My mom gave me an article about a speech my dad gave at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, MO, sometime in the mid-seventies. She asked me to reproduce it and as I sat typing I could hear my dad's best preacher voice telling folks about his guiding principles. I think about my most recent visit with mom and dad last weekend. It wounds my soul to see my dad's health declining daily. He is very nearly blind and his voice is weakening. He fell again last week. So when I read these words, I'm comforted with the knowledge that his life has been rich and full. And I'm so very grateful that I'm a part of it. Note: It's lengthy...but it won't take you the hour and a half it took the audience to listen to it!
By Jeani Wilson
Jim Spainhower’s “Last Lecture” received a standing ovation last night.
The Missouri State Treasurer spoke for about an hour and a half and spent very little time speaking about politics.
Spainhower was the first speaker in this week’s Last Lecture Series being held at Missouri Valley College. Tonight’s speaker is Rev. Jerry Max, pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church. The speech is at 8 p.m.
There is much speculation around the state as to whether Spainhower will run for governor during the next election. He has announced that he will seek statewide office, but is leaving his options open until January to decide whether to run for the office of Governor or for re-election to the office of State Treasurer.
You would expect a man in his position to dwell on politics.
But he didn’t. This was his assignment. He was to assume the attitude that this would be the last opportunity he would have to say what are the most important insights he has into life.
Jim Spainhower’s insights are deeply religious. And, those insights spoke to his audience of townspeople and students.
After his speech, the audience of more than 50 stayed for quite a while in the College Center to talk to one another about the impact and importance of the ideas they had heard.
One student said, “I heard some very important things tonight. He told me things I needed to hear.”
It was evident that Spainhower said many things that his audience needed to hear.
Principles
He spoke about 11 basic principles by which he guides his life. After assuring his audience that this was not really his last lecture, Spainhower said he intended to make many more speeches in his lifetime. “But, if this were to be my last lecture, I would point out to my audience that an important thing I have learned is that I should not take myself, my job or position in life too seriously.
“I would like to quote my favorite theologian, Red Skelton, who said, “You should never take life too seriously, because you are not going to get out of it alive anyway.”
He said that this is a lesson we all need to learn – that we are all going to die. Therefore, we should not take ourselves so seriously.
We should remember that the Bible says that a thousand years in God’s sight are but yesterday,” Spainhower said.
Knowing that gives us a better perspective in our own lives, he said.
His second guiding principle is that he has learned that he must take God very seriously.
“We must take His purposes for this world and for our own lives seriously,” Spainhower said.
He said in order to do that, we must know God and his natural order in this world. He said that he has learned much about God through the works of Plat, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillick.
“However, the best way of knowing God is to become an intimate of Jesus Christ,” he said. “In Jesus Christ we see how God would have us live.”
Prayer
Spainhower stressed the importance of prayer. He said more things are wrought by prayer than the world knows.
“Through prayer we come to know God. Then we receive the strength from Him to do what we must do in this life,” he said.
He went on to say that to know God is to become his partner.
“God is working through us to make his purposes known on this earth,” Spainhower said.
His third guiding principle is that we should hold people in appropriate awe. “We human beings are created from the image of God. We should remember than and try to live that way,” he said.
Other principles he noted are:
Four – Respect for common sense. He said that although he has obtained his doctorate in political science, he is not much of an academic.
“I have greater respect for good, old common horse sense. Sometimes I think it is a gift from God,” Spainhower said.
Five – The towering importance of a sense of humor. He said that if we humans are unable to laugh, then there is something tragically wrong with us.
Six – Primacy of one’s family. When two people marry, they become as one.
“People should have the proper respect for each other in a family and have respect for the love they have for one another,” he said.
Seven – The necessary participation in the institution of religion. He said it is important that each person have a religious faith. That faith cannot find its fullest expression outside participation in a church. You can be religious without being involved in a church, he said. However, your faith will be stronger if you are involved in an active participation of that faith.
“Religion cannot be preserved from generation to generation without the institution of a church. The work of the Church is basic to a sound society. We receive our basic ideas about God, love, marriage, ethics and our fellow man through the Church,” he said.
Eight – The social need for personal political participation.
“Most people think that is doesn’t matter if they become involved in the political process. That is part of the reason we had a Watergate. When good people turn their backs on the political parties, then there are a whole host of vultures waiting to swoop in to feast on the savory meat of power that is involved in government,” Spainhower said.
Participation
He adamantly stressed that “if the good people don’t participate in government, then we are damaging ourselves and our country.”
Nine – The importance of friends. “The older I get, the more friends mean to me. There is just nothing like a friend,” Spainhower said. He noted that in his position as a state officeholder he meets thousands of people on an acquaintance level. Because of the necessity of meeting many people on a superficial level in his job, his friends from his community are coming to mean more and more to him each day.
“I like to keep in contact with the people I served her as minister of the First Christian Church and as State Representative,” he said. “Those friendships through the years have sustained me and my family.
Ten – the importance of never underestimating the power of an idea whose time has come.
“If this were truly my last lecture, I would want to tell my audience that in this world ideas do move men. And, men do move the world. So, I would say, seek out the ideas that have power for you. Do work for those ideas in your world,” Spainhower said.
Eleven – Books. Spainhower listed 14 books that have had a real influence on his life and the way he views life. He noted that these books were not really classics and that most of these books would not be listed by college professors as the great books of the world.
“Nevertheless, these books have had a great influence on the way that I think and feel about life,” he said.
The first book he named was the Bible.
“I name the Bible not just because I’m supposed to, but because it has had the most influence on my life. There is no book more fascinating than this book,” he said.
Other books he mentioned were “If This be Religion”; an autobiography of Lincoln Steffens; Paul Tillock’s sermons, “Shaking of the Foundation”; a modern text of abnormal psychology; Otto Kingberg’s “Social Psychology”; Leo Strauss’ “Political Philosophy”; Robert Mickles’ “Political Parties”; James McGregor Burns’ “The Lion and the Fox”; William Danforth’s “I Dare You”; Clyde Reid’s “Celebrate the Contemporary”; Henry C. Link’s “The Return to Religion,”; John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage”; a book by A. Cresse Morrison concerning the fact there was and is a creative mind who brought this world into being; and the books of Agatha Christie – “because each of us needs something light and entertaining to read that takes us out of our everyday world.”
In conclusion, Spainhower said that the most important thing he would like to leave with his audience is that he has found there is one overriding important fact.
“And, that is that God forgives. And, God forgives even now as I fall short in the quest to try to tell you the most important things in my life in this ‘Last Lecture”.”
