An article written by my father, the Rev. C. Thomas Paige, as it appeared in the Tri-State Defender on the date shown.
Sometime ago, a wayward young man sat one day watching the hogs eating and came to a sudden realization: “I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned and am not worthy to be called thy son.'”
As we go into a new year, we, too, must evaluate our action in terms of God’s will. Every day I see people doing those things which I know – and they know, too – are not condoned by God. Many times our actions are apparently small, but they represent a falling short on the part of God’s will nevertheless.
A few days ago, as I was traveling one of our busy highways, a man rode up beside me and seeing an empty space between me and the car in front of me, he cut his car immediately in front of me and jeopardized the welfare of my car and myself to no end.
Maybe he soothed his conscience by saying, “Oh well, he was a person of another race so it really did not matter.” Many times we assume the same attitude. “Oh well, that person is not in my circle so it doesn’t matter.”Many times we feel that it does not matter because this thing is true or that thing is true, but irrespective of the other prevailing conditions and circumstances, the fact remains the same: we must concern ourselves with principles and not personalities! In our social lives many times we wink at certain things because certain persons are involved. We feel that since so and so is involved, it does not constitute a sin. But I am forced to believe that as I have heard the older people of my community say on numerous occasions, “God is no respecter of persons.”
********************
Much to my regret, many of us are building words to fit our conditions. Many of us are busy even making a god according to our specifications. We want people around us who condone our actions, whatever they are. We want people what are going to place their approval upon all that we do – good, bad, or indifferent. We move around in a society where efficiency is based upon agreement rather than an ability to do a job well and the earnest desire to do it that way. Somewhere down the highways of modern life man must come to grips with the moral standards that make life worthwhile. I know when many of us look around, we caress ourselves with the idea, “everybody else is doing it.”
Such a philosophy is ruining our world today. Our world today, our local communities, and our families need men who are made of such moral and spiritual fibre that they will not bow to short cuts to popularity, success, or high positions. Many – far too many – of our men today concern themselves with goals rather than examples. I feel that every man should have a worthwhile goal in life but I also feel that every man should have a worthwhile means of obtaining those goals. Now I grant you that attaining these goals that will last sometimes – and most times – proves a long, drawn out process, but it pays off in the final analysis.
********************
It seems to me that as we begin a new year, the story of this prodigal son brings us a real lesson. Here we find a young man who was getting along nicely under the protection of his father. The restrictions of his house life became too demanding as far as he was concerned, so he wet to his father and received that which was legally his and went from there to set up a world and a life according to his plans. The journey did not last too long. Finally, we see him coming back to his father, admitting that he had fallen short of the mark, that he had done things that had made him a borderline failure.
The very plan that he had endeared himself so much to was a path that started off rosy and ended with bitter disillusionment. To many of us today life demands that we stop and once again reset our sights and move toward those things that make life worthwhile. In the final analysis, life must have as its nucleus those things as such love, moral integrity and spiritual insight that will make for those forces that will make this world a better place in which to live.
As most of us look into this new world we come face to face with the fact that most of us have been prodigals along life’s highway. When we come to the basics of things life amounts to a series of falling down and getting up. We all have our shortcomings. There is nothing for us to do but to admit that we have failed to live up to expectations and try in the new year to re-dedicate and consecrate ourselves to those things that will bring about an improved life on our part and a new evaluation as far as God is concerned.
This son made a great admission, one that each of us can make. Whether in things small or things big, we have come short of expectations. Sometimes motivated by tempers, greed, selfishness, or jealousy, we have done things that were contrary to the will of God.
Instead of mastering these things, they have been our masters. As the new year comes into each of our lives, today we must recognize failures and shortcomings as such and, having done this, move forward with a grim determination that we have been given a new chance – a second chance, if you please – and we are going to live on a higher plane in another year.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 