Sing, sing a song
                                               Make it simple to last
                                              Your whole life long
                                               Don't worry that it's not
                                              Good enough for anyone
                                                     Else to hear
                                                Just sing, sing a song.
                                                         The Carpenters
                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LYekeK0HWo

My Grandpa was a great storyteller.  During his career with the railroad, he moved west with the electrification of signals, and finally, as an electrician on the Milwaukie Railroad, which was an electric train running from Chicago to Tacoma and Seattle Washington.  Grandpa told stories about being chased by wolves when he was on his speeder near Ft. Steel Wyoming.  He told about working in New Orleans.  He had another hair-raising story about meeting a train in a tunnel when he was on his speeder.  (He and his partner survived, but the poor speeder was history.)

These are my family stories.  These are the stories we retell when my cousins and I get together for reunions, and we add our own stories to Grandpa’s stories. These are the stories of who we are, and how our family helped to build something good in this country. 

I am old enough to remember Grandpa’s stories.  I also remember some of the stories Mom read to us as children.  I remember Mrs. Colegate used to read Uncle Wiggley stories to us when she babysat. 

Something happened to stories as I grew older.  Family stories and sitting around in the evening listening to Mom read gave way to the TV and I Love Lucy.  Actually, I did love Lucy and the silly situations she made for herself.  But, with TV, our stories no longer became our stories, but the entertainment industry’s stories and media corporation stories.

I love stories, and I’ve been a passionate reader for years, starting with the time I missed a spelling test in the second grade, because I was busy reading one of the “little house” books.  I’ve read thousands of books over the years.  When I finished the complete works of Jane Austen and Kipling, I moved forward in time through centuries and through the twenties, thirties to the nineties. Someplace in the early two thousands, I noticed that all the books I read sounded the same.  A murder mystery must have the same plot as the last murder mystery.  One romance reads about like another and certainly like the last one by the same author. 

I thought about my problems with the books I read and why with a few exceptions, I don’t like TV.  I came to the realization that I wasn’t reading or watching real stories.  These were corporate stories--stories chosen to sell rather than to innovate. 

What difference do stories make?  Aren’t they just imagination to pass the time and prevent boredom?  Absolutely not!  Stories are our way of manipulating reality so we can look at the world from a different perspective.  Historical stories keep us in touch with our past, so we can make better choices for our future.  Stories are essential to good decision-making.  I would go so far as to say that when the power elite controls our stories, they control us.

Look back at paragraph one.  I mentioned that Grandpa worked for a fully electric railroad.  The Milwaukie Road was a non-polluting electric train.  It generated electricity for the line when the trains went downhill.  In some areas, the electricity was generated at hydroelectric plants. http://www.scn.org/cedar_butte/milw-elec.html

The notion of a fully electric railroad system is intriguing for today’s consciousness of carbon pollution, and oil reserves.  What a magnificent way to haul goods and people!  I learned about the trains from Grandpa’s stories.  How much wealth of information is lost to what is corporately marketable?

As for the stories I write, they are based on my education and career as a social psychologist.  They often sound prophetic, simply because social systems work in predictable patterns.  Now, someone can learn this by reading Sociology books.  I still have some of mine to use as sleep aides--better and faster than drugs for putting me to sleep.  I hope to add a little spice to my stories set in authentic social systems.  I’m not certain the large corporate press would be interested in publishing something that condemns oligarchies and gives valid historical and sociological reasons for that condemnation.

Because my work is somewhat anti-establishment or at least anti-what-we-are-led-to-believe-is-establishment, I wouldn’t find much interest for my work among the big-six corporate establishment publishers.  I’m thankful to have found a small publisher who is not shy about anti-establishment work and even writes his own. 

I also actively urge others to write your stories.  This is one of my reasons for attending our Saturday Market on Vashon.  I love to talk to other potential authors and encourage them to write--even if nobody other than their children and grandchildren read those stories. 

I encourage you to write your stories. Write them.  They are your family stories and like Grandpa’s stories may pass on important history to the next generation.  So folks, to paraphrase the old Carpenters’ song,

                                                        “Write, a write a story,
                                               Make it simple to last a whole life long

 As an employer and business manager for over 35 years I have learned that what you pay your employees is very important.  Let me state from the start that I have no strong opinion about the minimum wage controversy.  I am not a big proponent of the government forcing employers to pay a certain amount.  My position is that from the standpoint of ethical conduct and good business sense, businesses should be willing to use pay rates both as an incentive for encouraging good work and as a reward for good work. 

         I believe that business ethics should demand that we consider what our employees need for pay, not just what others are paying for similar work.  In saying this, I realize that I am walking into a mine-field and going against accepted business practice.   However, as business owners and managers we should never view ourselves as being free from moral restrictions and demands.  The phrase, “It’s just business,” should never be used to excuse behavior that we would not engage in with our family or friends.  The added consideration of addressing what our employee needs is both difficult and potentially divisive, and I am not suggesting that the needs of the employee be a factor in how little we can pay, but rather in how much more we should pay than the standard.  I am aware that if you don’t like this concept, you have the majority of business men and women on your side, but those who insist on strong moral ethics are seldom in the majority

             My suggested pay practice will certainly not get the business owner rich, at least in the short-run.  Nevertheless, pure self-interest should not be our primary motivator.  My experience as a business owner in a position to watch many other businesses over a 35 year period tells me that paying employees both what they are worth and what they need will pay off in the long-term success of the business.  But even if this were not true, we have an obligation to those we associate with to treat them with respect and dignity regardless of the effect on us.  The appalling practices of many businesses regarding insufficient pay may make businesses look profitable today, but the long term demoralization of employees and its effect on dividing employers from employees will do great damage to the future of our country.

