one way or the other...

One faction of society thinks that if anything is done for the poor, they will be stripped of incentive to do things for themselves, and they take that as their reason to do nothing for each other. Another faction of society thinks that if we have the power to be of service to each other we should use the gifts we have been given to make the world a better place.

We get to decide. We can act now through the creation of useful beauty. Then recognizing that the government is like a power tool, enabling us to apply collective force in the resolution of our nation's problems, we can choose how to vote in our next elections.

This is the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, and he had learned that the problems facing our nation were not simply matters of race and racial discrimination but also of poverty. We have been held back not only by poverty of physical resources but also by poverty of will. Will we choose as a nation to be of use to each other?

When I was imagining myself, in the early days of my career as a woodworker, I understood the essential relationship between the craftsman and community. I thought of the village blacksmith, and the village carpenter as examples of how people and their lives are interwoven into community life. What I did not fully grasp at the time was the responsive effect. When we work in service to each other, we are transformed in consequence. We become better, more caring persons through our efforts to be of service to each other.

If you've been mistakenly taught, or failed to get the lessons of life and of love at an earlier time, you are probably not reading this blog and will be of that faction that's ideologically opposed to helping the poor. If you are on the fence about things, test matters in your own hands. Use this holiday to try being of greater use to one another.

Make, fix, create, and adjust education so that each student has the opportunity to learn lifewise.