Will Rogers is reported to have begun one of his routines something like this: "Now suppose you take a donkey [actually, I'm euphemizing his reference to a small, male, beast of burden] and suppose I take a congressman . . . Oh, I'm sorry. I've repeated myself."
A lot of folk would find that bit of shtick particularly relevant right now.
The horse-trading, threatening, pressuring, and corresponding knuckling under have been impressive, and depressing. I am, however, trying to not merely gripe about my representatives in Washington. I figure that the kind of integrity that appears to be lacking in our nation's capital has to begin somewhere, and I figure the somewhere is right here.
Here is a start:
Jesus said, "let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil." (Matthew 5:37) James gives his commentary on the statement, ". . . your yes is to be yes, and your no, no." (James 5:12) In Jesus and James day there were folk who had learned to, so to speak, cross their fingers when they crossed their heart, thus making their oath nonbinding. No, the Bible teaches; say what you mean and mean what you say.
I can gripe about how little of that kind of talk I've heard out of Washington, but it would be more profitable if the sad lack of ethics from the tip become an encouragement for truth beginning here at the bottom.
It's STTA.
(I don't think the cowboy sage intended his mention of a donkey to single out one political party. I know I don't. The elephants seem to have forgotten what is important, as well.)
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