Light From Many Lamps: With Malice toward None, With Charity for All

This story is about Abraham Lincoln who is deemed as the most brilliant and greatest president in American history. As a person from the Eastern World, actually I do not know a lot about him. Before reading this story, I did not even know that he had been re-elected. I was shocked by his experience that “he had been misunderstood, condemned, humiliated in public and in private, assailed alike by friend and foe”(Watson, 1951, p. 204). I could not imagine that someone could still be so faithful and positive after went through the destructive experience. Then I read about his childhood that his family had been forced to move many times due to a land title dispute, and he had experienced family breakdown and his mother’s death (Schwartz, 2000). It also said that Abraham had enthusiasm in reading and being a self-motivated learner through his whole life (Madison, 2014). Now I can understand the reason he was so empathic and possessed the power of healing as a servant leader (Northouse, 2016) was that he had definitely construed his experience in a positive way and transformed his emotion to the bright side of the human nature with the help of deep reflection he got from reading and learning. Also, being a life-long learner requires the ability of self-awareness, results in multi-perspective thinking and considering long-term benefit (Evers, Rush, & Berdrow, 1998). These all contributed to his personalities such as firmly holding his own belief and being able to stand alone. And time had proved his rightness and greatness.

I am most impressed by his eloquent speech which has made the world moved till now “With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right” (Watson, 1951, p. 205). I was also inspired by the way he construed his relationship with God that “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged, the Almighty has his own purpose” (Watson, 1951, p. 205). I think he believed in that the heavenly Father does believe and support him all the time rather than simply relying on God. Further, he knew that God will not judge and he did not judge other people no matter his friends or foes. That was why he possessed the power of forgiveness with which he could end all feelings of hatred and resentment to bind up the nation’s wounds (Watson, 1951). This is exactly what I am striving for: non-judging environment. I am trying to make the people around me understand that discarding judgement we could create a harmonious community. I cannot predict how many people could be affected by me but I will not give up on this belief. 

References

Evers, F. T., Rush, J. C., & Berdrow, I. (1998). The Bases of Competence. Skills for Lifelong Learning and Employability. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Madison, J. H. (2014). Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications.

Schwartz, B. (2000). Abraham Lincoln and the forge of national memory. University of Chicago Press.

Watson, L. E. (1951). Light from Many Lamps.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc.