Four Houses NOT For Sale

My friend Luther Miller is a perceptive observer of contemporary society, so when he says there are four houses in America NOT for sale I am sure he has something more on his mind than real estate.

Sure enough!  Luther looks around him, likes what he sees hut notices a growing apathy toward human liberty.

As he sees it, there are four houses that stand between us and mindless regimentation.  He hopes we never sell any of them.

THE COURT HOUSE - This is the symbol of justice, law and order.  The safeguard of the rights of the individual when he is becoming a number instead of a name.  "We are an insurance number, a social security number, a license number, a street number, a credit card number, a phone number, a street number and a burial lot number," snorts Luther.

The court house stands as the symbol of honesty and integrity in government WHEN OCCUPIED BY WELL CHOSEN PEOPLE.  The right to vote thus becomes the key to a strong court house.  Luther deplores the fact that only a minority of registered voters exercises its franchise.

During a recent election in upstate New York, figures revealed that 32 percent of the lawyers did not vote, nor did 22 percent of the doctors, 32 percent of the dentists, 23 percent of the teachers, 40 percent of the business men and 27 percent of the housewives.

My friend likes to point out that he and his wife made sure they cast absentee votes for Wooster mayor before they went to Europe - and their man was elected, by two votes.

THE SCHOOL HOUSE - The school house stands for the quest for knowledge and truth, declares Luther.  The teacher is a stalwart proponent of the search for the avenues of understanding, of mental development, of cultural growth and of the right of everyone to learn.  We must not stand idly by and permit anything to prevent our children from having the best available resources and schools for their use.

Teachers have our children an average of six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year.  They supervise our children during the formative years.  Despite this, Americans spend 60 times as much for alcohol as for education.

All of us are aware that children are the hope of the future.  Yet, we seem to overlook the fact that the future will bring an even more complex and problem-prone society.  Education that was good enough for today's adults is inadequate for today's children.

YOUR HOUSE - Modern living tends to break up the home and family as we have traditionally known it.  Today we speak of Dad as "the most welcome guest in the house."  A teenage boy replied to the question, "What is a home?" with this more-truth-than-fun definition: "A home is where part of the family waits until the others are through with the car."

Young people cherish a home and develop most fully in a well-knit family relationship.  A high school girl had this to say in a composition about her home:

"My home is more than four walls and a green roof and a cement foundation.  My home is love and warmth and comfort and joy.  Oh, it really isn't much different from yours.  The water faucet is broken, the roof is leaking, the paint is cracking, the sidewalk is uneven, and we have trouble with the furnace.

"But what makes it so different are the people who live in it.  A house is made of plaster, brick and wood - but a home is made of human hearts, tears, laughter and understanding."

Luther stoutly maintains that the finest cooking is "home cooking," the finest living "home living," and the finest people "home folks."  Without a home, life comes apart.

GOD'S HOUSE - Our founding fathers knew the value of this house and so put the freedom to worship first in the Bill of Rights.  Unfortunately, says my friend, many have interpreted this guarantee to mean freedom FROM worship.

Have you ever wondered, he asks, who closes churches and temples in America?  The communists?  The atheists?  The hippies?  No!  Indifferent church goers starve out the churches.  Far too many members are absentee share holders in the Lord's Corporation.

There are 27 million children under the age of 18 without any religious affiliation.  This is an untapped resource for moral good that must be reached.

Like the rest of us, Luther is searching for the proper long-range goal of the church.  The answer lies in reaching the instinct for good in the hearts of children, he thinks.  He likes to cite the last request of Hans Christian Anderson, the creator of Fairy Tales.  The Danish writer had wanted to be remembered for his serious textbooks but finally became reconciled to the probability he would be known best for his children's stories.

During Anderson's last illness he wrote down directions for his funeral: "Most of those who will follow me at my funeral will be little children.  Have the beat of the music keep time to little steps."

"This," says Luther.  "I believe to be the noble direction of the church.  The church of the future must keep time to little steps, for they are the only steps that march into the future."

What does all this mean?  That all of us have a great challenge to safeguard and perpetuate all that we have established as good and worthwhile.  The letters which mean so much - U.S. - spell us.

And "us" have many houses.  Things will work out well so long as we don't sell our four, principal houses.

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