Spoken Into Existance

I was sitting with a group of men at my Wednesday night church dinner.

Across the table was an man in his 80's sitting with his son who is in his mid 50's. I had the feeling I had seen these two before, but I couldn't quite recall where. The conversation began with their latest travel venture to South America. Later it gravitated to the current Presidential primaries, the energy crisis: particularly gas prices and renewable energy.

"What has happened to Strong American Leadership?"I asked as we discussed the list of candidates. "It looks like we have a very dim list of prospects to select from"

"Nobody wants to get involved. " answered the older man. "Besides, what can one guy do?" he continued.

"Well," I replied," throughout our history, 'one man' as you say has done a lot. Look at FDR ; JFK , Lincoln, Jefferson and other strong leaders we have had in the past. Have we run out of those people in our times?"

The old guy gave me that sage, look as if to say, 'I have a lot more experience than you, so listen to me.'

Then he rhetorically he asked, "Is it the man who makes the times or the times who make the man?" He delivered this maxim with a great Cheshire Cat grin.

"I believe it is always the man." I replied.

"No, no. no...You talk about FDR." he bristled. " You weren't even alive when he was president. "But I tell you, he was stuck with the depression, and anyone in office had to do something about it. He just happened to be there." He was getting more excited with this last delivery.

"True, but then why didn't the country continue with Hoover? " I asked.

The old guy put up a hand and waved me off," Hoover couldn't get a thing right. He was for the rich, and knew nothing about the troubles the poor were having."

"Then it sounds like it was the man, and the woman [Eleanor]in this case." I wasn't out to trip him up, but he had just given the answer to his own maxim.

"Well, maybe in that case," he conceded.

"All I am saying," I hastened to add, " is that we are facing an energy crisis and a leadership crisis, and I'm looking at a bunch of candidates who severely lack the great qualities I have seen in our past presidents."

I continued when I noticed he and the son seemed to perk up. " Just think of 1960. JFK committed the US to put a man on the moon within a decade. It happened."

The old man's son jumped in with both feet at that point. " That had nothing to do with JFK. We already had rockets and scientists working on it. " He looked away as he spoke as if I had missed some major point, and he was helping me to understand the historical facts.

"Yes. We had knowledge of rockets, and science was working on the idea," I agreed," But this was a serious engineering problem. One with many details that had not been completely solved in 1960. And personally having had to fulfill promises that advertising and upper management make to the public about technology that will be available to the customer, I am here to tell you the phrase 'The Devil is in the details' is more accurate than most people can ever imagine. Think about the fact that computers [the few that did exist] were the size of a refrigerator in 1960. It was hardly something you could put in a small capsule that could barely hold three men. Most people don't understand the thousands of engineering developments that had to be perfected prior to that first trip to the moon, yet we made it"

I paused; then added," It took a lot of hard work to help JFK's words become an historical fact."

I continued," What made it all work was a vision which was created and kept alive by one man. A visionary who spoke and idea that inspired others to make it happen and have them say 'Yes this can be done. We can make it a physical reality." and bringing it back to the original point. ''I am saying that I believe if we had a leader among this lot who would stand up and say, 'America will go all solar or some other clean energy source to become independent of Oil within a decade' and that person was a strong leader like an FDR or JFK or a Lincoln, it would be done just like we did the moon shot."

The old guy waved me off again," You are dreaming. It can't be done. It is too expensive, the oil companies wont let it happen. It cant be done by one guy." Then in an attempt to throw in some semblance of logic, he asked, " Is anyone willing to pay double the cost of a gallon of gas to help the environment? No it would cost too much to do. I don't care how strong the leader, no one guy could make that happen." That was supposed to close the books on that idea.

I wasn't about to quit in the face of such closed minded thinking. "Sir, I now recall where I saw you. You were there just prior to the American Revolution. It was you who told Jefferson and Washington, 'It can't be done! It will cost too much. It has never been done before! One man can't make it happen.' " I continued. " I believe you were there before the Civil War telling Lincoln 'One man can't stop slavery. It cant be done. It will cost too much. This is the way it is and you can't change it.' "

"You were there at Kitty hawk giving your sage advice to the Wright Brothers, ' Don't try to fly that thing. It cant be done! It will cost too much. It is dangerous. You will put the Railroad out of business and they won't stand for it."

Since we were in this place to study scripture after the meal and our present discussion, I had to press one last point home by asking, "Gentlemen, ask yourselves if you would be the ones to tell Jesus ' One man cant make a difference? It can't be done. Your ideas about peace, freedom and all people loving each other can never happen. Would you tell Him his ideas were too radical and that He as one individual could not change things. "

"Now you are getting into something altogether different,"the old man said.

"I know it sounds different," I retorted. "The fact is that given the past 2000 years it is easy for us to look back now and see that one man did change the whole course of history, and the human nature of millions has altered to accept the beliefs of Jesus, although we know His work is not yet completed. But put yourselves in a time prior to His coming, and ask if you could be open to His radical thinking not having the knowledge of the past 2000 years history."

I asked " Is the idea of us having a leader propose a radical change in our energy resources something that is so impossible to you that it should not even be spoken? The word is a spoken idea. Ideas are invisible in the mind. You can't see or touch a thought. However, all things come into existence through thought. Do you know that the whole world was spoken into existence?"

"Don't try to kill an idea at its inception. Nurture it; believe in it; help it grow and like a miracle a thought will spring into existence before your very eyes."

The chapel bell rang, and we all left the dining hall for chapel or individual bible study groups with fresh thoughts for the evening.