What Makes Master Cry?

We just bought Tom Brokaw's new book about the baby boom generation -- what some call a "virtual reunion" of the sixties: "BOOM."

We are reading it out loud together. An interesting experience.

All of us have varying perspectives on the sixties. Our ages are different enough that we came through that decade at different levels of awareness and understanding. Our experiences of the events of those years are very different.

For Himself, the oldest of our family, the memories remain powerfully evocative and emotionally laden. For Him, the 1960's were a time of political waking up and coming to conciousness that shaped everything that He came to be. What happened in the streets of those years, forged the Man who has dedicated His life to creating the vision He came to believe in so many years ago.

And so, as we began to read what is seemingly a very self-absorbed Tom Brokaw personal memoir, we came upon the famous imperative from President John Kennedy's speech of January, 1961:

ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your
country

Suddenly, He was in tears -- sobbing. That call to action meant something to Him as a young man. He took it to heart, and steered His course by those words. He has done that His whole life... lived asking what it was that He could do. He's done more, I think, than many -- than most. Continues to do that. After more than 30 years, He continues to work to create a vision of a community that includes and embraces and lives up to the best that it could and should be. It isn't a course that has led to great wealth, surely. We live modestly compared to many. It is, however, a course that has paid dividends in friendships forged, in stories to tell, in accomplishments to point to.

From a youth spent believing that change could and must happen, through a career believing that change could and must happen -- this Man has lived a life that has followed a path that has been true and brave. It is an accomplishment of which He can be justly proud. I know that I am most sincerely proud of Him, and proud to belong to Him.

swan