You Learn Something New...

My dad has never been much of an imparter of wisdom.  He's always been more of a doer than a talker.  He is remarkable in many ways, but that's a topic for another day.  The reason I brought him up is that one of the things he did used to say from time to time when I was growing up was, "You Learn Something New Every Day."  Today, I discovered this gem for the first time...

George Catlin’s Creed

• I love a people that have always made me welcome to the very best that they had.
• I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poorhouses.
• I love a people who keep the commandments without ever having read or heard them preached from the pulpit.
• I love a people who never swear or take the name of God in vain.
• I love a people “who love their neighbors as they love themselves”
• I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.
• I love a people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.
• I love a people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, when there was no law to punish either.
• I love and don’t fear mankind where God has made and left them, for they are his children.
• I love a people who have never fought a battle with the white man, except on their own ground.
• I love a people who live and keep what is their own without lock and keys.
• I love a people who do the best they can. And oh how I love a people who don’t live for the love of money.

Gatlin was a painter and writer who traveled and lived among various indian tribes in the 1800s.
Sometimes I still think I was born 200 years too late.  Not too late to live by this creed to as great a degree as possible.