Yesterday I went to a movie and the context of the movie was that very point. I did not care for the movie for it was very biased and inflammatory with a blatant political agenda threaded through it but the context of the movie has stayed with me. I have never not known America as you will agree with in your own lives. I have, however, seen much of the world outside of American geography but never too far from American influence and respect I might add. Working in over forty nations on three continents gives you a sense of perspective about being an American I believe so to try and envision our world, today, with not America is, frankly, impossible.
There was a brief snippet in the movie showing Bono speaking to the fact that America was and is and idea and an experiment much more than just a nation. He stated that his own country, Ireland, is a country but not an idea. That concept has probed deeply into my brain in realize just how true that really is today. There is so immeasurably too much hostile, negative, biased "toleration" rhetoric on the airwaves and wireless pathways of our American lives each of which seem to be chipping away at the foundation of the "idea" of America. I have been watching the great author, David McCullough, talking about the Founding Fathers, Washington, the rag tag Army against the largest and best equipped and trained army on earth at that time, the British Army. Even through horrific, costly defeats, no money, no gunpowder, not international coalitions, Washington's Army met victory providing the tactical grounding to make the Declaration of our Independence a realty. There is a great parallel to the Battle of Antietem and the Northern victory in 1862 providing Lincoln with that same grounding to enact the Emancipation Proclamation that was, thus, forged in blood. The America as an Idea is intriguing to me the more deeply I ponder it through the prism of hate and angst of the twenty-first century.
When you read the papers, the Great Papers, of our founding and about the framers and writers of those papers, God and His Countenance loom foremost in their words and deeds. How then in 2014 have we evolved so far from those principles one must ask? The Bible was central to the logic and sentiments of our nation's Founders and there is abundant evidence in writings to affirm that. But today, through political activism, court decisions, misguided legislation and unchristian leadership, we have moved to a position of being told we are a nation of "toleration." We as Americans must be tolerant of every and any lifestyle and action even thought that action and lifestyle run directly against the clear principles stated in the Bible and as well written in the founding papers of our nation, the Idea. The real problem is that when you hear wrong so many times and in so many ways, it begins to feel less wrong doesn't it?
America, the Idea, has been the search engine for more innovation than any nation every in the history of Man. America has generated more wealth than any nation every conceived and educated more people that almost all nations combined. American management style and systems are still sought globally due to its effectiveness. America's military might and projectionablity has not equal. So given all of that very short list of Americanisms, how and why has America lost not only its footing but its spirit of being the glowing Idea people for generations to this very day yearn to come here and to be part of the Idea or the Dream many call it?
I believe that America has moreorless turned its collective back on the very principle of God that was so central to our founding and the bloodsoaked pathway through the 300 years. I believe we have chosen as a nation and through the legislative and judicial systems been led to believe that anything and pretty much everything is tolerable when it is clearly stated in the Bible what marriage is, that aberrant sexual activity is damnable and will b punished by God with much evidence in the books of the Bible for proof. I could go on and on listing the things that I believe people in America that love this nation find detestable but fall into that wonderful peaceful place of quiet surrender; a cauldron of the uncaring will lead to the forging of absolute wrong in the society that has grown cancerous and defunct.
Has America been good for the world? Absolutely for many hard fought, measurable reasons. But the America in which I was reared, schooled, careered, wore the warrior cloth, taught the next generation, see in orange jumpsuits as prisons by the hundreds of thousands all tell me something is badly adrift in our America today and I am not sure it is reversable for the tides of toleration are drowning out the silented sense of what is truly right in God's eyes. I have written many times that right is right and wrong is wrong and no amount of wrong will ever make a wrong, right! I fear as a nation we have lost sight, frankly of what is Right in the eyes and writings of our God for He is OUR GOD. God has to be so displeased with His people and we see in the Bible how God dealt with His people when he became displeased. I cannot imagine, frankly, why God has not brought great tribulation to this earth with the depth and breadth of decay that is so evident in this nation.
When I look at my five grandchildren, I find myself cringing at the world in which they will grow up in and work and live and have families. The bad part of bad is that it continues grow worse. Each day I am reminded of the depravity of man's ability to inflicted anguish on others be they children, family or friends or complete strangers. I watch thousands of prisoners each year incarcerated for vast numbers of reasons shed tears and plead for forgiveness for their acts in a church setting and then realize it is not only they that are in the prison but their children, their families, their capabilities; all by and for poor choice. Then I come of the prison and realize the world in which we live today is exactly the same in poor choices and with poor choices comes bad consequence. Bigger government is not the salve to fix the ills of society by any stretch. More food stamps, hoards of social worker and therapists are not the answer as numerical evidence will affirm. Our world, the Idea of America, is sick from self incrimination and losing sight of that very Idea that made us great I am convinced.
America, in my humble opinion, needs a great Awakening to what God would have us do and be which is quite different than what politicians, pundits, polls, media, movements by any name or set of letters might try to convince us to be. Our nation needs to return to the God of our nation that is so evident in the writings and in the very papers that made us who and what we were, past tense. Can we be that nation again? Only you can answer but as the Bible clearly states ..."as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" And like the great song says, there's room at the cross for you! Join me, please!
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