Straight From The Hart

  THE COMMENCEMENT SPEECH I’VE NEVER BEEN ASKED TO GIVE I have given several thousand speeches and sermons in my 25 years of pastoral ministry, including motivational and political presentations before I was ordained, but I have never given a Commencement address. That would have been a fun thing to do since I love public speaking even more than I do writing. It’s too late in my life now for such a thing, but here’s what I would say if I were doing it. I would tell you to continue your education in whatever area you feel comfortable and/or challenged. Not everyone is suited for college, but this country also needs people who have graduated from trade schools like beauticians and mechanics and plumbers and electricians. Six months of barber college qualified my husband to get a barber license, but it took many years of hard work and long hours to enable him to build a large customer base here in Lebanon. Now in his 57th year of cutting hair for some of his original customers and

  Something is wrong with America. There is a sickness creeping over our country. There is a coarseness that is pervasive throughout our culture. Being coarse is not a phrase we use a lot nowadays, but it means to be indecent, profane, rude and vulgar, even obscene. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my country, but it’s because I love her that I am concerned that she maintain and retain her reputation as the most civilized nation on earth. People are not civil to each other any more. Everyday civility means bringing out the best in others, not the worst. The symptoms have been coming on for several years and I had hoped things would get better, but as we go into this 17th year of the 21st century I am growing more concerned. We have a bullying problem. And it doesn’t just take place in the schools with our children. It exists in the workplace, and in our shopping centers, out on the roadways where we call it “road rage”, and yes even in the home. Bullying takes place when someone thinks

  Have you ever wondered about the anti-missile dome shields you see used in the current Israeli was against Hama? Here is the story behind the story, and my very minor part in it. In 1983, then President Ronald Reagan, at the height of the Cold War, proposed a new comprehensive research and development plan known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), but which was dubbed Star Wars from the 1977 movie of the same name. The plan had been devised by Lt. General Daniel O. Graham. the founder of High Frontier and advisor to President Reagan after the abandonment of the suicidal and immoral strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) for the concept of Assured Survival through the creation of effective defenses against ballistic missiles. One of the “perks” of serving as President Reagan’s Campaign in Laclede County was an invitation to me to become part of the Speaker’s Bureau to promote SDI in Missouri, and I was sent to Washington D.C. for an intensive training seminar at the Cap