Happy Sunday!

Well the news has certainly been filled with what I don’t want to hear… and I keep reminding myself that the only thing I can do…beyond vote… is to imagine what some people’s childhoods must have been like in order for them to think they are coming from power when they are really making fools of themselves.

John Weiss’s blog is interesting – and a nod to John re his conclusion that power without love darkens the soul. I have included an excerpt below.

Toodles for now, Vicki

Excerpt from
For a timely gain you barter the infinities 

In the delightful movie Pretty Woman, Richard Gere plays the wealthy and ruthless businessman Edward Lewis, who loves buying distressed companies and breaking them apart for profit.

But then Edward meets a pure-hearted street prostitute named Vivian Ward (played by Julia Roberts), who teaches Edward that there’s more to life than work and the thrill of busting up companies.

We may love Pretty Woman for its fairy-tale ending, but it’s important not to miss Edward Lewis’s personal and ethical transformation. He goes from busting up companies to saving one and collaborating with the company founder. Why did Edward do this?

Because power without love darkens the soul.

Deep down, Edward wanted to be a good person. He wanted to use his power for good, not evil. Maybe he realized that one day he would grow old, and that his legacy should be about the common good instead of greed, vanity, and unethical power.

If we are to avoid the corrupting influence of ill-begotten power, we must develop a healthy and ethical life philosophy to guide us.

We may fall short at times, but what matters is that we have a reliable compass. 

One worthy philosophy is The Golden Rule, to treat others as you’d like to be treated. Another philosophy to follow is “Do the right thing.”

In one of my journals, I copied down the following quote from Archer G. Jones:

“There is but one rule of conduct for a man, to do the right thing. The cost may be dear in money, in friends, in influence, in a prolonged and painful sacrifice; but the cost not to do the right thing is far more dear; you’ll pay in the integrity of your manhood, in honor, in truth and character, and for a timely gain you barter the infinities.”

People who care the least sometimes have the upper hand in relationships and business, but it never lasts.

Sooner or later, things either fall apart, or an invisible weight begins to crush them. They feel out of harmony. Darkness stains their soul.

In the novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Oscar Wilde wrote: “To be good is to be in harmony with one’s self.”

Imagine what the world would be like if we all strove harder to please our better angels. (…) If we followed the Golden Rule and did the right thing like Edward Lewis in Pretty Woman.

Focus on being a good person instead of tempting the infinities for a timely gain. As Josephine Hart wrote: “There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.”

Perhaps that eternal landscape, that geography of the soul, is trying to lead us somewhere better. Somewhere true and good and divine. Thus, we must focus on goodness, love, and benevolent power.

Because if power without love darkens the soul, then the eternal landscape we long to follow, and the geography of the soul, loses its light and blurs its outlines.

And when that happens, we are lost.

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