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Wednesday, July 3, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
O
P
I
N I
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Faith and the pursuit
of happiness
HAPPY
4th of JULY!
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
The Nugget Newspaper will
be closed Thursday, July 4,
in honor of Independence Day.
All deadlines remain unchanged.
Letters to the Editor…
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ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
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To the Editor:
I9d like to express my heartfelt thanks to
everyone in Sisters Country who wished me
a speedy recovery after my health crisis last
spring.
From the huge get well card (that the
Chamber of Commerce circulated for the busi-
nesses in Sisters to sign) to the many personal
messages from friends, I had no choice but to
get better.
To the City of Sisters, Sisters Chamber of
Commerce and my many friends and business
associates, I want you to know that your mes-
sages encouraged me. Your help with main-
taining my home, business and support for my
wife, Tove, will always be remembered.
My special thanks to the members of Sisters
Rodeo and our board of directors for setting
their sights on making the 79th rodeo a huge
success without me. It is rewarding to learn that
everyone understands what it takes to bring the
rodeo to fruition and then get it done to give
our fans and contestants a great experience.
For the first time ever, I attended the rodeo
on Sunday as a spectator. Even there, I was
greeted by long-time rodeo friends and our
great contract help. It sure has been a time of
warm reflection on my life in this community.
My future is looking positive. I keep get-
ting great reports from my physicians about
my improvement. For all of you who cared
and stepped up, my gratitude and appreciation
for helping me get here.
Glenn Miller
Sisters Weather Forecast
Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Mostly Sunny
Mostly Sunny
Sunny
Mostly Sunny
Partly Cloudy
Partly Cloudy
72/47
81/49
83/49
81/49
77/48
80/50
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Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius
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<Show a little faith,
there¾s magic in the
night&=
4 Bruce Springsteen,
<Thunder Road=
A friend gave a nice
chiropractic adjustment to
my thinking last week. It
was so gently and skillfully
administered that I wasn9t
even aware that it had hap-
pened for a couple of hours.
We were having cof-
fee and talking about
Important Things, and I
made a reference to mem-
bers of <the faith commu-
nity.= My friend pointed
out something that should
be self-evident, but that I
often forget: We9re ALL
living on faith. Whether we
are religious or secular and
whether we recognize it
or not, we9re all operating
in structures of faith and
belief and seeking meaning
and purpose.
Segregating those who
profess a particular formal
belief into a loosely defined
<community= of their very
own merely builds another
wall where we need a
bridge.
This week we celebrate
one of the most remarkable
leaps of faith in history. On
July 2, 1776, a congress of
men representing 13 small
colonies clinging to the
Atlantic shore of a vast, rich
continent declared their
independence from their
Mother Country. Two days
later, on July 4, 1776, they
ratified a document that
made their case before the
world 4 the Declaration of
Independence.
The act itself was
breathtakingly bold. The
colonies 4 with feeble
military capabilities 4
had been in rebellion for
a little over a year against
the greatest power in the
world. The signers of the
Declaration knew that
they might well be touch-
ing the quill to their own
death warrant, pledging
their lives, their fortunes,
and their sacred honor on a
principle and a gamble.
The key passage
of the Declaration of
Independence is the
American declaration of
faith in self-government:
<We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal,
that they are endowed by
their Creator with cer-
tain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.=
The men who declared
our independence from
Great Britain, who fought
and won the Revolutionary
War and framed the
Republic that still stands
against the odds 243 years
on from that signal date in
1776, were men of faith.
They came out of a Judeo-
Christian tradition that had
been in a state of struggle
and flux since the 16th cen-
tury, and out of which had
come many of the concepts
of liberty and freedom
of conscience that they
brought to bear in their
present struggle.
They were also men of
the Enlightenment and they
put great faith in Reason
and the ability of mankind
to improve and to reconcile
private interests and the
commonweal.
They were not utopians
4 their faith in mankind9s
perfectibility was tem-
pered by a deep skepticism
about the corrosive influ-
ence of power. They were
unlike the revolutionar-
ies in France who radical-
ized their example. Those
revolutionaries made a god
of Reason, and enacted
unholy slaughter in its
name.
We all carry the faith
of our fathers, whether we
actively acknowledge it or
not. Many among us are
convinced that our beliefs
are simply rational under-
standing, well-thought
out and correct 4 which
means, of course, that those
who disagree with us must
be irrational. Obviously.
Ironically, the most
rational of disciplines, sci-
entific inquiry, has done a
pretty good job of demon-
strating that our vaunted
rationality is actually often
a rationalization of our pre-
existing cognitive biases.
Perhaps the founders9
approach is best 4 seek-
ing to bring both faith and
reason to bear on the chal-
lenges of our day. I feel for-
tunate that I can have faith
in the ability and willing-
ness of my wise friends to
adjust my outlook when it
is out of whack. And that9s
worth celebrating on that
strange and winding path
that makes up the pursuit
of happiness.