It's Ten pm. Do You Know Where Your President Is?

I’ve long been focused on the importance of local matters and of supporting locally owned businesses, of being involved in local movements, local charities and local service.  Because local is where we live, day in and day out. 

A tragedy unfolding in a distant land captures our attention and, of course, the media conduct saturation coverage of the downed Malaysian airliner, illegal immigration, Middle East mayhem and Russian military adventurism.  But, despite the air time they dominate and the collective mental position they assume, those issues don’t seem to change the rhythm of our lives in noticeable ways except insofar as they cause us anxiety.

I received a voter’s pamphlet in my mailbox last week and began reading about the people who’ve stepped up for election to local, county and state public office, along with those who for some reason would like to be members of Congress.  It's time to exercise one of my most fundamental rights and I’m shame-faced to admit that I’ve paid little attention to most of the candidates, though some are familiar, having already done creditable work for all of us who live around here.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about Barack Obama, and the news media track his movements for us minute by minute.  We always know where he is, what he’s said on just about every subject and how his job approval ratings have lately risen or fallen.  But the President’s itinerary, speeches and policies seldom have immediate effect when it comes to local practice of law enforcement, the creation and tending of parks, management of schools, maintenance of roads, formulation and interpretation of zoning laws, provision of mental health services and dozens of other matters that do, in fact, directly touch us and our children and grandchildren in our towns, schools and neighborhoods every day.  Those matters are the province of the offices sought by people whose names appear on the “off-year” ballot and, in presidential election years, below the candidates for that "highest office."  I'm of the mind that our ballots are built upside down.

Daily choices make our community what it is and what it will become.  Our choices to inform ourselves about those who speak for us in local matters of public policy and administration have impact on our experience and enjoyment of life.  Perhaps we should pay more attention to them.

Heidi

A tribute offered in the name of Heidi's Tuesday evening family -- Brigitte Hanson, Victoria Josslin, the author and others.

Life moves in a stream of events, both serendipitous and disappointing. We occasionally know triumph, sometimes defeat.  My friend Heidi Wells passed away on the evening of Friday, July 4, Independence Day.  For Heidi’s family and friends I’m sure there’s more defeat than triumph in their hearts just days after she slipped away following a rapid, renewed assault by the cancer that wreaked havoc in her life in the recent past.  Perhaps in time they and we will find peace in the fact that Heidi finally found freedom -- freedom from the pain, fear and uncertainty that accompany cancer, freedom from worry for those that would be left behind, should it ultimately take her from us much too soon. 

Those of us whose great privilege it was to know Heidi will miss her sorely.  She was a relatively private person whom I knew after these many years only insufficiently.  I knew her to be protective of the treasure that is her family.  Her love of Wes and her deep love and humble pride in her children and grandchildren were evident each time the conversation turned to so much as a glance in that direction.

For most of the past twenty years or so, I enjoyed the calm, easygoing warmth Heidi brought to the table around which we sat one evening each week for conversation, reading and instruction in the language of her homeland.  Heidi was one who brought to us a unique view of the fatherland and of her Muttersprache as she shared stories of her mother and her early years in Pforzheim at the edge of the Black Forest, stories of colorful celebration, of distinctive German cuisine, of traditions foreign to those of us whose own traditions sometimes seemed pallid by comparison.

I’m happy and grateful to have known Heidi and to have shared a small bit of her life.  I wish her family and all of us peace in the midst of loss.

Independence

Two hundred thirty-eight years have passed since subjects of King George in the New World stood up and announced a new nation, a nation conceived very differently from any that existed to date.  Their dream has persisted in the hearts not only of Americans but of people the world over who yearn to breathe free.

Even with our many problems, some deeply rooted, Americans are proud on July 4^th.  We’re the heirs of a great legacy.  It’s for us to recognize our duty to promote and protect the liberty our forefathers envisioned and what our sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, grand- and great grandparents paid for in blood and treasure.  To the extent that we do this, we’ll enable generations to come to realize and enjoy the dream.

It’s become my privilege to help my neighbors new and old to achieve a part of that dream, the right to own a home and land of their own.  Facing an economy still bearing uncertainty relative to the future, and dealing with regulations more complex than ever, this is challenging work, but it’s also satisfying work because it involves helping families at a turning point.  

Have a great 4th!

I’d be honored if you’d remember me in conversation with your friends and neighbors who are growing a family, downsizing or simply desiring to change their picture.

John Hays
Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate
206-419-5001 cell

Forgiveness and a Sermon in Seven Words

Béla Szigethy was for me a fascinating character, a man who, along with his young bride, fled first before the Nazis, then before the advancing Russians.  Having grown up in Transylvania, an ethnically Hungarian region now within the political borders of Rumania, the two lived for a time in a German refugee camp and ultimately emigrated to America at great cost.

Béla was by calling and education a Reformed Church pastor.  When I knew him he was far into retirement; I heard him preach only once.  He was an excellent speaker, though I recall little of the sermon he gave at Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church that Sunday, in part because I was mesmerized by his voice heavily laden with his Hungarian accent, by his countenance and by his long black clerical robe which trailed behind him as he walked and as he spoke from the pulpit.  His voice, his facial profile and his manner in the chancel called to my twisted mind another celebrity associated with Transylvania.  At home when my children were young, we sometimes referred to him simply but affectionately as “The Count.”  But we didn’t know him well.

It was an honor later to come to know Béla better, as well as his wife Maria, an outspoken, brilliant woman whose range of knowledge, had you known her only a little, you would never imagine.  Béla and Maria lived simply in an old house on Bainbridge Island, avid organic gardeners who raised as much of their own food as our northwest climate and their advancing age would permit.  They were voracious readers, the evidence of which was everywhere in their home.  The two of them were gracious and generous to share their deep knowledge of eastern European history, of the Polish Pope John Paul II and of the role of the church in the collapse of communism when our daughter Erin conducted a project for middle school history day.  Our admiration and awe before this extraordinary pair grew as it did for any and all who came to know them.  I’m only sorry that I didn’t give greater priority to building a true friendship with both Béla and Maria before their passing.

One Sunday morning as we lingered in the foyer after worship and talked with friends after most had gone home, I had the occasion to introduce Béla to a young couple that had only very recently announced their engagement to be married.  As Béla approached, I asked, “Béla, do you know Jonathan and Ashley?”  “Why, no, I don’t,” he replied as he smiled broadly and extended his hand in greeting.  “Jonathan and Ashley have just become engaged,” I announced, and Béla’s face again lit up, then slowly, gently, became more serious.  He lifted his right hand to his face with a bony index finger extended and resting on his cheek, his thumb supporting his chin, his right elbow supported by his left arm raised to his chest.  He thought for a moment, then, as his hand came away from his face, the bony finger still extended and pointing at a slight angle toward the ceiling, he looked at the couple and said, “You must forgive one another every day.”  Nothing more.

A silence ensued as we all were dumbfounded in the time it took for the wisdom from this humble man’s lips to take root.  In that brief moment, in those seven short words, I heard better marital counsel than I had ever heard or read before or have since.

C.S. Lewis has observed that we can’t live up even to our own standards of morality, let alone those of God, so we desperately need His salvation.  In any human relationships there are differences, affronts, misunderstandings, ego, personal agendas crowding out the welfare of the other.  The hurt of these slights is especially acute in a marital relationship, which is why marriage is hard.  In marriage, even in the best of them, we daily come face to face with our own shortcomings and, absent forgiveness, marriages stumble and fall.

“You must forgive one another every day.”