Abraham Lincoln – Letters to Will

Dear Will:

For as long as I can remember, my dad was a member of the Rotary Club. He went to meetings and on the occasional trip, but mostly I had no idea what it meant to be a Rotarian except for a sign that hung on the wall of his office listing the organization’s Four-Way Test. To this day every Rotary Club around the world recites it like a catechism:

Of the things we think, say or do

Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

You didn’t have to see that sign on his wall to know my dad was an honorable man. It showed up in everything he did and was reflected in the respect he commanded both in business and in his private life. He didn’t talk much about his affiliation with the Rotary Club, but if you knew him and later learned he was a Rotarian, you would not have been surprised.

My dad’s sense of honor showed up all the time. I remember once all nine of us had piled back into the family station wagon following dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Somehow my dad realized that he had not been charged the full amount for our meal or he had received too much change or something like that. Well, he left us all in the car and marched back into the restaurant to settle his account properly. I was amazed. We had already left. No one would ever know. But for my dad, these things mattered.

Tad R. Callister has said: “Integrity is a purity of mind and heart that knows no deception, no excuses, no rationalization, nor any coloring of the facts. It is an absolute honesty with one’s self, with God, and with our fellowman. Even if God blinked or looked the other way for a moment, it would be choosing the right—not merely because God desires it but because our character demands it.”

Throughout the ages, our most admired leaders have been men and women similarly committed to a life of virtue. George Washington famously walked away from the presidency when fawning admirers were anxious to install him as king. He chose instead (and once again) to put the interests of his country ahead of his own. (No wonder we all found it so easy to believe the apocryphal story of young George and the cherry tree.) Of Washington, Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “His integrity was pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known. . . . He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.”

Nor should we forget that our greatest president of all, Abraham Lincoln, has always been known as Honest Abe—a remarkable honorific, especially considering how little evidence of honesty remains in political circles today. The Lincoln Heritage Museum has called Lincoln “an exemplar and a model of virtue perhaps more than any person in world history other than religious figures.”

It is in no small part due to the character of such men and women that the United States has risen to greatness from its humble beginnings. Like any nation ours has an imperfect past, of course, but if we have ever been great and ever hope to be so again, it has been and will be due to those moments when we have stood tall and done the right thing, even in difficult circumstances. When we have put the broad interests of the many ahead of the selfish interests of the few. When we have made sacrifices for humanity and given of our riches and resources to lift those less fortunate.

This is who we are—or who we were, in any case. And who we should be. So let us not be too casual nor too forgiving as we watch those now in power openly violate their solemn oaths of office; as they act to do away with those appointed to enforce ethical standards and flag conflicts of interest within the government; as they instruct others to ignore laws against bribery. As they disregard commitments, betray friendships and alliances, cozy up to the sorts of strongmen and dictators that for years we have fought to constrain and overcome. Nor should we make excuses for behavior and policies that our forebears found abhorrent and worked so hard to eliminate in the United States of America.

I’m not saying we should elect only Rotarians; but it seems obvious to me that we should not lend our support to those whose lives make it clear that they could never get in the club. In any case, before we drive away, we must all remember that there are children in the backseat watching what we do next.

_{Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash}

Dear Will:

It’s Memorial Day weekend, but it hasn’t felt much like a holiday around here. We recently installed some cabinets in our garage, which meant that first I had to spend several evenings culling through our “stuff” and piling everything that was worth keeping into a heap in the middle of the garage. It then took me two full days to assign the various heap units to their new homes. The garage looks great (it won’t last, I know; but for a few days we’re indulging the fantasy). Still, I can’t wait to get back to the office so that I can relax.

As I pulled out my flag to commemorate the holiday, I found myself thinking about patriots. The great patriots of the world have demonstrated a clear sense that the collective is more important than the individual. They understood that in the fight to establish or preserve freedom for a nation, the focus cannot be on “me” or “mine,” but rather has to be on “us” and “ours.” Consider the words of Moroni, the great Book of Mormon patriot, which he hastily scrawled but carefully chose as he placed them on the Title of Liberty. “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children,” it read (Alma 46:12). That banner became a rallying point for a nation, its message a rallying cry for a people. It reminded the Nephites that they had something worth fighting for.

Moroni’s selfless leadership also reflected an understanding that in order to achieve great things it would be necessary to give up, or at least place at risk, some good things. That’s why often, when we speak of glorious patriots, we also speak of tragic death. Because, as Emerson said, they “[dared] to die, and leave their children free.” A couple of years ago, my wife Dana and I enjoyed one of the most moving Sabbaths of our lives. After attending church in downtown Washington D.C., we set out for an afternoon of quiet reflection at the various memorials in and around the capital, each one paying homage to patriots, both famous and obscure. We watched visitors take rubbings from that great wall of the Vietnam Memorial. We were moved by the drama of the Korean War Memorial. But nothing was so moving as our trek through Arlington National Cemetery, with its rows upon rows of nondescript gravestones, each paying tribute to a life given up for country. We witnessed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watched reverently as the honor guard marched 21 steps up, 21 steps back, 21 steps up, 21 steps back—each step honoring the many unnamed men and women who have died defending our country.

Patriots such as these have knowingly faced the ironic truth that in order to preserve our lives and families, we may have to temporarily or permanently forsake them. It’s a truth that Jesus himself taught. “For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it,” He said, “and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). Jesus also said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). It’s what Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” It is the ultimate sacrifice, an act of selflessness that cannot be matched: sacrifice made often in the face of staggering odds; selflessness that defies reason.

What of us then? Perhaps as we reflect on the great lives and deaths of patriots, we can once again find inspiration in the words of Lincoln, pronounced just months after the bloody battle at Gettysburg: “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say. . . , but it can never forget what they did. . . . It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated . . . to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we . . . highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain. . . .”

Letters to Will

Tag: Abraham Lincoln

The Children Are Watching

That They Shall Not Have Died in Vain