Looking out: Lessons learned
By Brandon Astor Jones
I know a wonderful woman whose words of wisdom I want to share with you. Her name is Barbara Chapman-Woods. I regret that this column lacks space to present a greater number of her thoughts. My hope is that you will clip and save it and eventually find cause to use some of her thoughts in your communications with others.
To tell myself "I can't move mountains" is no excuse for not moving a few buckets/shovels full of earth.
For all living creatures, ongoing life without the changes of growth is stagnation.
Democracy today is about as authentic as the "reign" of an infant king during the actual rule of a wicked regent.
Take care that an increasing standard of living is not blinding us to a decreasing quality of life.
When the church becomes as concerned and caring for broken people as it is over broken marriages, then perhaps the world will listen to what the church is saying.
Even in countries that push individualism, there are still subtle pressures to conform with the dictates of a rigid society. Though those pressures may be less direct or apparent, never imagine that all your decisions or choices have been entirely free of a lifetime of conditioning.
Beware lest the "breath of fresh air" form a self-styled "prophet" or a new "Trust Mr Fixit" politician should prove to be the strong "cover-up" of a cheap deodoriser!
I no longer despise the family "oldies" of my parents' generation. I now realise they have much to tell me. Trouble is, by the time I grew wise enough to listen, I found that they had all died of old age.
Poverty can be a valuable tonic, but it is a very poor staple diet.
Man's measure: a person can be as great as his/her vision of God or as small as a self-seeking goal.
It is a curious thing how compelled to act we often feel to initiate legislation on "moral" matters, but at the same time, how we can look on passively while legislative structural or judicial injustice threatens the human rights and lives of people, and say (from our armchairs), God won't let them go too far!
Unless we learn to test what we hear — to discern between fact and sentiment, between denotive and connotative words — we become mindless tools of exploitation.
Every speaker needs one: a good listener. This year give your family what they need: become a good listener.
Cure or contagion? The only way — their leaders said — to stop the violence (the killing, the murders) is to kill. So the respected citizens voted for state-arranged killing of killers (and all those believed to be killers). Officialdom, on the "voters'" behalf, was authorised to kill by shooting, hanging, gassing, poisoning and electrocution. At last the region was purged, and a new "clean" generation — children of the respected citizens — was born. But the killing neither ceased nor diminished. Some said that the respected older generation must have had faulty genes. Others said, no, it was only that the parents' solution to their own problems had been well learned by the children.
For more of "Mother Woods'" wisdom and truths, write: Ms Barbara Chapman-Woods, Unit 19, St Andrews Village, Tribe St, Tamworth NSW 2340.
[The writer is a prisoner in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, Georgia State Prison, HCO1, E-2-36, Reidsville, GA 30453, USA. For the first time in 17 years, Brandon has the real hope of his sentence of death being mitigated. If you can help by contributing to his defence fund or in other ways, please contact Australians Against Executions, PO Box 640, Milson's Point NSW 2061. Phone (02) 9955 1731, fax 9427 9489. Cheques can be made payable to "Brandon Astor Jones Defence Fund".]