To me the beginning of a new year is always a little scary, like plunging from an extremely high diving board into totally unfamiliar waters, possibly shark-infested.

Thursday, January 04, 2001

To me the beginning of a new year is always a little scary, like plunging from an extremely high diving board into totally unfamiliar waters, possibly shark-infested.

` This is particularly true after a national election which my candidate didn’t win. And my favorite columnist is Molly Ivins. Just for the record, though, if I could speak a magic word that would convert every other citizen in the country to my thinking, I wouldn’t speak it. Variety is more than the spice of life. It is life.

My feeling about religion is the same. I had a wonderful Quaker roommate once who put it best, &uot;no denomination has a monopoly on truth.&uot; I’m always a little alarmed by those who pronounce their own convictions correct and all others heretical. While they live the spirit of the inquisition will never die.

Years ago I read a series of books about a family who pretended to be an automobile. It’s so many years ago I can’t remember the names, but I think their name was Sheldon and that they called themselves &uot;the Sheldon Six.&uot;

As I recall their father was a minister. The family was upset because the teacher they had at school, of a different faith, had stopped reading the Bible every morning. Then it was discovered that Bible reading had been ruled out of schools in respect to the separation of church and state.

That book had to have been written about the time of World War I, so the policy is not new. When I was still in elementary school a group of matrons from our Klu Klux Klan-infested little town approached my mother with a petition for her to sign. The purpose of the petition was to have a teacher removed for belonging to the wrong church.

My mother promptly handed the petition back, unsigned, remarking truthfully that said teacher was the best teacher I had ever had. &uot;If her religion is the cause we can only pray for mass conversions.&uot;

Prejudice, whether religious or racial, is not something you abstain from as an act of charity toward others. One abstains from mere toleration of other religions, other races, as one weeds a garden, to keep one’s thinking, one’s ability to think, clear.

Years ago someone advised me never to face another person without silently asking myself, &uot;What can I do for you? What can I learn from you?&uot;

I’ve never known anyone from whom I didn’t learn something. The greater the apparent difference between learner and teacher the more there is to be learned.

John Donne, perhaps, said it best, &uot;No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontoric were, as well as if a mannor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.&uot;

We are all involved in all mankind, and even the intolerant need our compassion. They are suffering from a form of self-destruction.

As I write this, the snow is falling, falling, falling and with no sign of stopping. Something has gone wrong with my telephone. I cannot call out and I suppose no one can call in. For the present I live in a solitary silent world. It is a good atmosphere for making resolutions, but not one I’d seek for any length of time.

Resolutions are, I think, a good thing. We may not keep them, but at least we have for a moment stood on a plateau from whence we could view past shortcomings and reach forward to more dedicated activities.

The mundane resolutions I obviously should make, such as not putting off until tomorrow what I should do today, can be made early any Monday morning.

There’s a poem by Louis Untermeyer entitled simply &uot;Prayer.&uot; It’s not the finest poem I’ve ever read, but its substance makes it one of my favorites. I’ve read it so often that I know it by heart. My favorite lines, the ones I think of when I’m making New Year’s resolutions, are the first two of the last verse:

&uot;From compromise and things half done

Keep me with stern and stubborn pride.&uot;

I’ve never been quite able to live up to that, but I keep trying. It isn’t too late, I know, to wish all of you a happy and progressive year to come, many years to come.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.