President's Views

  President: Doc Ellis

Four Links to Luminous Living in Lionism 2018

Light is a big deal to folks everywhere. Light lets folks see where they are, what lies ahead, where they are going, and lets them see their objectives. There are many links to luminous Lionism. I am only focusing on four.

Let's start with labor. Generally, the most rewarding outcomes involve work: a purposeful expenditure of energy. Folks experience an uplifting sense of accomplishment after working for a satisfactory outcome. Their lives are so much better, lit with industry and happiness. Folks have lived without labor, in darkness of dependency and misery. Lions can add light to their own lives through voluntary service, and to the lives of folks that Lions help.

Then there is learning. Investigate and educate yourself about what you are about to do. If a project fails expectation, learn what happened, and how to resolve concerns. Same thing applies when a project meets or exceeds expectation. When laboring with learning, folks experience a sense of lightness. Working without knowing can lead to very dark frustration.

Liberty is the first letter in the acronym LIONS. Folks know how dark living with no liberty can be. Liberty is that respect that folks provide to the exercise of freedom by other folks. The light from labor and learning dims, down to darkness, without liberty. With liberty, anything seems possible.

Laboring with learning within liberty makes the light that love brings most likely. Robert Heinlein, in "Stranger in a Strange Land" defined love as a state of being in which the happiness of another is essensial to one's own happiness. When Lions show, through their work, concern for the well-being of unfortunate folks they demonstrate love. Additionally, love is enthusiatic enjoyment of work that promotes well-being. Folks can live without love; they are the most miserable of any creature. Love, in whatever form, brings light into life.

Lions laboring with learning, promoting and living liberty, in a spirit of love can bring light into the darkest life, can luminate a better path, and can

Brighten where Lions are

Lions Clubs International is the world's largest service club organization with more than 1.4 million members in approximately 46,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas around the world.