Tag Archives: economic status

Letter to People of Influence, Part Three: Citizens and Leaders

In this installment, we challenge a generation pampered by false expectations as well as leaders promising what they cannot deliver and pay for. Enjoy, reflect and share as we try to rebuild a free and virtuous society.

Dear American millennial graduates of public (and some private) universities,
Are you going to dream and discipline or covet and agitate for redistribution?
While you process the timeworn clichés of your tenured professors (who are living off the taxes and donations of the productive)…
Ask yourselves,
“How can I create value and bring good to the world?”
You will never be completely unemployed if you ask this question.
Whether you have your dream job, volunteer or labor away at “mundane” tasks, you can help build a better world if you do your present work well.
Let’s keep working for true justice – equal access, ethical oversight, intolerance of corruption and pathways for all to prosper – and move toward our destiny with discipline.
When we graduate from feeling the world “owes” us and we choose to make the world better with our work…justice and success are not far behind.

Dear candidates, pollsters, pundits, spin doctors and sociological observers:
I am more than a demographic or a gender.
I am more than an ethnicity or national origin.
I am more than today’s identity fashions or an economic status.
I am more than my educational achievements or struggles.
I am a human being made in the image of God and called to worship and work.
I have eternal, inherent value from conception to coronation and I am the object of Christ’s affection as he endured the Cross.
THEN, I am a man or woman, single or married, dark or fair, poorer or richer.
To all in power or aspiring for authority: please remember, “the greatest among you is the servant of all.”
Yes, confidence, inspiration and oratory are part of leading – but they are the fruit of humility, moral courage and thoughtfulness.
When a leader respects the humblest follower, she or he is a gift to the community and nation.

Humility and power are rare bedfellows, but enduring moral and spiritual influence arises from blessing, not bluster, from compassion, not clichés. May God grant an awakening of hopeful realism.