Thinking is fundamental. As a man thinketh so is he the Bible tells us. It has been my experience that Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy…a Saturday Night Live favorite of mine…is illustrative of one of society’s neglected vocations…thinking… If University taught me anything it taught me to think and critically analyze what surrounds me. We are in such a hurry that we fail to ponder why. The famous author of yesteryear, Ray Bradbury, said, ‘There’s no one way to be creative. Any old way will work.’

Leaders tell us that if we will only listen to them and follow their thoughts for our lives that they will lead us to the Promised Land. I wondered as a child when I saw President Johnson continue to send more and more young men to Vietnam to fight and many to die. The older folks said that when your country needs you you must answer its call. I knew that this was right in a national emergency…but was it alright for these brave soldiers to lay their lives down on the promise of trust me? I have personally witnessed pastors of churches inform their parishioners that they had a direct hotline to God and that if the flock will explicitly listen to their detailed directives…they will be saved. Of course, over many years we have studied cults and the brainwashing that occurs in them. Our politicians assure us that they have the answer and that they will fix all of our problems if we will just elect them to office. Of late some of these folks promise devastation and destruction if they are not held apart from the rest of us and respected for their Messianic Call.

It is alright to be the odd woman or man out… It is fine if you are the goat at the table of obedient sheep. It is great if you say I do not agree! Thought produces rebels. Thinking creates those who swim upstream. It is needed to ask…Why…and it is a sacred obligation to fulfilling your role as unique and your mission to understand the real reason of those in power that is behind their rhetoric.

Why are some states deciding that books must be banned? Why are politicians making the decisions regarding what art we can view?
Why are we attempting to prohibit a cultural norm that we obviously know little about and understand even less?

You know if someone tells you that you must follow their view of holiness and what is right and then laughs at your gullibility and how dumb you are…as they proceed to violate the same prohibited actions that they legislate… you are being had for a sucker and a patsy.

Time to think and reason and research and contemplate the truth of life and its prismatic facets that are ever brilliant and new to the viewer…is a profound privilege.