Blog archive
June 2023
Creative Aging
06/01/2023
May 2023
One Villager's Story
05/31/2023
Pasadena Area Literary Arts Center
05/31/2023
Pasadena Village Responds to Rainbow Flag Burning at Pasadena Buddhist Temple
05/31/2023
Plan Ahead - And Be Prepared
05/31/2023
Tuesday, May 23 Pasadena Celebrated Older Americans
05/31/2023
Rumor of Humor #15
05/28/2023
Reparations, Social Justice Activity
05/24/2023
Rumor of Humor #14
05/19/2023
Rumor of Humor #13
05/12/2023
Issue #12
05/09/2023
Science Monday - Review of Meeting on April 10, 2023
05/09/2023
Conversations Re African American Artists Before 1920
05/08/2023
Beyond the Village – Suzi and Phil Hoge
05/01/2023
Congratulations Wayne April! Honored at UNH
05/01/2023
Table Topics
05/01/2023
Volunteer Appreciation at the Village
05/01/2023
“ACCIDENTAL HOST—The Story of Rat Lungworm Disease”
05/01/2023
April 2023
Jumbo Joy
04/24/2023
Pasadenans Recent Experience With Racism
04/23/2023
Recent Events Reflecting Racism
04/23/2023
Fig and Goat Cheese Bruschetta
04/18/2023
Photography for Social Justice
04/11/2023
Issue #8
04/07/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - Catherine Deely
04/06/2023
Creative Writing in Older Adults
04/06/2023
Gifts of Love
04/06/2023
March 2023
Issue #7
03/31/2023
Issue #6
03/26/2023
Great Decisions update
03/14/2023
Dominion Lawsuit, South Africa and 710 Stub
03/08/2023
February 2023
2023 DEI Progress
02/27/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - Doug Colliflower
02/26/2023
CONVERSATIONS WITH ART
02/26/2023
GREAT DECISIONS
02/26/2023
OLDER ADULTS RESOURCE FAIR
02/26/2023
The Important, Influential Books in our Lives - Revisited
02/26/2023
History, Resolution of the 710 Freeway
02/19/2023
Eminent Domain, 710 Highway
02/13/2023
Bernard Garrett, 710 Freeway
02/06/2023
Men's Times Gatherings
02/03/2023
January 2023
Pasadena's Senior Commission
01/30/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - JIM HENDRICK
01/27/2023
GRATITUDE - IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!
01/27/2023
JEFF GUTSTADT - FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST
01/27/2023
Bernard Garrett, Incredible Black Entrepreneur
01/17/2023
What is the "Spirit Talk" Group About?
01/16/2023
Same Ol’ New Year, Brand New Me
01/12/2023
Review of 2022, Consideration of 2023
01/06/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - PATTI LA MARR
01/03/2023
FROM THE CHAIR
01/03/2023
WALK WITH EASE
01/03/2023
MORAL VALUES & CIVIC LIFE
By John TuitePosted: 09/30/2020
What are your/my core moral values? Have You ever written them down? Have You shared them and explained them to my//your family? I have not. When I ask myself whether I live up to my core values, I get a little shaky when it comes to giving full respect to others as I expect for myself. When you google core values you get some differences, but Honesty generally comes in first. And that is a slippery rock in the USA right now. Truth seems to have become a policy matter rather than a value!
Because I grew up a Catholic and participated as a priest in the life of the Church for the first half of my life, I follow with great interest the role of the Church and Catholics in the civil life of the United States. I’m fascinated at the number of Supreme Court Justices
in the modern era who have been Catholics. I’m interested that the current Attorney
General is a practicing Catholic. And the nominee for SCOTUS also. And the
Democratic Presidential nominee. It surprises me that the Church is identified as part of the “evangelical” coalition. And I am taken (as I observe political motivation, mainly in media) that the core, sole driving political identifier for evangelicals is abortion. I ask myself where is a position, equally as burning and absolute, to war, capital punishment, counter-terrorism killings, and government assassinations. Or other moral values.
In my early life it seemed that American Catholics made up a significant block of the working class. The Popes wrote many letters on the importance of social principles and practice. The Church strongly supported labor unions. Labor Day was celebrated by the Church. I was raised to feel a responsibility for the poor and outcast. I spent many evenings on Chicago’s Skid Row, under orders of my mentor, ladling soup. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement were common parlance and matters of not infrequent mention. Civic life in Chicago was a matter of more than passing interest to the Church. Civic life had to do with the welfare of the citizens. Catholics were Democrats.
Somehow or other, even in the era of the “machine politics” that I knew, there was an expectation, however naive, that moral values were present and honored in Civic Life.
I’m reminded of this time when I watch “Blue Bloods”. Truth, Honesty, Respect, Justice, Tolerance. I swallow hard as I speak these words because of the cynicism that has
invaded society. I try to guard my family dinner table from inroads of that cynicism.
Somewhere there’s got to be hope and idealism, even if it’s waning in civic life, at least at the national level. That’s why I ask you to tell me about you and you