Thought for the week (we 24th November 2013)

Fifty years ago this week President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas. The youngest ever president of the USA his election three years previously was seen as a new beginning in American and indeed world politics.

His inaugural speech captivated a nation with a new sense of optimism. ‘Fellow Americans’ he said ‘Do not ask what your country can do for you ask rather what you can do for your country’.    Difficult days lay ahead for the newly elected president. The Cuban missile crisis which had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war was avoided mainly through John Kennedy’s insight and determination.

Although he was criticised for not acting more decisively as regard the civil rights movement, the world looked on as he ordered the National Guard to free the way of entry for two black students into the University of Alabama in spite of Governor George Wallace defiantly barring their entry. Up to that time he had seen military intervention as a last resort in any situation and who knows that if he had survived if the Vietnam War could have been avoided? We can only speculate.

I was at the youth club of the church where I am now Minister when the news broke. Up to then I had little interest in world politics and yet seeing the great wave of sadness and shock that followed confronted me with the reality that the world I was growing up in was not as safe and secure as I thought. One commentator said that Dallas had ended the ‘age of innocence’ and looking back perhaps there’s some truth in that.

The Apostle Paul declared that love is the greatest virtue we have despite the circumstance of our lives. Hope, however, is a close second grounded in the eternal goodness of God. This anniversary we look back and remember a good man who had so much more to give – we best honour his memory in doing what we can to make the world a better place.

In the words of an old song ‘Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’.