Sunday musings - June 13, 2021
Pretty as pretty does
The President of the United States is currently embarked on a trip overseas with the primary mission of repairing what many world leaders perceive as broken relationships. It could be an opportunity to begin to establish more honest, mutually respectful relationships. It could be an opportunity to present the United States as a nation made up of humans with a history of teenage like arrogance; a history of suggesting that if all nations and people were as righteous as the United States all would be well on this planet. True, the United States has, at times, been a kind and helpful neighbor; sometimes because it was the right thing to do and often because the intent was to benefit the United States or to point out to other nation how bad they were and good we were. We in the United States have contributed much to industrial operations, the arts and education. Yet, if we are honest, we have achieved much of our success on the backs of indigenous people, imported slaves, and, immigrants who were fleeing injustice, poverty and oppression. As is true with others in the larger world we have created universities, libraries, museums, and symphonies with the money of people (mostly men) whose wealth was created in a system dependent on what is now euphemistically referred to as the one per cent. It is true many people managed to craft what is termed a middle-class life; often while supporting a system which overtly and covertly supported racist and sexist policies. This system has given many of us central heat, air conditioning, dishwashers, automatic washing machines, indoor plumbing, an extensive wardrobe, and access to some of the best stocked refrigerators in the world. Success has often been defined as more without acknowledging the cost to human relationships.
News coverage now broadcast our more complex history to all the world. Despite political rhetoric of “America First” or “Restore America” our nakedness is daily seen by the entire world. We are simply one more nation of very flawed humans. Many of us continue to attempt to hide that fact while others are sincerely ready to face the discomfort of working a 12-step recovery program as communities: to face that the emperor has no clothes
Grandma Fannie was fond of saying, “Pretty is as pretty does.” While Grandma Fannie enjoyed getting “gussied up” in her Sunday going to church clothes as much as any other person all knew this was the same woman who wore homemade “house dresses” most of the time. She was the woman who welcomed the stranger, fed the multitudes who showed up for extended family gatherings, and poured coffee from the seemingly self-replenishing coffee pot. Grandma Fannie liked pretty things and kept them in the closed off formal living room when in their later years she and Grandpa Ed built a house which housed such a room. Yet she knew she was still just a hardworking, quilt making, egg collecting woman who canned the food with which she would feed the multitude.
I am not suggesting that Grandma Fannie was challenging Jesus or The Buddha. She was quite aware of her own shortcomings, but her resolve to live “pretty is as pretty does” was the center of her daily prayer.
I as an individual and we as a country could do no better than to take the next step in humility andx clarity of purpose by joining others in a human experiment to be pretty as pretty does.
Thanks again Grandma Fannie for nudging us forward.
Written June 13, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Pretty as pretty does
The President of the United States is currently embarked on a trip overseas with the primary mission of repairing what many world leaders perceive as broken relationships. It could be an opportunity to begin to establish more honest, mutually respectful relationships. It could be an opportunity to present the United States as a nation made up of humans with a history of teenage like arrogance; a history of suggesting that if all nations and people were as righteous as the United States all would be well on this planet. True, the United States has, at times, been a kind and helpful neighbor; sometimes because it was the right thing to do and often because the intent was to benefit the United States or to point out to other nation how bad they were and good we were. We in the United States have contributed much to industrial operations, the arts and education. Yet, if we are honest, we have achieved much of our success on the backs of indigenous people, imported slaves, and, immigrants who were fleeing injustice, poverty and oppression. As is true with others in the larger world we have created universities, libraries, museums, and symphonies with the money of people (mostly men) whose wealth was created in a system dependent on what is now euphemistically referred to as the one per cent. It is true many people managed to craft what is termed a middle-class life; often while supporting a system which overtly and covertly supported racist and sexist policies. This system has given many of us central heat, air conditioning, dishwashers, automatic washing machines, indoor plumbing, an extensive wardrobe, and access to some of the best stocked refrigerators in the world. Success has often been defined as more without acknowledging the cost to human relationships.
News coverage now broadcast our more complex history to all the world. Despite political rhetoric of “America First” or “Restore America” our nakedness is daily seen by the entire world. We are simply one more nation of very flawed humans. Many of us continue to attempt to hide that fact while others are sincerely ready to face the discomfort of working a 12-step recovery program as communities: to face that the emperor has no clothes
Grandma Fannie was fond of saying, “Pretty is as pretty does.” While Grandma Fannie enjoyed getting “gussied up” in her Sunday going to church clothes as much as any other person all knew this was the same woman who wore homemade “house dresses” most of the time. She was the woman who welcomed the stranger, fed the multitudes who showed up for extended family gatherings, and poured coffee from the seemingly self-replenishing coffee pot. Grandma Fannie liked pretty things and kept them in the closed off formal living room when in their later years she and Grandpa Ed built a house which housed such a room. Yet she knew she was still just a hardworking, quilt making, egg collecting woman who canned the food with which she would feed the multitude.
I am not suggesting that Grandma Fannie was challenging Jesus or The Buddha. She was quite aware of her own shortcomings, but her resolve to live “pretty is as pretty does” was the center of her daily prayer.
I as an individual and we as a country could do no better than to take the next step in humility andx clarity of purpose by joining others in a human experiment to be pretty as pretty does.
Thanks again Grandma Fannie for nudging us forward.
Written June 13, 2021
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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