Honor (Please listen after reading)

Good morning dear friend! Today I would like to dedicate this 28^th edition of the Tune-up to the man who inspired its creation, my friend John Hicks. John is recovering from his successful cancer surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering on Friday.

What we are missing most in this world, is alive and well in John Hicks. So much so in fact, that he was/is the model for my song, Honor. I’ve known him for the entire 25 years that I have lived in Orange County, New York. A veteran of our military, he has embodied the essence of what a Public Servant should be for as long as I’ve known him; serving as the Town Attorney for a number of municipalities, Chairman of the Orange County Republican Committee and the Manager of Congresswoman Nan Hayworth’s successful election bid in 2010.

I have seen the metal of this man shine, when the energies of temptation that hover about political office like flies swarming an August cow pasture…reached for him. His commitment to his own honor and the public he served placed him well above their reach…often times, at his own expense.

I would humbly ask anyone reading these words to please say a prayer for his full recovery. And while you are there, ask for our recovery as well. It will surely arrive when his kind is the rule in public office, rather than the exception. I can only add, there is no higher honor for me than to call him my friend.

And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. And he answered, saying:

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.” And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you have most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.  And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet