"Playing the Cards You Have...For the Future...For People

“Playing the Cards You Have…For the Future…For People” Sheila Jackson Lee was a Congresswoman who served in Houston for 30 years, from 1995 until her death in July 2024. I came to know her over the years through our joint association with Yale. I admired her enormously. How could I not? Sheila Jackson Lee’s life was celebrated with a glorious memorial service held at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Numerous luminaries spoke, including former President Bill Clinton. President Clinton delivered a memorable eulogy to Ms. Lee. It included a number of stirring stories, but there were two which I will never forget. Clinton recalled that when he was in the White House in the mid-1990s, he had what was called a “just say yes” list. On this list were only a handful of people who were so persistent and persuasive in their points of view, he came to believe “he might just as well say yes now” because you knew you would eventually. On this list, Clinton recounted, were long-term political leaders that you would expect, including Nancy Pelosi and Senator Ted Kennedy. Also on the list, surprisingly, I’m sure to many, was this Freshman Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee. She earned the reputation even before she was a Congresswoman and, quickly when she became one, that she would persist in advocating what she thought was right, again and again. The second memory Clinton shared of Ms. Lee is one, which even more I will remember forever. He said quite simply: No matter what the situation, right up to the time of her passing, “Sheila Jackson Lee played the cards she had. She played them for the future,” Clinton remarked with passion and, I would add, “she played them for people.” I can’t overemphasize the importance I attach to this call to “play the cards you have, play for them for the future and, yes, play them for people.” Doing that at every stage of our life, including when we are most challenged, perhaps especially when we are challenged, is vital. Think of this metaphor. You are playing poker. You get seven cards. Two or three of them are great. Two mediocre. And two are, plain and simple, terrible. But this is your hand. There is no point in lamenting or grousing about it. You have to play it as best as you humanly can and, yes, play it for the future and play it for people. I can relate to this mantra “play the cards you have” to every phase of my life. There were times during my career at Procter & Gamble when I was faced with circumstances that I can only describe as having some “pretty bad cards.” But I knew I needed to make the most of them myself and with others. When I had cancer in 2005, and I was given a 50/50 chance to survive for five years, there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt in my mind: I was going to play the cards I had, and I was going to play them for the future, and I did. I know that attitude helped me survive. I think of my wife, Francie, now battling cancer. She’s been doing it for four years. Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. She is certainly playing the cards she has, heroically, with the most positive spirit imaginable. Earlier, during my long association with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, I can remember the day when an advisor came into the room to tell us they had badly overestimated attendance and the need for us to raise money had almost tripled. This was an ugly hand. But I and all of us knew that the Freedom Center was vital; that we needed to make it survive; that we needed to play the cards we had. “Playing the cards you have” calls for imagination, calls for persistence, and calls for partners who can help win the hand. It is not a passive, “let’s see how it develops” frame of mind. It is an assertive vision “we are going to make the most of this situation” frame of mind. I think of the heroes that I admire most. Winston Churchill in 1941-1942. As he became Prime Minister, he was inheriting a really bad hand. Germans were marching through North Africa. Japan was capturing almost all of Southeast Asia. There was incessant bombing in London. But he took the hand he had, and he made the most of it. He rallied the British people. He strategically saw he needed to bring the United States into the war and that became his top priority. That was the “future” he was intended to achieve, and he was playing his hand, yes, for the “people.” The citizens of the United Kingdom, whom he rallied. Yes, “play the hand you have. Play it for the future. Play it for people.” The story Bill Clinton told about Sheila Jackson Lee will forever motivate me. Perhaps the story will also motivate you.

