GOD’S CORNER by Ger trude M. Puelicher n n n
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ONE OF THE most enervating experiences an individual can have is to become a middle-of-the-roader. Emotionally it is devastating because it removes all the spice from life. Intellectually it eventually results in apathetic permissiveness, a gradual dulling of the senses to the importance of vital issues. It demands a mental straddling that can become physically uncomfortable.Middle-of-the-roaders are generally designated as good. Rarely does one hear them described as vitally inspiring. They ease cautiously into a situation rather than take it by force. There are times, I admit, when that course of action has merit. Decisive leadership, however, necessitates rapid action. History is replete with names of religious and political leaders who would have scorned being middle-of-the-roaders. Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Julius Caesar, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln were just a few forced by circumstances to accept the role of strong leadership. Moses is an outstanding example of a man who was placed in a position of tremendous and trying leadership. He was chosen to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt. He was the person given the Ten Commandments, a pattern of life for all time. No middle-of-theroader could have accomplished as did Moses and Joshua and the patriarchs of the Old Testament. The Nazarene carpenter was no middle-of-the-roader. Nor were his followers, especially Paul. No middle-of-the-roader could have established a religion that has existed for roughly 2,000 years. These men, with the exception of Luke, the physician, were for the most part humble fishermen eking out a daily living. Yet so convinced were they of the rightness of their cause that no suffering was too great for them to endure in an individual contribution to its establishment. At a testimonial dinner to a great civic leader who was also a dynamic speaker, there was quoted an excerpt from one of his speeches: “The most dangerous place to drive an automobile is down the middle-of-the-road—and so it is with life, ideas and ideals. A man must stand for what he believes and be counted.” Would it not be well for Americans to heed those words? Have we not gone so far down the middle-of-the-road where standards of conduct are concerned that today’s morality is devitalizing our young people? Has permissiveness not become a fetish with us? Is it true that we shrug off involvement in controversial matters lest it prove personally uncomfortable? What about political intrigue? Are we concerned about it to the extent of action? And some of the books on our best seller lists? Are they not too often a barren waste of filth and unnecessary obscenity? Need the excuse of realism cover all indecency? Have we not an obligation to our country to uphold the principles upon which it was founded? Have we not an obligation to the God of our fathers, to the Infinite Intelligence that established the universe to live in accordance with the highest spiritual concepts of which we are capable? Why are we vacillating in the issues that affect the three most important facets of our lives— home, God, country? Why don’t we stand up and be counted? n E X C L U S I V E LY Y O U R S
