Celebrate the New, Grieve for the Old?

We each know the cycle of life. We know it and we are prepared to accept it. With each birth, we know that there will be a death. We celebrate birth but grieve a death. Yet, if you would listen to some they appear to think we should be grieving a birth and celebrating a death. They wish to prevent births and then turn around and advocate that we should help others in their deaths.

It’s as if the young are not needed and the old are not wanted anymore in their eyes. What these advocates do not realize is that we bring foolishness into the world with each and every birth so that when they leave this world, they do so leaving a little wisdom behind. What value is a person’s life if there is no one to provide them with the wisdom they seek and need of life and in life? From whom are the young to learn from if the old are not there to teach them? What can they teach but foolishness if there was no one to teach them wisdom in the first place?

It may be a mother’s choice whether she should bring a life into this world and I will not argue this one way or the other. I will argue though, that it is a society that will reap the benefits or pay the consequences of her choice. The family is the foundation of any society. Its children are the cornerstones that society be dependent on for its growth.

Who am I to speak for a society? I cannot. I have no right to think I can speak for another. I can only speak of my thoughts and beliefs. To speak my thoughts is not to impose them on others. I can only speak my thoughts in hopes that there will be others who agree with them and that there be enough of us to make a difference in this society.

To speak thoughts in fear of being accused of imposing on another or being insensitive to another’s feelings brings out foolish ideas. Most of all though, it leads to words of silence when those words need to be spoken from the top of every building. There are times when a person needs to be insensitive to feelings if truth is to remain alive and vibrant.

Truth is a positive and never a negative. So, don’t come to me proclaiming a negative and then say you speak of truths. Truth is the lifeblood of any society. Truth needs to be celebrated and never grieved. Don’t come to me saying you tried speaking the truth but no one listened. You spoke to the dead and the dead cannot hear you. Speak to the living.

Speak not to convince a person that they are wrong and you are right. Speak so that you may touch the soul of another and allow the spirit of truth lead them out of the wilderness. Be a leader of men not a driver of men.

A leader of men is aware of his mistakes but is unapologetic for his focus is on the correction of that mistake that will lead him to the final goal. A driver of men can do no wrong in his own eyes and is apologetic of only those mistakes he can blame on another. Therefore, be neither a follower of men nor a driver of men. Be yourself and men will follow you.