the days since reading the book, as I’ve reflected on what I read, I cannot help but feel in some ways that I too am in a sort of jail, that all of us are in a jail, partly of our own creation, wherever we live in the country.  

How many times have we all seen funny videos of a dog that thinks a sliding glass door is closed and refuses to walk through it until someone proves to them that it is open?  

From Kauai to Key West, a pestilence of partisanship has salted our fertile land and would have us believe that our purple mountains majesty are hopelessly divided between red or blue. 

MLK believed that “public opinion is not in a rigid mold.  American political thought is not committed to conservatism, nor radicalism, nor moderation.  It is above all, fluid.  As such, it contains trends, not hard lines, and affirmative leadership can lead it to constructive channels.”

In the equally moving afterword, printed in 1999, Jesse Jackson calls on us the readers to honor MLK’s work and legacy everyday in our own lives, and I cannot help but feel that one way of doing that is to refuse to accept the continuing injustices of the two party system.  

A system which segregates and divides.  A system that does not reward merit, but fear.  A system that relies on our continued apathy and acceptance of the status quo for its continued existence and lack of true competition.  

When enough of us realize that the sliding glass door is open, our nation will finally stride confidently across the threshold into the promised land our founding generation hoped and dreamed about almost 250 years ago. 

A land where we never forget, even in our worst of times, that we have more in common than we do that divides us and live our lives accordingly.  

A land where it’s expected and demanded that our officials from opposing parties be servant leaders that act maturely and selflessly to proactively solve problems facing the masses.

A land who’s residents can disagree agreeably on even the most emotional of topics.  

In that Op-Ed the other religious leaders called MLK an extremist, and as he mentions in his book “though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.  The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be.  Will we be extremists for hate or for love?  Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?  Perhaps the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” 

From this day forward I hope you will join me in considering yourself to be a creative extremist of love and justice.  I already considered myself a radical centrist, but I will gladly and proudly add creative extremist to the list.  

MLK called the Civil Rights Movement ‘the third revolution’ in America, after the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.  

As the more egregious injustices in our nation fall by the wayside over the centuries, the remaining injustices can seem less and less obvious, less and less urgent, even though they are no less pervasive than the other injustices were.    

It is my belief that the continuation of the two party system, which is not mentioned in our Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution, is the biggest remaining injustice in America, and that fixing it will be the key that finally unlocks the last shackles of segregation and sets all of our people free from the poisonous prison of partisanship.

The saying is well known…to the victor goes the spoils.  

What is not quite as evident is that the responsibility for securing the ensuing peace also falls to the victor, and how well that peace endures will be directly related to how the victor views the vanquished.  

One of the struggles a history buff such as myself must endure in life is not assuming that everyone else thinks of current events in the context of historically similar circumstances.  

Where I may see constant connections to the past, others may be blissfully unaware of the prior events at all, so forgive me a short summary of the prior events to set the scene.

After World War One the Allies took a punitive approach to the defeated powers, opening the door for war to return within 20 years.  

When World War Two ended, the Allies learned from the past and instead of punishing Germany and Japan, rebuilt them from the ground up, and the world has been better off because of it.

Today in America we are faced with a divided electorate and a dysfunctional duopoly, one half of which is still committed to the rule of law, and the other half audaciously enamored with autocracy.  

The threat of demagoguery and populism has always been present and will always be present in any democracy, the key is to limit it as much as possible, but how?  

The first line of defense is an educated and informed electorate.  The second is the opposition party whenever these twin evils begin to take root in their competitor.  

Like an opportunistic virus, Trumpism took root in the Republican Party in 2016 and has continued to hold sway over the years with no sign of abating.  

Traditionally the only tried and true antibiotic is repeated, demonstrative defeats at the ballot box, which usually results in the losing party realizing over time that they must change their ways and positions if they want to get re-elected in the future.  

Like most antibiotics, the effectiveness can wane over time, and the real fear with Trumpism is how long will it continue to have an iron grip on the GOP.  Will it outlive its creator?  Will the party return to its prior roots or will a new acolyte arise to claim the throne of thuggery?  

