In
1964 I joined the Peace Corps out of college and in 1968, I worked
evaluating a local OEO Community Action Program. From 1969 to 1970 I
worked for a Legal Services Program on an Indian reservation in Arizona.
All were the creations of Sargent Shriver -- A Good Man.
I recently completed reading A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver by Mark Shriver and was struck by the lessons to be found htere.
Reading Mark Shriver's tribute to his father was in part a trip back in time. It brought back memories of a brighter time when a generation felt that doing good deeds was doing the right thing and had the courage to do it. In part is a travel through time as I strongly related to Mark's story of growth, development and decline.
But this book is far more that a son's memory and tribute to his father, it is a tale of a family seen through the life of one man.
The book is divided into three section. 1. The life and times of Sargent Shriver and his family's ancestry; 2. The father and son relation from growing up in the shadow of the father and spot-lighted by being a Kennedy to witnessing the father's decline from Alzheimer and becoming the parent's caregiver; 3. Coming to terms with the legacy.
We often hear the phrase "a good man" and think "a good [God fearing] man". But when Mark Shrive describes his father as "a good man," he is describing "a good [God loving] man."
We learn how much "faith, hope, and love" dominated Sargent Shriver's life, his marriage to Eunice Kennedy, his family of 5 children, to his service to his nation, his devotion to his church and his belief in the potentials of people of the world. We learn the secret to his life's joys, and his abiding faith in the face of defeat. He often told his family, "I'm doing the best I can with what God has given me." And he did much, creating the Peace Corps out of nothing, Office of Economic Opportunity (Head Start, Legal Services, etc.) and supporting his wife, Eunice, in creating the Special Olympics and building it into a global movement.
We also learn about the effect of this personality on a son who both worshiped his father and yet felt he must compete with him. And we learn how the son comes to reconcile himself with his father's achievements and comes to peace with his own conflict. In his eulogy to his father, Mark says,
"I'd always tried to live the way he did, but in that moment [his father's struggle with Alzheimer], I began to see his life less as a challenge to measure up to and more as a form of guidance to heed. I didn't have to be as good as he was at the tough stuff of faith, hope, and love -- all I had to do was the best I could."
I recently completed reading A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver by Mark Shriver and was struck by the lessons to be found htere.
Reading Mark Shriver's tribute to his father was in part a trip back in time. It brought back memories of a brighter time when a generation felt that doing good deeds was doing the right thing and had the courage to do it. In part is a travel through time as I strongly related to Mark's story of growth, development and decline.
But this book is far more that a son's memory and tribute to his father, it is a tale of a family seen through the life of one man.
The book is divided into three section. 1. The life and times of Sargent Shriver and his family's ancestry; 2. The father and son relation from growing up in the shadow of the father and spot-lighted by being a Kennedy to witnessing the father's decline from Alzheimer and becoming the parent's caregiver; 3. Coming to terms with the legacy.
We often hear the phrase "a good man" and think "a good [God fearing] man". But when Mark Shrive describes his father as "a good man," he is describing "a good [God loving] man."
We learn how much "faith, hope, and love" dominated Sargent Shriver's life, his marriage to Eunice Kennedy, his family of 5 children, to his service to his nation, his devotion to his church and his belief in the potentials of people of the world. We learn the secret to his life's joys, and his abiding faith in the face of defeat. He often told his family, "I'm doing the best I can with what God has given me." And he did much, creating the Peace Corps out of nothing, Office of Economic Opportunity (Head Start, Legal Services, etc.) and supporting his wife, Eunice, in creating the Special Olympics and building it into a global movement.
We also learn about the effect of this personality on a son who both worshiped his father and yet felt he must compete with him. And we learn how the son comes to reconcile himself with his father's achievements and comes to peace with his own conflict. In his eulogy to his father, Mark says,
"I'd always tried to live the way he did, but in that moment [his father's struggle with Alzheimer], I began to see his life less as a challenge to measure up to and more as a form of guidance to heed. I didn't have to be as good as he was at the tough stuff of faith, hope, and love -- all I had to do was the best I could."
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