"A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity." [HCR]
If this decency and quiet strength came from his enduring faith, a Jamesian pragmatic pluralist must applaud its value for living. Fruits, not roots. “I found I was absolutely, completely at ease about death. I’m going to live again… Faith in something is an inducement not to dormancy but to action.”
And yet, I have to say I’m even more impressed by those whose decency flows not from belief in everlasting life but from recognition of its finitude. That’s the value, to me, of a humanistic sensibility.
My form of faith, I’ve been told.
I’m not sure faith is the right word, though. I prefer hope. And gratitude. “What a precious privilege, to be alive…”
We are, as Dawkins said, lucky to get to die. We got to live. The great challenge is to live well. Jimmy did.
We are, as Dawkins said, lucky to get to die. We got to live. The great challenge is to live well. Jimmy did.
I think he had plenty of hope and gratitude too. Whatever the deepest roots of his exemplary life, its fruits will continue to inspire. We need to hold that example before us in the years just ahead. We're going to need it.
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