Remembering the Good Guys

With money-grubbing mercenaries getting the headlines, take a few minutes every day to notice, think about, and remember the good guys.

This morning I sat down to write a post about the mercenary conduct of Dr. Scott Gottlieb—current Pfizer board member and former FDA Commissioner—who just told several lies about RFK, Jr. on Squawk Box—but as I got into the composition, I found the exercise too depressing to continue, especially on this sparkler of an autumn morning in Dallas. I thought to myself: Surely, on this fine morning, there’s something positive I can write about my fellow man that will lift my spirits instead of dragging them down.

Right then, like an unexpected benefaction, my mother texted me a JPEG image of an essay I wrote in memoriam of my Dallas pediatrician, Dr. George Liebes, who died of necrotizing fasciitis after being stung by a bee while working in the yard in 2002. I wrote the essay for myself. As an afterthought, I then sent it to the editor of the Dallas Morning News, who immediately published it.

With the headlines so full of stories of money-grubbing mercenaries in this Mammon-worshipping republic of ours, it does wonders for one’s mental health to take the time to notice, think about, and remember the good guys. There are a lot of them out there, but precisely because they obey the law, quietly attend their business, and carry out their duties, they never make the headlines. Indeed, I suspect that the only time Dr. George Liebes ever made a headline was in my in memoriam essay after his painful death.

Carl Jung once remarked that modern people don’t see God because they don’t look low enough. Maybe God’s work is being done among us, quietly and humbly, by people who don’t seek attention for it.