Presidental Wisdom

Sometimes I like to tie quotes into a weekly inter-office e-mail I generate or connect current topics within the title. So my co-worker was rather disappointed that I didn’t have any quotes from Dwight D. Eisenhower along with the mention of Hurricane Ike. I know she was jesting in part, but nothing like an internet scavenger hunt to brighten the day! Eisenhower was the president when I was born, and I know he was an inspirational general during World War II, but his quotes painted a different person than I imagined. From home-spun remarks similar to Will Rogers or Yogi Bera, to observations that touch our current political campaign, to thoughtful, deeply felt ideas on war and peace.

• Ankles are nearly always neat and good-looking, but knees are nearly always not.
• Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
• I'm saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.
• Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.
• Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.
• I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens.
• No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.
• Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.
• I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
• I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
• I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
• Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

My prayer for the congregation?

Dear God, You offer perfect authority! As we grow closer to our presidential elections, let our nation find the leaders that will provide the greater wisdom to observe and address the complex daily decisions of the executive office. To elect those that can place the nation’s needs over their party’s livelihood or their contributor’s projects. Increase their humility to find the desire to consult with you daily in prayer. Let words of those who have stood in their place mentor to them as no other advisor can relate. "Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace." (D. Eisenhower) May we find leaders that are bound for justice and peace. Amen.