President Biden has made the defense of democracy a key tenet of his administration, which I applaud.  

Several years ago I sent him a letter (the first I’ve ever sent to a President) stating that the best way he could ensure that our democracy continues to thrive and give our voters the best possible choices was to support the litany of nonpartisan electoral reforms I’ve discussed before.  

I got a form letter back a few weeks later but I’m sure my letter was never seen by anyone other than a mail clerk.  At least I tried.  

In the event that the Democrats win the White House and veto-proof majorities in Congress this year, instead of ignoring the GOP and letting them figure out their own problems for themselves, the far better option for all would be to do what it can to help give itself worthy opponents again, whether that is a re-born Republican Party or additional competition in the form of new parties and independents.

Why should the Democrats do that you say?  Because competition makes us all better and brings out the best versions of ourselves.  Only iron can sharpen iron.  

Those of us in the nonpartisan election innovations movement have waited patiently election cycle after election cycle for progressives to put country over party and help our efforts.  

But time and again we are told variations of “I totally support XYZ election reform, but this election cycle I gotta focus on defeating the GOP because of X, or because of Trump, etc”.  

2024 has been, and rightly so, framed as either you are for democracy or you are for Trump, and so we have collectively put aside our efforts to ensure the defense of democracy.  

But I have to ask, when will be the election cycle where finally rank and file Democrats will support en masse the passage of nonpartisan reforms that get us all better candidates, even if it means the Democrats have to work harder to win elections as a result?  2026?  2028?  2030?  2050?

While I was disappointed that the Democrats didn’t pick someone from across the political aisle like Kinzinger or Romney to be their VP nominee, and thereby guarantee a resounding coalition defeat of Trumpism, it gives me hope that Vice President Harris has selected as her running mate someone who has been supportive of ranked choice voting and proportional representation in his home state of Minnesota.  

I am however under no illusions that nonpartisan reforms like this will be a centerpiece of a Harris administration.  

But just as America and the United Kingdom recognized after World War Two that it was in their long term interests to rebuild their vanquished foes, so too must the Democratic Party recognize at some point that it is in its interests and the country’s interests to be magnanimous in victory and help the GOP rid itself of demagoguery and populism.

It’s common knowledge that in maritime tradition the captain of a sinking ship willingly perishes with the doomed vessel.  What America is facing today is a captain okay with sinking a perfectly good ship if he’s not allowed to be captain anymore.  That’s unacceptable.  

The debate of June 27th was the iceberg and the interview on July 5th shows the initial stage of denial at the seriousness of the event.  Just like with RMS Titanic, this is a critical time, where the longer you wait, the less good options you have left to save souls, or in this case, save the republic.  

Titanic’s captain had an excellent chance to save all of its souls after the collision if he had done several things: 1) steered towards the ship on the horizon at low speed, 2) counter-flooded the opposite end of the ship to slow the rate of flooding by several hours (Carpathia arrived 90 minutes after it sank), 3) continually broadcast its accurate position and condition.

Similarly, President Biden has an excellent chance to save our democracy’s chances of surviving as we know it in the November election by standing down.  Will he? 

They say that chance favors the prepared.  While the GOP is preparing their Project 2025 in the event they take power, what are the Democrats’ preparations in the event that happens? 

It’s not hyperbole to say that there’s no guarantee the 2026 elections or 2028 elections will even take place if a wannabe dictator with the backing of an authoritarian party takes power in November.  

Between now and the August convention and the election, which kind of passenger will you be?  Will you desperately try to get the captain to make the right choice to stand down?  Will you live in denial at the seriousness of the circumstances?  Will you resign yourself to the worst possible fate and wait for it to come?

Americans are famous for splitting the ticket, and in the event Trump wins it is very likely the only thing keeping the republic in tact will be an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House and Senate to override vetoes and ensure removal from office in the event of another impeachment.

Even if the ship of American democracy successfully evades the icebergs of the November election, there will still be many more to navigate for years to come before our republic is clear and safe from the dangers of authoritarianism, despotism, thugocracy, and kleptocracy.

