May is ‘National Stroke Month’ so says Peco’s four-story, illuminated ticker-tape framed in my living room window. It suggests that I learn the signs, but I’m not up for 
delving into disease right now, what with the failing health of our country these days.
Nor am I inclined to tackle the message that’s circled the tower since I moved in: MONEY GRUBBING MONSTERS MAY BE HIDING IN YOUR HOUSE. FIND THEM@PECO.COM. Another time perhaps.
Even the upcoming Girl Scout Triathlon with a possible riff on the cookies doesn’t do it for me.
A sign down at 4th and Race belonging to the Old First Reformed Church, though, now that’s a sign! A sign we all need to see. Uplifting for sure in these dark days, it is a reminder of our humanity. A whisper in our collective ear of the kind of people we aspire to be.
It is a kind of mission statement – for life – as my friend Lorenzo remarked on his recent visit.
Why not? After all, these days you gotta have a mission statement.
Take Johnson and Johnson with their, “Our first responsibility is to…”mothers and fathers and all others who use our products…” Must have slipped their corporate minds back in ’79 when evidence surfaced that linked talc (in their Baby Powder) to ovarian cancer. J and J must have decided the mission was better served keeping the news under wraps. Until recently, in fact.
Or Goldman Sachs of “Our clients’ interests always come first,” except for a couple of years at least when they steered those same clients into ‘hot’ investments that they then proceeded to bet against, all for a bountiful boost to the bottom line.
Or Volkswagen whose credo states, “Our mission is to build long term strategic partnerships with our customers.” Oy, even the ‘People’s Car’ company!
So what’s mine? For a while it was “Live fearless,” until I saw the phrase on billboards all over Philly, my words-to-live-by usurped by Independence Blue Cross. The phrase suddenly took on Orwellian overtones. It lost its truth. Fearlessness as ad-vice from the health insurance industry. Really?
So I’m going for “Choose love.” That’s my mission statement. It’s lofty enough.
Of course, on days of less resolve, I’ll settle for “Stay calm and get through the day.”
What’s yours?
Sixties Chick 