What Have I Learned From Caregivers Who Have supported Me and My Wife, Francie

What I have learned from the (mainly) women who have been caring for Francie and me over the past four years. ncoi As I think about what I have learned over the past four years by far the greatest amount has come from what I have learned from caregivers-- nurses and nurses’ aides in hospitals and the round-the-clock caregivers who have supported my wife, Francie, and me at home. What have I learned? I’ve learned the challenges that people are facing in making ends meet. I have experienced the determination and persistence of these women in pursuing their own education and supporting the education of their children to achieve ends that they never were able to meet. I’ve learned about the wisdom that these women have. Wisdom that goes well beyond what one would attribute to having a college education, which virtually all of these women do not have. I have learned how much we can learn from one another by knowing each other’s stories. I once not too long ago spent 40 minutes in the wee hours of the morning talking to a woman who was cleaning my hospital room. On another occasion, I spent time with a nurse's aide who had a quiet moment and shared stories with me about her life and her family, her challenges, her aspirations and what she is doing to meet them. These have been inspiring stories. I never would have met these remarkable women (and some men) if I had not been challenged medically or if Francie hadn’t been challenged. There is a lesson in this that is not new to me. We need to know the stories of people who are different than us. We don’t do that nearly enough today. The sense of community we had when I was growing up has been severely diminished. Fewer people are in the Scouts. Fewer people join the military service, which brings people who are different together. Fewer people are in social clubs. One would hope that religion would bring people together. And it does in terms of what is preached: treat your neighbor as yourself. But too often, at least in my experience, the church services I go to don’t provide a good opportunity for interaction, to get to know one another. One has to be intentional in doing this, but I have always found it informing and inspiring. Often, as in the case with many of our caregivers, in amazing ways. It is notably and correctly observed that the Democratic Party has lost touch with and support from the “working class.” And it has. And Trump and the MAGA movement have established that relationship with people who historically have formed the foundation of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has failed to show they understand the challenges and, yes, the grievance felt by the so-called working class; grievance not even so much economically, as grievance of being looked down on. Some of my own goals have been affected by this thinking. I have long been committed to the importance of everyone having a four-year college education. In recent years, it has become clear to me that desirable as it is, going to college should not be the signal of merit or achievement. Rather, the goal has to be helping people do what they need to achieve the life they want that will provide economic security and a sense of personal worth. That could be a two-year college, a trade school or an internship with a business. One of the sons of some of our best friends, Chris and Angela Schunk, is Crosley. He is completing four years at Miami and doing well. But that’s not his main interest. He is an entrepreneur. He is starting a landscape business. ************************************* All of this leads me to the pursuit of the governorship of Ohio by Amy Acton. My son, David, is helping her. It’s clear that Amy faces the major challenge of creating a message and establishing a voice that reflects her intention and ability to understand and support everyone, including those people who have felt disenfranchised, people living in rural areas, people who don’t have a college education. It starts with recognizing their worth and then identifying and implementing actions that promise to support the realization of their ambitions and personal goals. This is a noble undertaking. I believe Amy Acton has the temperament and the inner beliefs in her soul to do this. But it will need to be very intentional.

"Why Religion?" An Inspiring Book Which Led to Deep Personal Reflection

I drew many meaningful insights from a book recommended to me one of my closest friends many ago titled "Why Religion? A Personal Story" by Elaine Pagels. How to go on? Pagels writes after a searing personal tragedy. She recalls Viktor Frankl's writing that when our lives or the world in which we find ourselves living turn out different from what we expect or would ever want, we have to do “what life expects of us”; "We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who are being questioned by life—daily and hourly…Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems, and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” Pagels writes: "I was startled to realize that somehow I still wanted to believe that we live in a morally ordered universe, in which someone, or something—God or nature?—would keep track of what’s fair. Was this a relic of Western cultural tradition that moralizes history, like those old Bible stories I’d heard, that suggest that doing good ensures well-being and doing wrong brings disaster?" So, I ask myself, personally, do we live in a "morally ordered universe.” I believe the answer is "yes.” To be sure, I recognize that my response is an expression of faith. At almost the same time I was reading "Why Religion" I came upon a compelling statement bearing on the role of belief and faith in William James' "Essays in Pragmatism". James writes. "Belief, as measured by action, not only does but must outstrip scientific evidence. In such questions as God, immortality, absolute morality and free will, (one) can always doubt his creed but his intimate persuasion is that the odds in its favor are strong enough to warrant him acting all along on the assumption of its truth". We may in the end find we are wrong, I reflect, but I have found it better to act on the belief it is true than a belief it is not. This is how I have long felt about my faith in a Supreme Power, in there being an ultimate good.” William James uses a common sense example to illustrate his point. A rock climber finds himself in a life-threatening predicament: he has to make a leap to another distant ledge to have a chance of surviving. It is a longer leap than he has ever before attempted. He has no evidence he can do it. He is faced with a choice. On the one hand, he can be so consumed by doubt, debating and delaying his decision whether to jump, to the point he loses the strength to do it successfully when he does try. Alternatively, he can decide to act on the belief, with the "faith" that he can do it. Needless to say, he is far more likely to survive pursing the latter choice. Just so it was faith that led me to push to open up Eastern Europe aggressively with P&G in the early 1990s. So it was with faith that we set out raise 100+ million dollars to build the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. So it is with faith that I pray to God for the wisdom to know the right thing to do and the courage and determination to do it. I do so uncertain if God actually hears my prayer, but I know that reaching out to God helps me act in line with my best instincts. As James writes: "There are cases where faith creates its own verification.” I have discovered that again and again. Pagels goes on to shine a bright light on our commonality as people. She recognizes our common passage on the journey of life. Here is what she writes: In the Gospel of Thomas, the “good news” is not only about Jesus; it’s also about every one of us. For while we ordinarily identify ourselves by specifying how we differ, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, background, family name, the call to recognize that we are “children of God” requires us to acknowledge how we are the same—members, so to speak, of the same family. These sayings suggest what later becomes a primary theme of Jewish mystical tradition: that the “image of God,” divine light given in creation, is hidden deep within each one of us, linking our fragile, limited selves to their divine source. Although we’re often unaware of that spiritual potential, the Thomas sayings urge us to keep on seeking until we find it: “Within a person of light, there is light. If illuminated, it lights up the whole world; if not, everything is dark.” Emerging from a time of unbearable grief, (Pagels had just lost her husband after earlier losing her son), "such sayings helped dispel isolation and turn me from despair, suggesting that every one of us is woven into the mysterious fabric of the universe, and into connection with each other, with all being, and with God." Believing this is a matter of faith. Many would argue we are all independent individuals with particular characteristics of race and ethnicity developed over a long period of evolution—and not interconnected as "children of God" nor members of the same family in a true familial sense. I, of course, cannot offer irrefutable evidence that we are all are indeed members of the same family. But I believe it. And I am sure that belief, or faith if you'd prefer it, has led me to act differently than I otherwise would. It leads me to try my best to put myself in the other person's shoes, to try to listen to others carefully, knowing I have a lot to learn and that it is the greatest demonstration of respect I can convey to another person. And it leads me to truly believe and act on the truth, "Everyone Counts.” Once again quoting William James: "There are cases where faith creates its own verification.” The Gospel of Thomas, then, is all about relationships—how, when we come to know ourselves, simultaneously we come to know God. Implicit in this relationship is the paradox of gnosis—not intellectual knowledge, but knowledge of the heart. What first we must come to know is that we cannot fully know God since that Source far transcends our understanding. But what we can know is that we’re intimately connected with that divine Source, since “in him we live and move and have our being.”

