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Jerry Brown on Principles & Values
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Proclaim May 2 as California "Day of Prayer"
Each year, in accordance with Public Law 100-307, the President proclaims the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer.A National Day of Prayer is an occasion for each of us to reflect more deeply on the eternal verities and those matters
which transcend our everyday routines. Through prayer, one opens the heart and stills the mind so that the Divine Presence may be directly encountered.
I encourage Californians to participate in this day in the manner that is most appropriate to their own religious or spiritual beliefs and experience.
NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim
May 2, 2013, as a "Day of Prayer" in California.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 1st day of May 2013.
Source: California governor's website press release
, May 2, 2013
Protect the Earth, serve the people, & explore the universe
In 1991, when Brown announced he would run for president, [one pundit wrote]: "It's not so much that Brown has changed but that the times have changed around him. In some ways America has caught up with Jerry Brown."[He was called] "Gov. Moonbeam" for
attracting California's New Age crowd.
Brown was a New Wave politician before the phrase was coined. [In 1980], his campaign platform was: 'Protect the Earth, serve the people, explore the universe.' He was the candidate of new, unconventional ideas.
Source: Lori Kozlowski in Los Angeles Times, "Moonbeam"
, Oct 25, 2010
1994: Started national call-in radio program "We The People"
In the winter of 1994, I started a national call-in radio program, "We the People." My plan was to take up contemporary ideas and controversies and explore them as honestly as I could. My hope was to clarify tacit assumptions and test them against
common sense and democratic principles. I invited guests and structured the show as a dialogue between myself and the person who joined me in conversation.
For guests, I sought out people whose writings or whose life exemplified unusual intelligence and honesty. I wanted to learn as much as I could about our society and the mental structures which shape it.
I looked for people who had deep understanding, or perhaps a special vantage point from which they saw things many of us had missed.
Source: Dialogues, by Gov. Jerry Brown, p. 13
, Jul 14, 1998
Profound truth about human nature in orthodox tradition
I've come to appreciate more deeply the values and traditions that I learned as a Jesuit seminarian. My experiences of other cultures, and other traditions of both religion and philosophy reinforced in my mind the validity of much of what I learned there
I sense a fundamental core about human nature and about life that is found throughout the world. They are found in many different guises and in many different images and symbols, One fundamental principle they taught in the
Jesuit seminary, is what they call in Latin, "agere contra"--it means "go against yourself." Another related idea is, "ignatian"--detachment from creature comforts or worldly desires. From my time of study in Japan, I find that very similar ideas,
although in different imagery, are part of the religious tradition in the East. So, that reinforces the truth and the validity in my mind of what it was I was taught. I see a lot of profound truth about human nature within the orthodox tradition.
Source: Interview in Whole Earth Review, Winter
, Nov 1, 1988
Page last updated: Mar 10, 2019
