We are what we hear. Strange but true. If we are exposed to false statements for long enough and repeated often…we tend to believe them.

Fall Semester begins Monday and the excitement is palpable. When I first began at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale I could not believe my good fortune. There were students from over 70 nations on Campus. I was a country boy who had been dropped into an international city…and I was happy to be there. Soon my supervisors began to compliment my work and encourage me to seek promotions. I had never worked in such a positive environment. I soon began to believe the kind words that were said to me and subsequently strove for excellence. I was on Campus yesterday and it felt like it did 45 years ago. Once you have been nurtured and mentored by people and a caring organization…you never forget it.

‘Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me,’ was a famous saying as a child. How untrue it was and is. Words kill…

Of late the tide of history has moved toward just saying any lie that you wish and ‘Wash…Repeat…and Rinse’ and it will soon become the truth for your reality. I fear that we are too long in front of our screens. In the 60s our news was provided by Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and they stayed with the template, as Joe Friday of Dragnet often said, ‘Just the facts Mam.’

Church is a constant in my mind and heart. I have been a member of one church or another for 55 years. Ministers have a great power of persuasion. They can build up the members of their congregation or they can disassemble them until they are a pile of parts. The Christian church must allow room for Jesus. When programs and policies fail to allow room for the spontaneous Christ…they have missed the purpose of the faith. Jesus did not ask the doctrinarians of his day if it was alright to spit on the ground and make clay of the dirt and spittle and then apply the mixture to the eyes of the blind man…who then could see. When the founder of the faith wrote on the ground as the religious leaders of his day prepared to stone the woman caught in the act of adultery…and they one by one walked away until Christ asked the woman Where are thy accusers…and she said I have none he did not seek the operations manual for guidance on what to do in the case of stoning…

Life is Real…the kids tell us. Prescribed text and dogma does not lend itself to the personal vagaries that afflict each of us. One size does not fit all. The only all-encompassing words that shield us and make us whole are love and kindness.