A Personal Examination and Expression of Faith

I drew many meaningful insights from a book recommended to me one of my closest friends many ago titled Why Religion? A Personal Story by Elaine Pagels. How to go on? Pagels writes after a searing personal tragedy. She recalls Viktor Frankl's writing that when our lives or the world in which we find ourselves living turn out different from what we expect or would ever want, we have to do “what life expects of us”; "We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who are being questioned by life—daily and hourly…Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems, and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” Pagels writes: "I was startled to realize that somehow I still wanted to believe that we live in a morally ordered universe, in which someone, or something—God or nature?—would keep track of what’s fair. Was this a relic of Western cultural tradition that moralizes history, like those old Bible stories I’d heard, that suggest that doing good ensures well-being and doing wrong brings disaster?" So, I ask myself, personally, do we live in a "morally ordered universe.” I believe the answer is "yes.” To be sure, I recognize that my response is an expression of faith. At almost the same time I was reading Why Religion? I came upon a compelling statement bearing on the role of belief and faith in William James' Essays in Pragmatism. James writes. "Belief, as measured by action, not only does but must outstrip scientific evidence. In such questions as God, immortality, absolute morality and free will, (one) can always doubt his creed but his intimate persuasion is that the odds in its favor are strong enough to warrant him acting all along on the assumption of its truth". We may in the end find we are wrong, I reflect, but I have found it better to act on the belief it is true than a belief it is not. This is how I have long felt about my faith in a Supreme Power, in there being an ultimate good.” William James uses a common sense example to illustrate his point. A rock climber finds himself in a life-threatening predicament: he has to make a leap to another distant ledge to have a chance of surviving. It is a longer leap than he has ever before attempted. He has no evidence he can do it. He is faced with a choice. On the one hand, he can be so consumed by doubt, debating and delaying his decision whether to jump, to the point he loses the strength to do it successfully when he does try. Alternatively, he can decide to act on the belief, with the "faith" that he can do it. Needless to say, he is far more likely to survive pursing the latter choice. Just so it was faith that led me to push to open up Eastern Europe aggressively with P&G in the early 1990s. So it was with faith that we set out raise 100+ million dollars to build the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. So it is with faith that I pray to God for the wisdom to know the right thing to do and the courage and determination to do it. I do so uncertain if God actually hears my prayer, but I know that reaching out to God helps me act in line with my best instincts. As James writes: "There are cases where faith creates its own verification.” I have discovered that again and again. Pagels goes on to shine a bright light on our commonality as people. She recognizes our common passage on the journey of life. Here is what she writes: In the Gospel of Thomas, the “good news” is not only about Jesus; it’s also about every one of us. For while we ordinarily identify ourselves by specifying how we differ, in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, background, family name, the call to recognize that we are “children of God” requires us to acknowledge how we are the same—members, so to speak, of the same family. These sayings suggest what later becomes a primary theme of Jewish mystical tradition: that the “image of God,” divine light given in creation, is hidden deep within each one of us, linking our fragile, limited selves to their divine source. Although we’re often unaware of that spiritual potential, the Thomas sayings urge us to keep on seeking until we find it: “Within a person of light, there is light. If illuminated, it lights up the whole world; if not, everything is dark.” Emerging from a time of unbearable grief, (Pagels had just lost her husband after earlier losing her son), "such sayings helped dispel isolation and turn me from despair, suggesting that every one of us is woven into the mysterious fabric of the universe, and into connection with each other, with all being, and with God." Believing this is a matter of faith. Many would argue we are all independent individuals with particular characteristics of race and ethnicity developed over a long period of evolution—and not interconnected as "children of God" nor members of the same family in a true familial sense. I, of course, cannot offer irrefutable evidence that we are all are indeed members of the same family. But I believe it. And I am sure that belief, or faith if you'd prefer it, has led me to act differently than I otherwise would. It leads me to try my best to put myself in the other person's shoes, to try to listen to others carefully, knowing I have a lot to learn and that it is the greatest demonstration of respect I can convey to another person. And it leads me to truly believe and act on the truth, "Everyone Counts.” Once again quoting William James: "There are cases where faith creates its own verification.” The Gospel of Thomas, then, is all about relationships—how, when we come to know ourselves, simultaneously we come to know God. Implicit in this relationship is the paradox of gnosis—not intellectual knowledge, but knowledge of the heart. What first we must come to know is that we cannot fully know God since that Source far transcends our understanding. But what we can know is that we’re intimately connected with that divine Source, since “in him we live and move and have our being.”

"A Race to the Bottom". Trump Is Tearing Up the Fabric of Trust Among Our Allies and Friends

An Editorial in "The Guardian" (see link below) calls for Europe to acquire a"dose of patriotism" to combat the threat of populist powers. I agree 100%. The ability to achieve what the author is calling for, of course, was severely weakened by Britain’s leaving the EU. In fact, Britain must be part of creating the vision, leadership, and governance of a united Europe, committed to common economic and diplomatic norms. The question that cries out from his article is, who is the leader that can muster the confidence, vision, and energy to make what the editorial argues for happen This is even more important in the world of "power makes right" which Trump has elevated and endorsed through his actions, including on tariffs He is using tariffs as a sledgehammer to brutally require other nations, in this case, particularly Canada and Mexico, a few weeks ago, Columbia, to make concessions to him. He promises to turn next to Europe. He is decimating the trust among allies. It may bring him a short term, political win, but it is terrible policy for the long-term. It will give license to other countries with power to use that power to sledgehammer other countries into doing what they want. I think of China. If it has some raw material that the United States needs, and no one else can provide, it can sledgehammer the US. A small country could do this too, if it has an exclusive access for essential raw material. Trump’s talking about taking over the Panama Canal, acquiring Greenland, even making Canada a 51st state based on national security gives license to China to say it needs Taiwan for national security reasons. Putin can use it to justify the attack on Ukraine in order to avoid it becoming part of NATO. A rules based world is imperfect and it’s messy but history shows that in the long run, it is much better than one that simply relies on "power makes right". This is the attitude that leadsto war. Also, you don’t negotiate by bullying your best friends. They will turn against you in ways that will be hard to measure in the short term, but they will show up long-term. Our network of allies has long been a unique strategic advantage. The Trump administration is tearing it to ribbons as I write this. And iit not only the decimation of trust on the foreign policy front. Trust is being further eroded in our national institutions by Trump's appointment of unqualified people to lead them. ein https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/04/threatened-by-populist-superpowers-europe-too-needs-a-dose-of-patriotism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A Former Russian Foreign Policy Advisor Articulates the Reasons for My Revulsion to Trump's Lack of Character

The principal foreign policy advisor to Russia's late President, Mikhail Gorbachev, Anatoly Chernyaev, articulates the reasons for my revulsion to Trump's lack of character. In reading William Taubman's superb biography of Mikhail Gorbachevsome seven years ago he writes of Chernyaev: ***** Chernyaev’s family was particularly cultivated; he received music lessons, learned French and German from private teachers and fell in love with Gogol and Shakespeare in school. He studied history at Moscow University in the late ‘30s, fought heroically in World War II (part of the time on skis in an Alpine battalion), then got a Candidate’s Degree (roughly equivalent to an American PhD), writing his dissertation on the topic, “Britain’s Role During the First Years After World War I.” Unlike so many of his generation, he never worshipped Stalin. It wasn’t the repressions, he said, “about which we didn’t know much and which we thought might have been mistakes or even justified” or “the terrible losses early in World War II” or “in a revulsion against policies like the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact.” For Chernyaev, it was the sense that “a crude, ignorant, completely alien force” was ruling over a culture that cherished Tolstoy and Chekhov and admired foreign writers like Shakespeare and Anatole France.” So it is for me, as I wrote seven years ago at the outset of Trump's first term as President: My revulsion against Trump rests on his lack of values and his disrespect for other people, his lack of kindness, empathy and his disregard for the truth. He stands in opposition to the very values which, using his own term, have made America great. These are the qualities of this man which have repelled me from the start. We should not stop calling them out, but nor can we afford to wallow in them with a sense of superiority. Worse yet, we cannot fall into the trap of believing that our denunciation of Trump’s behaviors is sufficient to carry out our responsibility. We must also act proactively and positively in our own world, in our own way to live those values we hold dear and improve the lives of those whom we can touch.

Lincoln's Character Expressed In His Own Words So Utterly Opposed to Trump's Cruel Divisiveness

Of all the things that Lincoln said, none mean more to me than these:    “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”  (Cooper Union address, February 27, 1860) … and this, from his Second Inaugural:  “With malice toward none; with charity for all.”