Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I came across this word – cornerstone – this morning when my wife and I continued our quest to read through the Bible in about a year.

It arose in he first chapter of I Peter.

These are the words:

“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.  

“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

^“As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual houseto be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

“For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.

“Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

There, the word “cornerstone.”

I am a words guy, one loves them better than numbers, charts, graphs or even photos.  So it is with the cornerstone, which means this:

“An important quality or feature on which a particular thing depends or is based, or a stone that forms the base of a corner of a building, joining two walls.  As in this sentence:  ‘A national minimum wage remained the cornerstone of policy.’”

This word was part of the lexicon for me back in 1990 when the time came to name a new public relations and lobbying firm where I was a partner.  I favored this word, as in Cornerstone Communications.

In a friendly disagreement, my two partners wanted something different, so when we couldn’t decide, we decided just to revert our names – Conkling, Fiskum and McCormick – each of which meant something reputable in Oregon.

In the Bible, the word cornerstone means what it says it means in I Peter.

Using a metaphor, the cornerstone is Christ.  Those “who trust in Him will never be put to shame.”

I am very glad that I can and do trust the cornerstone, Christ.