Sharing the light
Ogden Nash, in an autobiographical poem discussing his sojourns on the university campus, offered thirteen points for scholars to note. Point the second was "That every fresh semester/Brings with it its own fresh disester."
And this semester has its share of individual and community "disesters." And if the crises and traumas we face are not always disasters per se, it seems to be a habit (of undergraduates, at least) to pick at least one problem which can be blown up to the dimensions of disaster.
And there are a couple of problems which don't need to be blown up—they already loom like foggy spectres over personal and community life.
Things like loneliness, pollution, a lack of faith, overpopulation, poverty. And many more.
Each of us can help the others by preferring the answers and solutions which he has grasped. Each one of us has the pleasure and obligation of sharing the amount of light he possesses.
Joanna K. Wiebe
What can you lose?
To the editor:
Joanna Wiebe's editorial, "The one among thousands," posed a vital challenge not only to those who have no interest in "striking at the root" of evil, but also to those of us deeply involved in the quest for a basic change in human nature. How can this change be accomplished? At the risk of being considered a religious fanatic or even worse, "trite." I propose this change can be made through a personal relationship between each person and Jesus Christ.
Undoubtedly, you are saying, "What bunk! I've heard this line before." Furthermore, you probably doubt that such a proposal can ever be logically proven, and you are right. Yet proof through reason alone is not enough in matters of faith. In the words of Blaise Pascal, a much-aligned but nevertheless astute, 17th-century philosopher, "If we ought to do nothing except on a certainty, we ought to do nothing, for religion, because it is not a matter of certainty." But he continues, "If it be the case that we ought to do nothing except on a certainty, then we ought to do nothing at all, for nothing is certain."
Most of us would prefer to do nothing at all, rather than run the risk of being wrong. Why is it better or wiser to refrain from belief on all occasions where the evidence is insufficient? The "proof" of belief lies in the reality of its achievements.
Of course, to prove that the nature of man can be changed by the love of Jesus Christ, each person must allow Christ into his life and
experience a transformation from a strictly personal viewpoint. Through bitter experience, man has learned (but not too well, unfortunately) that one man's belief cannot be permanently forced upon another without eventual rejection. Thus, the challenge is an individual one. Each person must dare to personally ask Christ into his life and, believing that He has answered (for Christ Himself said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come to him"—Revelation 3:20), each individual must witness the change in his own nature that will take place.
This is a true challenge that few seem willing to face. It takes courage to change your own heart. In reality, it is much easier to live your own self-directed life and to aim efforts at the symptoms instead of the cause of evil. The branches are easily pruned, but the root must be dug out.
Complacency will grip most of us and hold us to our lives of frustration. But to those few who wish to strike at the root, the Christian life offers a "relevant" challenge. Investigate it, experience it, and then accept or reject it. You must either make a decision or melt back into the indifferent crowd.
What if there is no God, you ask? At the risk of begging the question, I ask, what have you got to lose by believing? As Pascal put it,
"If you win you take all; if you lose, you lose nothing." And nothing is all you have to offer now.
Kevin Funnell
Sorel's News Service
Cleanliness is next to clodliness
NEW YORK-Norman Vincent Peale on today's disheveled intellectuals: "I'd rather be dumb and clean than smart and dirty, anytime."
"Draft lottery," I said. "Not while I'm head of Selective Service." I said."
Too many people
To the editor:
On Oct. 15 KU made obvious its concern for problems beyond the hallowed walls of academe through its participation in the moratorium on the Vietnam war. Hopefully, those who stopped "business as usual" for the day will continue to show interest in problems beyond the limited context of the University. Many other problems besides the war, including race relations, violent and non-violent dissent, human ecology and pollution, population and birth control should all be discussed and acted upon by the KU community. It is only fitting that new ideas and rational thought should come from an institution for "higher learning."
However, it seems that most KU students and faculty and Lawrence townspeople, though worried about a war which has been brought home to them by the brutal fact that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, have ignored the no less brutal, yet much more silent destruction of the earth and its people by abnormal population increase.
Last Monday evening, Dan Pellegrom, collegiate director for the center of Planned Parenthood for World Populations in New York City, discussed with less than thirty members of the KU community the dangers implicit in uncontrolled population growth. Mr. Pellegrom and Dr. James Koevenig of the biology department both agreed that resources and land area no longer are available and that crowded, undesirable conditions of existence will become rapidly more prevalent. Obviously, the Midwestern, middle-class white has not been affected as much as the Indian or Arab peasants who die daily by the hundreds. Yet, as Mr. Pellegrom pointed out, population pressure has already begun to affect the meagopalms dweller who must pay exorbitant prices for small, inadequate living spaces. This loss of individual freedom was a main point of the discussion and Mr. Pellegrom felt that until middle-class whites realize that the freedoms which they enjoy will be absent for their children, they will continue to believe that they may have as many children as they can support. Mr. Pellegrom ended the discussion by stating that time for the luxury of individual planned parenthood is running out and that coercive sterilization and eradication might end as the means to diminish the population.
The earth now teems with over three billion people.
This will double in less than 30 years.
USA, with 6 per cent of the world's population, consumes 60 per cent of the world's resources.
Someday the countries will want their resources.
All hell will break loose.
Thirty people out of 50,000 showed any interest. Daniel Dishon Wichita sophomore
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