Yesterday’s Commercial Appeal (9/19/21) had this big headline: MORE THAN TALK. It was the story of a Mississippi doctor who bought a hospital that was about to close.
Dr. Kenneth Williams, who saw patients there, learned the hospital was likely going to close and made the big decision to purchase it himself. “You have to be there for the community and the patient. It’s not about the dollar. You have to fight for them”
The hospital had been underperforming for some time. It passed through a number of hands until–after fits and starts–Williams scraped enough money together to purchase it. He confesses that, looking back he didn’t know all the problems, and he might have thought differently. But, “I did it for the community…there are some advantages to being ignorant. You work hard.”
When I read about Dr. Williams I thought of a word from Florence Allshorn,
“We talk so big and play so small…. And the world has found it out”.
Talk is plentiful in our day. Most of us are always ready to sound off on any subject at any time. But the way we play-the way we live and act–ah, that’s a different story.
The panel discussion is a good symbol of our day. It is almost as popular as the cocktail party. Read the announcements of the different organizations and check the programs. More often than not a panel discussion is the order of the day. Juvenile delinquency, race relations, federal aid to education, bond issues, disarmament, alcoholism—the subjects go on ad infinitum. Hardly ever are questions settled or programs of action initiated.
No person ought to be without an intelligent and enthusiastic witness to his conviction. But talk is not enough. The world has found out that our deeds do not always match our creeds. Our attitudes are not always in harmony with our affirmations. So our actions speak so loudly that people can’t hear what we say.
It’s good to talk about brotherhood, but we had better be prepared to live in brotherly fashion with our neighbors. We need to decry the presence of oppressive poverty when plenty is obvious. The nobler thing is to enter a war against poverty by ministering to “the least of these.”
Slogans and high-sounding maxims are never a substitute for personal action and involvement. In the book of Job there is a verse of scripture that puts this pointedly. The American Standard Version translates it, “Your memorable sayings are proverbs of ashes.” (Job 13:12) Rather sharp! But Moffatt has an even sharper translation: “Your maxims crumble like ashes.”
There is no better word for it than that—“crumble.” Others soon find out that we are not prepared to match our verbal onslaught with personal action. They soon realize that we “talk so big and play so small.” And all our speaking is rendered ineffective.
Abraham Lincoln was once debating a man who was loud and boisterous but not too intelligent. Lincoln began his reply with a story. Two Irishmen who had recently come to this country were walking through the woods one night when a storm struck. They could hear the loud crash of the thunder, but the trees hid the flash of the lightning. Lost and frightened, they decided to pray. “O Lord,” cried one of them, “we are strangers here and we are lost. If you don’t mind could we have a little less noise and a little more light.”
A fitting prayer for our day. We need “A little less noise and a little more light ”