All Men are Created Equal

Today we find ourselves in a ‘struggle of the soul’ with the idea and principles of liberty and equality. It is both a moral and intellectual dilemma crowded my emotion, tradition, and rhetoric. However our emotions may deceive us or our traditions may guide us; our origins as a country provide us with a clear vision of truth starting with the Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. (A self-evident proposition is one that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof.)

During the most devastating conflict concerning liberty and equality in our nation’s history, which threatened our very existence, Abraham Lincoln reaffirms this ‘self-evident’ truth in his Gettysburg Address speech.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Further proof of this “self-evident’ truth can be found in scripture as God is described as righteous and impartial.

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.” (Deuteronomy 10:17)

“The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.”  (Job 37:23)

Furthermore, our Constitution, supported and protected by law, reinforce the natural and moral laws of equality.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The ‘Bill of Rights’ was added to the Constitution to further describe the protection of individual citizens under the law.

So what does liberty mean? From the dictionary, liberty has many meanings:

It can mean freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control, freedom from external or foreign rule; independence, freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice, and freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint.

With this much wisdom in our history and culture, I am unable to reconcile the division in our country regarding the basic principle that all men are created equal.

John Adams said prior to the American Revolution that “We are a nation of laws not men”. This means that our liberty and equality is founded on self-evident truth and prescribed by law not on tradition, opinion or the dictates of one man or a bloc of citizens, be it a minority or majority.

The Constitution defines the individual as sovereign along with the federal and state government. The natural tension created by the determination of the rights of these three entities is what makes our country great and protects us from a despotic government, foreign rule, and the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. It is the source of our political discourse as we seek to balance the demands of all three. In essence, it is the beating heart and the life blood of our common wealth.

When we accept the oppression and the obstruction of liberty of another or question their equality we violate the laws of nature, the laws of our own country, and universal wisdom. More importantly, I believe we violate our own conscious. I truly believe that liberty and justice are self-evident to us all. I believe this because every one of us recognizes when we are treated unjustly or when we see another treated in like manner.

It is not fickle emotion or some lifeless tradition that should inform our conscious when we experience or witness oppression, it should be the laws of our country and the love of a righteous God that compel us to act on the behalf of another. When one of us is oppressed, all of us are oppressed.

 

I am because we are.

In Unity we Advance and by Division we Fall

The challenges in America are numerous. Imagine a Rubik's cube if you will … they are like a three-dimensional puzzle. There are no simple fixes or panaceas. We arrived at this point in history after 250 years of good and bad policies. We can’t solve our problems over night. In our rush to solve the problems we must consider all dimensions of the challenges before us.

The history of governments tells us that their purpose is the well-being of the people. With that in mind, we must consider the entirety of our population when looking for solutions. We must find the common ground that unites us in our humanity not magnify the ideology's that divide us.

The way forward is not clear and the path is not fully illuminated. We must shine a light on the pages of our history to learn that a house divided cannot stand that in unity we advance and by division we fall. It is by the light of this knowledge and the power of unity that we can move this great nation forward and inspire the world by our humanity and ideals not our wealth and might.

Civil Wars

Two sides aligned against each other
One a sister, one a brother
One a son, one a father, and one a mother
A dividing of hearts, a severing of souls
Pain and sadness settles on us all
Tears and anger, wounds abound
Once small, now large
Once happy, now sad
Once friends, now enemies
Defenses up, words as weapons
Now separated, solutions debated
Resolution distant, misery constant
Healing is a desire, a dream
Lay down our defenses
Longing for the hearts embrace
Tears turn into laughter
Time can heal all wounds

Soul Craters

It feels as though my life has been placed on pause as I think through, ponder, and question my soul.

It’s as though a bomb exploded in my head and I’m left to pick up the fragments of memories. My feelings and thoughts are both fragmented and spread over the expanse of my soul.

My mind and heart seem to have been separated in the blast. I have disparate thoughts and feelings to reconcile somehow. As my mind feels as though it has exploded, my soul feels as though someone reached inside my body and strangled my heart.

I’m left to wrestle with these specters of memories. I can’t tell if I winning or losing the battle for my soul. The words spoken continue to collide with the shores of my soul like great emotional waves of anger and sadness, serving only to confuse.

Do I move or pause?

Can I forgive and forget?  

Let The Past Illuminate Our Future

'This is essentially a people's contest. It is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend.'

This quote by from Abraham Lincoln sounds relevant to today’s political climate. We do well to study the past and harken to the wisdom of great people like Lincoln who struggled and overcame a far greater challenge then anything we've seen in our lifetime.

