In the aftermath of the loss of his first race for office, in 1964, Mr. Bush wrote a heartfelt letter to an old friend: “This mean humorless philosophy which says everybody should agree on absolutely everything is not good.” He continued, “When the word moderation becomes a dirty word we have some soul searching to do.” The words — touchingly naïve and heartfelt — seem to come from a vanished world…
Mr. Bush was the last president of the World War II generation. A decorated combat hero, he nevertheless found it incredibly difficult to talk about himself — a legacy from his mother, who discouraged self-reference and self-absorption by saying that no one wanted to hear about the Great I Am. As a child, Mr. Bush was nicknamed Have-Half for his tendency to split any treats in two to share with friends. His was an ethos of empathy. Mr. Bush always wondered about what “the other guy” was thinking and feeling. […]
Mr. Bush tempered his own ambition with empathy and dignity. Late in his years as Mr. Reagan’s vice president, Mr. Bush was shown into a children’s leukemia ward in Krakow, Poland. Thirty-five years before, he and his wife, Barbara, had lost a child to the disease, a family tragedy of which he rarely spoke in public. In Krakow, one patient, a 7- or 8-year-old boy, wanted to greet the American vice president. Learning that the child was sick with the cancer…Mr. Bush began to cry. “My eyes flooded with tears,” he dictated to his audio diary, “and behind me was a bank of television cameras.” He told himself, “I can’t turn around,” can’t “dissolve because of personal tragedy in the face of a host of reporters and our hosts and the nurses who give of themselves every day.” So “I stood there looking at this little guy, tears running down my cheek” — “hoping he didn’t see, but, if he did, hoping he’d feel that I loved him.”
Mr. Bush’s is a voice from a past at once distant and close at hand — and a voice we should seek to heed, for we need that grace now, in our own time.
~ Jon Meacham, Nostalgia for the Grace of George H.W. Bush
Notes:
- Don’t miss full Opinion piece in the NY Times by Jon Meecham: Nostalgia for the Grace of George H.W. Bush
- Photo: Former President George H.W. Bush during a portrait session for Parade Magazine at home in Kennebunkport, Maine on September 29, 2009. Portrait by Doug Menuez via Stockland Martel
Grace … Yes. And the wisdom that comes from meeting life’s challenges, staying true, and keeping our hearts open to the suffering of our fellow human beings. 💛
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Yes…
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this is the personification of grace.
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It is….
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If, only.
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If. Only if…
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“I do not understand the mystery of grace. – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” Ann Lamott. We definitely need grace now.
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Yes…so appropo….
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Grace is needed by the world but it seems to me that greed is winning the race.
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Hard to disagree yet I see so many instances of light. A kind word. A door being opened. A helping hand. I find hope in small things.
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True David, but it would be nicer to see more of that kind of behavior. I am 73 and at times someone WILL hold a door for me or let me enter the elevator before them. The one that makes me smile most is when a child holds the door for me or gives up their seat for me, now that gives me HOPE. :o)
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Yes. Yes. I agree.
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It would be great if we prided ourselves on grace instead of hubris
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So great….
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Grace, indeed, and a soupçon of humility would be most welcome, too….
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Soupçon. WTH is THAT. I’m grabbing that word and keeping it. How’s that for grace?
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Laughing… It’s a dash, a little bit, a sprinkling. And yes, feel free to appropriate at will. You’re welcome. 😉
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grace–my ultimate goal….what a beautiful illustration of grace you have provided
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It really is. Wonderful.
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Thank you for sharing this. “Kindness and looking beyond yourself is a trait worth pursuing.” I gave a spill about our agency yesterday and towards the final thank you for their attention, I added the value of caring for others.
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A higher calling, it is.
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Too much is lost to us today of true caring and civility.
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