The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
“Listen to lead.” I saw this phrase this past week while walking through the vendor area at the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Palm Beach Atlantic University had it on stickers and t-shirts. It caused me to pause for a moment. I’ve been on a contemplative journey lately that started with a challenge to consider some lessons from the Stoics. I’d been looking for the next topic; inspiration struck when I saw that sticker.
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“You may choose to look away, but you can never again say you did not know.” —William Wilberforce There are moments in life when we are confronted with a clear, morally unambiguous truth that strips away all our comfortable illusions. Wilberforce’s words aren’t just a condemnation of apathy but an indictment of complicity. Once you’ve seen injustice, silence is no longer neutral. It’s a choice. Ancient Stoics would have understood this. For all their restraint and talk of inner calm, the Stoics were not spectators. They believed in moral clarity and civic virtue. To live a good life was not to retreat from the world but to meet it head-on—with courage, justice, and integrity.
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In a recent sermon titled Trusting God in Life’s Transitions, my pastor, Rev. Magrey deVega, offered a line that I had to write down: “Actions without contemplation are unrooted, and contemplation without action is inconsequential.” For me, this landed in the middle of a personal storm. I find myself in a significant life transition. I’ve been warned of a likely layoff. My company is a federal contractor, and with contracts drying up, so might my role. While I’ve technically reached retirement age, I’m still eight months shy of qualifying for my full benefits age. I love what I do. I’m healthy and engaged, and I still have more to offer. But I’m also not as financially prepared as I wish I were. And I know—painfully well—the ageism that exists in the job market. It’s a lot to sit with.
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In a world that constantly shouts at us—“Buy this! Be that! Hurry up!”—It’s easy to lose sight of what truly matters. New trends, metrics, or moral panics are always trying to claim your time and energy. This raises a profound question: What is truly worth living for? The pursuit of the highest good is not simple. It demands something of us—sometimes a great deal. It requires saying no when saying yes would be easier. It calls for patience when the world rewards immediate reactions. It demands courage when fear would be much more convenient. But it is also freeing. When you let go of the need to gain everyone’s approval, avoid every mistake, or secure every possible outcome, you begin to live with more peace, not because your life is perfect, but because your intent is clear.
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A recent Pew Research Center report (Feb. 2025) found that a staggering 81% of LGBTQ adults expect Trump’s policies to harm gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Among transgender respondents, 88% expect negative effects. These fears are grounded in experience: during his first term, Trump rolled back protections for trans students, banned transgender people from military service, and allowed discrimination under the guise of religious freedom. In his second term, the pace and intensity have only increased.
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So this is where I stand: older, yes, but not done. Not stuck. Just at the next bend in the road. It’s not the one I expected. But I’m learning, little by little, to see it not as a detour but as a direction. If you’re in a similar place, wondering if you’re too late, too tired, too tangled in the “should haves,” let me offer this: You are not behind. You are not disqualified. You are standing right where your next beginning begins. “The obstacle is the way.”
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That phrase—Memento Mori—means “remember that you must die.” It’s an old Stoic meditation, not meant to provoke dread but to awaken us… and remind us not to sleepwalk through our lives. The Stoic philosopher Seneca put it this way: “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing.”
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As the curtain begins to close on 2024, I find myself looking back on what has truly been a transformative year. This was my “health-focused” year, and what a year it has been!
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John Rawls once wrote, “A bad man desires arbitrary power, but an evil man delights in injustice.” This distinction resonates deeply when examining the actions of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Republican-dominated legislature over the past six years. Their political maneuvers reveal a pattern not merely of consolidating power but of inflicting harm and exploiting the vulnerable—actions that seem to derive satisfaction from the suffering of others. This is not governance; it is cruelty institutionalized.
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The Western North Carolina Mountains had their first snow day today. Watching the webcams from time to time during the day brought back many great memories. There’s a magic to the first snow that roots itself deep in memory, stretching across years and places. In Kings Mountain, NC, where the winters were mild and snow was a gift rather than a certainty, the first flakes meant the world was about to change. As a kid, waking up to a white-coated street was like waking up on Christmas morning. School would call it a day, and we’d pile out of the house, sleds in hand, to the steep street just beyond our driveway.
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To foster hope, we must remember the countless individuals working tirelessly for justice, unity, and compassion. These voices may seem drowned out by anger and division, but they are there—teaching our children better ways, forging connections across divides, and laying the groundwork for the future we long for. Change starts small, often unnoticed, but it accumulates and eventually becomes unstoppable.
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