Memories

Written and posted here in 2002:

Online with John Wren +++ (303)861-1447

Did you read this Wall Street Journal column over the weeked? In the WSJ google link to it we are told that “amid disruption and decentralization, don’t neglect the benefits of hierarchy.” In other words structure beats chaos. 

This after decades of being told to thrive on chaos. 

I’m face-to-face with the question of hierarchy again thinking about the hubris of writing this to you right now, instead of  just sharing these thoughts at a Socrates Cafe or a Franklin Circle as I have for this past couple of decades.  It seems like I’ve wrestled with hierarchy and authority ever since my bride walked towards me and our classmate from Cornell College started playing Trumpet Voluntary. 

Ronald Rolheiser in his meditation this morning on the baptism of the first Christian that we are each the beloved. And we have been, just as John the Baptist had been, but in Rolheiser’s gospel passage this moring John said he was a slave. What gives John this humility?

Anyone who has watched MindHunter on Netflix knows the answer: his mother.

John the Baptist was born a few months before Jesus, but he never has the financial success Jesus enjoyed. (If you don’t think Jesus had to worry about money just because he could make water into wine and the rest didn’t think carefully about what happened immediately after Jesus’ baptism, spending 40 days in the desert and getting clear it was not ok to use his power like a North Korean dictator.) 

Two Jewish mothers, one telling those around him just before his first miracle, when his fundraising project was just getting off the ground, “do whatever he tells you.” Is it any wonder John stayed humble?

As a consultant I’ve helped newspapers convert from free to paid circulation. It is very difficult. We all find it difficult to start paying for what we’ve alway gotten for free. There are other examples of this. One in particular comes to my mind. 

But it is not impossible. I know because of my newspaper experience, among other things.

Years ago I tried to get contributions from those who attended one of the Socrates Cafes I’d organized. Made a compelling, I thought, argument on a flier, gave it to everyone at the end of the 90 minute gathering along with a 30 second “elevator talk” about why I deserve to be paid. Big mistake. One man who had been attending regularly himself and had even started bringing his wealthy parents never came back.

Maybe it would have gone better if I’d served them wine.

All this to warm you up for my new, big, free idea: why not franchise the Colorado Caucus? Don’t judge this until I give you the details. But don’t forget, if you want to get in on the ground floor you have to affiliate with one of the major political parties by midnight today. You can do it online. In Denver I suggest you become a Democrat, In Douglas County a Republican, at least I think that’s still the majority party there. 

I’ll tell you more here tomorrow.

In the meantime, share this with your friends. Print copies, share it on the Internet, feature it in your newspaper. Whoever reads it because of you will most likely thank you, and so will I tomorrow right here if you let me know what you’ve done.

“I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” Will Rogers 

John Wren www.JohnWren.com is a long-time community activist. He has created front page news throughout his life, starting when he was a Senior at Thomas Jefferson High School and his picture was on the front page of the Rocky Mountain News and featured in the Denver Post. When he was in graduate school at the University of Denver he helped Karl Rove give College Republican workshops that were so effective they were called “dirty tricks” in the Washington Post. Yesterday he became a Democrat. Again. You can too, click here to register to vote or to change your party affiliation. After reading the Wall Street Journal this weekend and thinking about the baptism of Jesus this morning he has decided to try a daily newspaper column one last time. We’ll see. 

Tears come to my eyes as I write the above as the thought of my friend Gene Amole saying, “Good luck with it pal. Be sure to sit by a Catholic girl if you can, that’s the only reason to ever  let some paper force you into he newsroom.”