Thought for Today

Our human deficiency is so evident on a corporate scale because it is so naked and oblivious on the basis of our individual lives. We are a people investing in millions of dollars on drugs that give us pep and vitality while investing with equal desperation in drugs that give tranquility and relaxation. We are the most vigor-conscious generation in the history of the world and at the same the most relaxation-conscious generation or earth has yet witnessed. This paradoxical design for living is symptomatic of our sickness. Our basic illness is one of uncertainty about the meaningfulness of our origin, vagueness about the purposefulness of our existence, doubt about the nature of our destiny. Minus a basic God experience our generation is minus a sense of mighty origins, tremendous assignment, and titanic fulfillment. We are a tired, spent, rootless, lost, nervous ear. Having come upon a day of relentless examination of all things, we make one towering and fatal exception — our religious a affirmations must be a gang-typed, reason-drained, mass-engendered, issue-dodging efficiency, all done with the right lighting and the proper smiles. Our very pretense to religious experience is perhaps the deepest, rawest symptoms of our deficiency. The truth of it is that in every city and hamlet in our land the people around us, and perhaps we ourselves, are nervous, worn, jaded, frightened fugitives. The truth of it is that in every city and hamlet in our land the people around, us and perhaps we ourselves are nervous, worn, jaded, frightened fugitives. Having failed to make this the good earth, we are now surveying outer space, forgetting that geography is not our answer and distance is not our Savior.

Gardner C. Taylor Cincinnati, OH June1958

Cincinnati, OH June 1958