By Danny Minton

“I think if you look back (and what better time to look back on a man’s life than on the 100th anniversary of his birth) at the totality of his record and the influence he had on the country and the world, it was really extraordinary and on balance for the good.” biographer Bob Bostock. 

So what made this man exceptional? Because of him, a law was passed ensuring that girls’ sports received the same funding and support as boys’ sports. The EPA was created under his administration, making water and air cleaner today and protecting our environment from contamination. He launched initiatives to find a cure for cancer and pushed the war on illegal drugs. He enforced wage and price controls. He pushed for the desegregation of our schools. He signed papers ending the draft, quoted as saying, “We have all seen the effect of the draft on our young people, whose lives have been disrupted first by years of uncertainty, and then by the draft itself. We all know the unfairness of the present system, no matter how just we try to make it.” His presidency was full of major accomplishments.

However, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the name Richard Nixon? It’s probably not any of the important things that he accomplished. Most people think of “Resignation,” “Watergate,” “Liar,” “Disgrace,” or the like. The thing this generation knows about him, and most of ours, is that he is the only president to resign from office.

Nixon resigned in disgrace. There is the story that, when he attended Hubert Humphrey’s funeral, he was standing alone with past friends and acquaintances, mostly ignoring him, when former president Jimmy Carter walked into the room. Carter saw Nixon across the way, walked straight to him, embraced him, saying, “Welcome home, Mr. President, welcome home!” 

I sometimes find myself thinking of people in light of a past negative event, even though there is so much good that they have done. Let’s admit it, we probably all do the same thing. We’ll remember a negative letter or comment or a negative action will pop into our heads, often coming not because of anything else they have done, but merely because we see them walk across the room, and that’s what comes to our minds, if only for a fleeting moment. 

Learning to forgive and move on is one of the hardest qualities a Christian yearns to possess. As hard as we may try, we have trouble forgetting, which hinders our willingness to forgive. The best way to accomplish true forgiveness is to forget the bad by filling our minds with the good in the person. 

I read a story about John D. Rockefeller in which one of his senior executives made a mistake that cost the company over 2 million dollars. Most of the employees in his office avoided him on the day it was discovered, and had planned to speak to the executive. One of the partners, Edward Bedford, however, had a meeting with him and came by his office. He stood in front of Rockefeller’s desk as Rockefeller continued to write on a piece of paper. 

“Oh, it’s you, Bedford,” he said calmly. “I suppose you’ve heard about our loss?”

Bedford said that he had.

“I’ve been thinking it over,” Rockefeller said, “and before I ask the man in to discuss the matter, I’ve been making some notes.”

Bedford later related the conversation:

“Across the top of the page was written, ‘Points in favor of Mr. _______.’ There followed a long list of the man’s virtues, including a brief description of how he had helped the company make the right decision on three separate occasions that had earned many times the cost of his recent error.”

The lesson we can all learn is that whenever there seems to be a problem with someone or someone has a problem with us, we should step back and take inventory. We should ask ourselves what the good things about this person are. We should teach ourselves that sometimes the negative comes out in the “heat of the moment” and is more than likely not who that person really is in their heart. 

I’ve often referenced one of my favorite quotes from the movie “Pollyanna,” when Pollyanna is speaking to the reverend about his sermon and shows him a pendant that reads, “If you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.” It was a quote the director, David Swift, made up and attributed to Lincoln in the movie. It rings so true when it comes to how others can perceive people. It is also evident in another quote from a young girl, this one a real person who, as a teenager, wrote, “Despite everything, I really think that people are good at heart.” Anne Frank

When people start looking at each other in this way, the negative can begin to fade and eventually, if we let it, disappear into the corners of our minds. People have to choose to forget. We can only do that by making sure there is no room for it to survive.

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18

Danny Minton, a member of Southern Hills Church of Christ, is a hospital chaplain