Journeys Of The Heart Portland Or

A Conservative Remembers Mark Hatfield

Mark Hatfield, who died Sunday in his native Oregon at age 89, was the first Christian politician I recall meeting in Washington, which is to say he did more than keep a Bible on his desk. He sought to keep its words and teachings and its main "character" in his heart.

When we first met in the early 1970s I was in the middle of my own "faith journey," trying to sort out what Scripture teaches about this world and the next and to see if it could match my conservative political leanings. 

Hatfield was the first to suggest to me that the two kingdoms -- of God and of the world -- sometimes intersect, but more often than not diverge. 

He was criticized by some political conservatives for aligning himself with liberal Democratic Senator George McGovern against the war in Vietnam . 

The McGovern-Hatfield amendment, had it passed, would have required the end of U.S. military operations in Vietnam by the end of 1970 and a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from that country by the middle of 1971. Its defiance of executive power is repeated in our current debates over Afghanistan and Iraq and the purpose and use of American military might in the world. 

In retrospect, Hatfield and McGovern were right about Vietnam. The reason more of us didn't recognize it at the time was that proponents of the war (most of whom didn't have to fight it) wrapped themselves in the flag and treated any criticism of Presidents Johnson and Nixon and their prosecution of the war as unpatriotic. Sound familiar?

Hatfield was a consistent "pro-lifer." He opposed abortion, the death penalty and war. In 1982, he told the Christian Science Monitor, "There is no direct ratio between the increase of our arsenals and the diminishing sense of national security," adding, "there comes a time in a nation's life when additional money spent for rockets and bombs, far from strengthening national security, weaken national security -- when there are people who are hungry and not fed, who are cold and not clothed." That last line is straight from the teachings of Jesus.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech, “Find What You Love ...

The following is the text of a commencement speech Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios gave to Stanford University graduates on June 12, 2005.  It’s one of the best speeches you can find about finding your purpose and your passion.  As a tribute to Steve Jobs, who stepped down as CEO of Apple Computer, here it is for you all to read and get inspired.  I’m a longtime fan of Apple products and wish Steve all the best in his new chapter.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.