Jack Pelham

Come, and we shall bark at the man
Who approaches on our sidewalk.
We will snarl and bark
And put our feet up on the fence,
Pretending that we could not
Clear the fence if we wanted—
For we shall be kind enough
Not to terrify him too badly.

And we will tell him this is our yard and not his,
And that he’s walking on our sidewalk—
Which we deliberately keep outside our fence
As a courtesy to protect wanders like him
From our deadliness.

And we, noble fellow, do well to stand our post,
For if we didn’t, surely this man would
Kill our family, rob the house,
And probably burn it down
And eat our dog food—
Just as we can perceive that
His sinister intention has been
On every day he has walked by here.

So come, Sir Knight, and we shall bark as ever,
For having saved our domain from him thus far,
We shall by no means let him pass unwarned today.

In some, the heart is more generous than the schedule.
And in others, the schedule more than the heart.

One person may not have
All the heart he needs—
While another has more heart
Than he can use all by himself.

And when people like that
Become friends,
It makes them both
Better than they were before.

If they lose,
They will say there was cheating.

If they win,
They will say there was not.

Make no mistake about it;
Majority is the goal here,
And not justice.

Majority and not reform.

Give them the majority,
And they will care about
Little else.

If they win,
They will not listen any more
To the interior concerns they’ve recently discussed.

If they win,
They will not purge
The corruption of their own incumbents.

Let’s face it:
Whatever level of stupid it takes
To make you cringe—
To make you want to walk away
From the one being stupid—

There are certainly some who
Are quite comfortable
Living and operating
At that level.

There is in this world a chance
That too few ever seem to realize.
It is the chance to make develop oneself
Into a fine human, well-versed in
The wisdom of the ages,
And a living blessing to those around us—
All in honor of the goodness of God,
Who designed and created us in his image.

There’s a wonderful treasure—
Beyond earthly measure—
In learning to want
What we should, but don’t.

A professional therapist told me once that most everybody’s got an emotional void inside, along with some level of drive to fill it. And I suppose this is probably true. At least, it seems consistent with my observations in this world. And people fill it—or try to fill it—with different things—some effective, some ineffective, and some that may temporarily seem effective, but that wear off in time.

Here’s one pitfall, though, that’s worth mentioning. It’s based on this question: Whose responsibility is it to fill up the emotional void that I have inside? The basic choices, of course, are these:

1. It’s your own responsibility
2. It’s somebody else’s responsibility