Some time ago, I began to suspect that very few people have a great purpose for their life, but I quickly came to accept the notion that perhaps we define purpose wrong.  Perhaps the purpose of our lives is to live joyfully and peacefully.

The message we hear from our education and business sectors is that purpose has something to do with career or perhaps power.  We assume our purpose is to take our sword and shield and ride into battle.  What if our purpose is to enjoy a good dinner?  What if our purpose is to play a game with our children? What if it is to watch the sun go down?

Now in a sense, I’ve been a warrior—working with at-risk youth and advocating for services for people with disabilities.  Did any of this make a difference?  I guess it did for the few who got services.  I’m sure it didn’t change the policies of those I called morally bankrupt.

So after all my hard work, evil runs rampant like a firestorm.  At-risk youth take guns into schools and shoot other students.  Justice for those who come into this world with disabilities caused by industrial toxins has fled behind walls of lack of funding.  I see other warriors throwing themselves against the wall to little effect.  People continue to work hard for long hours and live in grinding poverty that destroys the soul.

So we are surrounded by injustice that we cannot defeat.  How do we then find purpose for our lives?  Is there a secret method for turning our backs on injustice and rejecting the lies about purpose?  

I do have an image in the back of my mind that seems to contain a clue to living with purpose.  When dealing with the school district for my foster daughter, I did eventually turn my back on others’ sense of right and started my own school using home-school laws.  My school became a much gentler experience for our children.  While other students labored in a classroom, our children went bicycle riding or played with their horses. 

Somewhere in the image of sitting in the sun with a few other mothers while our children practiced riding in a ring with their horses, I think I find the answer to my questions about purpose. 

Purpose is much gentler than the world would have us believe.  It involves enjoying life without doing harm to others.  It is about a modest but adequate lifestyle.  How do we get there from here?  I don’t know.  I see what needs to change, but I also see the obstacles.

Do we still need those warriors who throw themselves against the wall of injustice? Do they make a difference?  Do they help contain some of the evil?  I’m afraid that we do need them for a while.  Now, I am back to the question of how to live with the gentle purpose of loving one another when the forces of evil are actively trying to deny the common person the resources necessary to live a modest but adequate lifestyle.

In the end, I must conclude that while our purpose is to sit in the sun, watch our children play and enjoy the gifts of the world, I very much fear that battling injustice is a vocation.  The trick is to keep one’s eye on the true purpose of life without being distracted by the vocation.  I’m not very good at separating purpose from vocation.  I still feel the need to hack away at injustice to the point that I forget to sit in the sun and listen to the birds singing in the trees.

In a few weeks, half of my friends are going to be very disappointed.  The election will be over.  In each contest one candidate will win and one will lose.  Hopefully, we can all look forward to freedom from caustic ads and the obsessions of our friends over the election.  After the election, I hope all of my friends are still speaking to each other.

I’d like to offer a few words for finding common ground and making peace with each other.  First, forget the angry words spouted by entertainers.  We’ve heard some particularly nasty comments this election season.  When the election is over.  It is time to recognize that some famous people are willing to manipulate the populous for their own profit.  Let’s ignore them and move on toward a goal of loving our neighbors.

I’ve heard numerous stories about the evils that this candidate or another will commit if elected.  Reality check:  None of us can foretell the future.  Will any elected candidate behave in the predicted fashion—either for good or evil?  I don’t know.  Nobody knows.  When the election is over, it is time to stop worrying about what someone might do.  You’ve done the best that you knew how in your choices at the polls.  Now, it is time to trust in God to provide for you and practice loving your neighbor.

We’ve tried, over the past few months, to dialogue on issues close to our hearts.  In many cases both the pro and con sides of the discussion have wanted the same outcome.  Our disagreement has been over how to get from where we are now to where we want to be.  Do we regulate more?  Less?  About the same?  Do we pass new legislation?  Do we enforce existing legislation?  Yes, we disagree on how to accomplish our goals.  Most of those disagreements are based on ideologies that will not work without compromise.  It is time to set aside our favorite opinion on how to accomplish our common national goals and practice loving our neighbors.

Yes, our country has a great deal of work to do to restore economic stability, safety in our communities and the security of all members of our country.  We may be battling some huge forces of evil, but I think if we work together, we-the-people can grow our county to a position of physical security, economic stability and peace.  The government cannot do this for us even if they were inclined to try.  As long as we are divided we cannot heal.  Our first step is to set aside our anger and sense of self-righteousness.   We need to take a look around us and take action based on love for our neighbors.

Now is the time to ask yourself, “What can I do to help heal my nation?”  I think we will all find different answers.  For myself, I will continue to write books, garden organically, care for my foster daughter and prayerfully worship God.  Healing is possible, but it must begin with all of us making the decision to love our neighbor.