Indeed, it will require eternal vigilance from all of us.

Christopher Columbus once said that “the sea brings each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams.”  This time, if you want the American Dream to stay afloat, it’s time to wake up.

As we all know, and eventually all will experience, life is full of dualities, contradictions, eerie coincidences, and kismets.  Perhaps it’s a function of the aging process, but the passage of time, my place in the world, my purpose, my legacy, all have become more and more prominent in my thoughts as the years go by.  

So many times in life I’ve had moments where I was conscious in the moment of the fact that I was right where I was supposed to be, while at other times in life feeling like everything was all wrong and wondering if I should have turned left instead of turning right, etc.  

It’s just part of human nature to second guess ourselves, particularly when things are not going well, because at the end of the day we are the sum of our choices, mixed with the choices of others, some made long before our existence. 

During World War One Winston Churchill took leave from his role as a member of Parliament to serve with his regiment in France as his commission in the military was still active.  

One day he got a message that a high ranking general was going to be passing by the area and wanted to meet Winston for lunch the next town over from the front lines where Winston was stationed.  

It was a dangerous request to make of anyone because it meant Winston would have to cross several miles of open terrain during which time he could be picked off by German snipers or targeted by German artillery shells.

Nevertheless, Winston and a companion set out the next day in time to make the lunch.  After several hours of trudging through muddy fields with no trees for cover, Winston arrived only to receive a message that the general was unable to make the lunch after all.  Churchill was livid.  

He had literally risked his life, trudged through mud for hours, only to have to trudge back the same way he came, for nothing.  He was still livid when he got back to his place on the line….until he saw what he missed.  

While he was away a German artillery barrage had hit his section of the line, including a shell that exploded right in his hut where he would have been if he had not tried to go to the lunch.  

He immediately was no longer angry and accepted the message from the universe that everything happens for a reason and that there must be a reason he was spared.  

Soon after, at another spot on the line, he was hanging out with his men when a German shell landed right near them but didn’t go off.  This reinforced the message in his mind that he kept getting spared for some unknown reason, but also that it was probably getting closer to the time that he needed to end his leave of absence from Parliament and remove himself from the war front.  

From then on, Winston learned to stop questioning why the universe and life was unfolding the way it was, and grousing about times when it didn’t go the way he wanted or hoped, and learned to go with the flow more.  What will be, will be.  All we can do is try our best and the universe will do the rest.  

During a recent trip out west I was able to check off a bucket list item of going to Yosemite National Park.  Before going I had always focused more on seeing El Capitan than the Giant Sequoias, but something interesting happened.  

While yes El Capitan and the valley were amazing to see, it was the Giant Sequoias that left me with an impactful life lesson and reminder.  

When we went to Mariposa Grove to see the trees I got to see a particularly large one called Grizzly Giant.  It is the size of the Statue of Liberty and has been living in the same spot for close to 2,000 years.  

To stand before such a living creature that was possibly just a sapling when half a world away Jesus Christ was alive was sobering.  To think of all of the events of humanity that have occurred in its lifespan, from the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, our founding, the Civil War, WWI, WW2 was mindboggling.  

As I stood before it admiring it for a few minutes I was struck by the thought that this tree, that is beginning to falter through lightning strikes and fires around its base over the years, will still probably outlive me.

It also reminded me that we are just passing through time and that our time is brief, so make the most of it that we can, and leave this place, and those who come after us, better off than we found it.  

And finally, as if to underscore the above, when we got home from the trip as I was checking on things around the house, it struck me how everything was exactly as we had left it 10 days before, and while that’s what one would hope for, and I was glad for, it served as a reminder that we bring the action to our lives, we are the change agents, and that the stuff we collect in life, while nice, only has meaning while we are here and doing things, and that it’s those actions that define our lives, not the stuff we leave behind.

I was watching a PBS NOVA episode recently and this scientist said something interesting related to the Parker space probe that was sent towards the sun a few years ago.  She said that the idea for the probe originated in the 1950’s but that “they had to wait for the technology to catch up to the dream”.  

