Daily Jewel

by Pastor Carnell, McAlester, OK
June 7, 2012

“Being Uncommon”
“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.” – Proverbs 6:10-11
,br /> It has been said that the twentieth century—with all of its advances in science and technology—was really the Century of the Common Man. The word often used to describe it was “entitlements.” Do you remember the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965? Or the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994? Do you remember the national debate in the early 1990s over universal health-care? These were all intended to improve the quality of life of America’s children, their teachers, and families. They brought into focus America’s obsession with creating a common ground for everyone.
Today those themes are being played again. Some politicians believe that we all are entitled to whatever is most desired in education, housing, health-care, job security, minimum wage, and retirement benefits.
Seventy-eight years ago President Herbert Clark Hoover promoted the idea that there were solutions to all social and economic problems. But Hoover also believed that America was in danger of developing a “cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity.” In challenging this mentality, Hoover called for the creation of a nation of “uncommon people”—men and women committed to excellence. In an essay that appeared in Words to Live By, edited by William Nichols (Simon and Schuster, 1949), Hoover said, “Let us remember that the great human advances have not been brought about by mediocre men and women. They were brought by distinctly uncommon people with vital sparks of leadership.” Hoover continued,
“It is a curious fact that when you get sick you want an uncommon doctor; if your car breaks down you want an uncommonly good mechanic; when we get into war we want dreadfully an uncommon admiral and an uncommon general. I have never met a father and mother who did not want their children to grow up to be uncommon men and women. May it always be so. For the future of America rests not in mediocrity, but in the constant renewal of leadership in every phase of our national life.”
If Hoover’s challenge is valid, why must we limit it to national interests? Mediocrity exists everywhere. It certainly exists in the home, where about one-half of marriages end in divorce. It exists in the world of sport, where athletes yield to temptation to enhance their strength and speed by using illegal drugs. It exists in business, where corporate heads manipulate earnings reports to make their companies more attractive to investors. It exists in local and state governments; it exists in the motion-picture industry; it exists in law-enforcement agencies; it exists in the military; it exists in health-care operations; it exists in America’s judicial system; it exists in religious organizations that agree to settle out of court rather than punish the immoral behavior of some of their clergy; it exists in the nation’s media.
It is time for a national repentance—a directional change of about 180 degrees. It is time for us to elect state and national leaders that are committed to setting straight the crooked course we have taken as a people. We are no longer world leaders; we follow the latest moral trends, wherever they lead. It is time for America to start producing uncommon leaders with the courage to point us in the direction that our former leaders took us—men and women who paid the price to make America great.
On January 25, 1974, then-governor Ronald Reagan addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference with these words: “We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, ‘The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.’” What we need are more uncommonly good men and women with vital sparks of leadership. Isn’t time for all of us to stop folding our hands? Don’t settle for okay, especially in your spiritual life when we are called to excellence!
Pastor J. T. Carnell

Posted to Religious by Quentin Clingerman @ 1:24 pm EDT