We hear of the term 'bottom line' often. It originated by looking at the bottom line of a financial statement to determine how well an organization is doing. With capitalism taking over from barter systems, figures indicating profit or loss became the measure of how things were going. It also can mean anything that points to the ultimate value placed on something. Most relationships are not measured in dollars but there is a bottom line that determines an answer of the value of the relationship.

The bottom line might not be a comparison but a goal to point toward or work for. Your goal might be to become a professional ball player, and you sacrifice a great deal to reach that goal. However, in our society, if you reach it, you are richly rewarded as long as you keep that level of talent. However, our society will not tolerate reckless disregard for others. Many professional players forget the point of a sport and concentrate only on fame and fortune.

At the start of ball games, "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played and/or sung. It has become a tradition, and for many people, it has no meaning unless you happen to be a soldier defending the freedoms we take fore granted. The pledge of allegiance is often muttered as many nice words without thinking of the bottom-line "with liberty and justice for all." What does it mean to be an American?

We look at our struggling legal system and wonder if justice is the bottom line or winning is. When lawyers are not paid unless they win, it seems that the bottom line is the dollars for the attorneys and their clients rather than justice. What happened to "tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"?

What can we expect from another generation if the lesson they learn from us is that the most important thing in life is to take care of No. 1, namely ourselves? We are not all gifted or educated equally. We are part of smaller groups divided by many criteria -- geographical area, income, race, size, sex, family, etc. Our bottom line of life is affected by all these things. We need everyone to make this a better place. We need people with a heart to care as well as people to make us think of priorities and principles of living together.

Many organizations have a mission statement to define their purpose. It is a vision about what possibilities are. Maybe we should start with our mission statement of this great country. "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility ... establish this Constitution for the United States of America." We need believers and doubters, whatever the cause, to keep us honest to ourselves and to one another. Without these principles as our bottom line, we will find chaos become the bottom line.