Had to wait for the technology to catch up to the dream.  

I thought about that comment because it really struck a chord with me.  In the world of politics and elections, we have the reverse problem, and its entirely due to the two party system.  

The technology is already here for a better functioning democracy.  It’s the dream that’s lacking.  The vision, the desire, the will to make it happen.  

We can run elections that are more efficient, saving time & money.  We can shorten the election calendar so that our citizens aren’t burned out & tuned out.  

We can hold elections that are more positive, solution-oriented, and get us better candidates.  

All because of technological advancements, from ranked choice voting to online voting.  

So why instead do we have a never-ending, super expensive, 24/7/365 election cycle filled with negativity, divisiveness, and poor outcomes?  Because the duopoly would prefer the broken system that they currently know how to win under instead of a better system that they might have more competition under.

It doesn’t matter if you tell them that a better system will help them to be the best versions of themselves.  

When the fox controls the henhouse, it isn’t going to give up control even if it knows the henhouse is leaking when it rains.  It would almost rather see the henhouse burn down before relinquishing control.

So how do we get the American Dream to catch up to the technology?  By spreading the word, educating our fellow citizens, one at a time if need be.  Even the mightiest waterfall starts with a single drop of water.     

During the course of our family’s vacations and traveling around the country over the years, we often included going to see the homes of past Presidents, such as George Washington, and in more recent years a lot of Presidential Libraries, where many of the Presidents are buried.  

On our most recent trip last month we visited 4 more Presidential Libraries and the graves of 3 Presidents and their spouses/families, and it got me to thinking about how many total homes, libraries, and graves of past Presidents I’ve seen.  

Homes (15)–Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower (2), JFK.

Libraries (9)–Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush.

Graves (10)–Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, GHW Bush.

The first time I remember saying a silent prayer at one of their graves was when we visited Mount Vernon in the summer of 2016, because especially beginning with that election it seemed like our nation was hopelessly destined to continue the never-ending partisan wars that Washington warned us about in his farewell address.  

Ever since that graveside prayer at Washington’s tomb, I’ve repeated a similar version at the tombs of Thomas Jefferson (even though it was pouring rain and I didn’t have an umbrella), Madison, FDR, GHW Bush, Truman, Lincoln, and Eisenhower.

In my silent prayer I thank them for their service, what they did for our country and the world, I thank God for having given them to us, and I share my concern for our country, and ask them and God to help me and my fellow Americans to live up to their example.  

I can tell you that at each grave it has been a moving experience to stand only feet away from these great Americans, perhaps the most emotional one was GHW Bush because I had actually met him when I was in college, and the most meaningful to me was Lincoln because he’s my all time favorite President.  

As soon as I was done with my short silent prayer each time, particularly at Lincoln’s tomb, I couldn’t help but feel a palpable vibe of “we’ve done our part, it’s up to your generation now, make us proud.”  

Was that my prayer being answered, that quickly, or was it just my own internal sense of empathy for what these people had been through, done, stood for, and died for, that I shouldn’t be asking anything more of them now that they’ve given their last full measure of devotion?  My gut tells me it was the latter, but who knows.

When we were at Eisenhower’s grave a few weeks ago there is a prayer hanging overhead that says “The Presidents Prayer” and the text is as follows:  

“Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment, my future associates in the executive branch of the Government join me in beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng and their fellow citizens everywhere.  

Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby and by the laws of this land.  

Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all the people, regardless of station, race, or calling.  May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those who under the concept of our Constitution, hold to differing political beliefs–so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and for Thy glory.  Amen”  

Dwight D Eisenhower

One final note, it certainly wasn’t planned this way, but Eisenhower’s was the last grave we visited, and our future travel plans for the foreseeable future years probably won’t take us to any other Presidential sites or graves, but I’m glad it worked out that Ike’s was the last one we visited, and that it was on the same trip as when we saw Lincoln’s, and that Ike’s had that special prayer on display.  

Now, it’s up to me and you to do our part, to make them proud.  And if by chance you ever get to visit any of their final resting places as well, please do.  You won’t regret it.