Where have all the great people gone today? Do we have a Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Adams (John and Abigail), Madison (James and Dolly), a Roosevelt (Teddy and FDR), or a Martin Luther King, or Robert Kennedy for our time? Will we see the likes of people with great virtue, courage, and wisdom again? John Adams believed so. In fact, he was concerned that the great men of the American Revolution would be enshrined as legends and gods (see the Capitol Rotunda Painting of Washington ascending as a God) in the hearts of future generation, who, forgetting that these were mere men, believe that the people of our nation can never attain to their level of virtue. He believed that the times called for men to awake from their slumber and arise to the greatest challenge of their time.

The Founding Fathers didn’t know what they were doing exactly but they rose to the challenge. The one constant in the pathology of these “Great Revolutionary” men was education. All had been educated formerly or in formerly concerning history, philosophy and religion. Most if not all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence earned a Liberal Arts degree from the leading universities, many of which still exist today. The success of the American Revolution was largely based on educated men responding wisely and courageously. You could say “they were born for such a time as this”, but so are we.

Quoting Abigail Adams, “These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”

We have the ability in this nation to deal with the issues affecting our country but must rid ourselves of the avarice of politicians who seek not the good of the country but their own ends.  We the people must stand against the subjugation of the weak and poor in this country. We must rise against special interests and organizations who seek their own good over the good of the common wealth of these United States. We do well to study history and listen to voices past about our future.

"Oh posterity, you will never know how much it cost us to preserve your freedom. I hope that you will make a good use of it, for if you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it."

John Adams

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. "

John Adams

First Lady Abigail Adams

‘I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And by the way, in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

 That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex; regard us then as Beings placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.’

What a powerful stream of wisdom and conviction from the chief First Lady of our country, Abigail Adams. I so admire her intellect and vigor especially in a time that it wasn’t invited nor expected from women. She was the equal of John and any politician of her time. She was the burning conviction that played out in the soul of John Adams as he participated in the First Continental Congress and the establishment of our first Constitution (Articles of Confederation), and the disquieting issue of slavery. Our ‘Founding Fathers’ plea of ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ was exclusive of women and slaves. You can hear in her spirit the righteous indignation concerning liberty for all that only people who don’t have it can truly give voice to and thus, she embodies the true Spirit of Liberty!

Another Father's Day

Another Father’s Day has come since you passed through the river of life. Dad, I miss you more each passing day as I realize how important you were to me.  The pain of losing you in this life has not ceased but has been muted by the daily demands of this life. It is in the quiet times that are so dear to me now that I can reflect on the Oh so important memories we shared.

Memories both good and bad now merge into one, creating a constant dream of you. Though you don’t live in this world any longer, you will always live in my heart, alive only to me. In death you gave me life, and that life reveals the love you had for me, and that love is the light of my life lighting my path and every step I take that will eventually lead me to you.

We hold these Truths to be Self-Evident

Regardless of your political or religious affiliation or your personal feelings about same sex marriage, discrimination of any individual should not be tolerated in our country. If you firmly believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights then you too should be supportive of equal rights for all. If we are all created equal, how can you justify discrimination of another?  You can't pick and choose which parts of the Constitution you support. As ambiguous a document it is, individual rights are clearly defined.

This line from the movie American President summarizes this issue quite well. "America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".

I believe it is patriotic to stand up for equal rights for all. Many people wax poetic about Jefferson’s most famous line in the Declaration of Independence "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The question to ask yourself is do you truly believe this? If so, then we should all react with righteous indignation when we see a fellow citizen treated with injustice.

And Justice for all...

This is my Paraphrase of Romans 2:17-29.
You who call yourselves Christian’s are relying on God’s *law and you boast about your special relationship with him.  You know what he wants; you know what is right because you have been taught his law.  You are convinced that you are a guide for the blind and a light for people who are lost in darkness.  You think you can instruct the ignorant and teach children the ways of God. For you are certain that God’s law gives you complete knowledge and truth.

Well then, if you teach others, why don’t you teach yourself? You tell others not to steal, but do you steal? You say it is wrong to commit adultery, but do you commit adultery? You condemn being Gay, but do you watch pornography? You are so proud of knowing the law, but you dishonor God by breaking it. No wonder the Scriptures say, “The unbeliever curse the name (Lord) of God because of you.”

The Christian ceremony of baptism has value only if you obey God’s law. But if you don’t obey God’s law, you are no better off than an unbeliever. And if the unbeliever obeys God’s law, won’t God declare them to be his own people?  In fact, people who don’t profess to be Christians but keep God’s law will condemn you Christians who are baptized and possess God’s law but don’t obey it.

For you are not a true believer just because you were born of Christian parents or because you have gone through the ceremony of baptism.  No, a true believer is one whose heart is right with God. And true baptism is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people.

 *Matthew 22:36-40, “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”