Translating a World on the Edge

On Earth, we don’t have the fullness of Heaven, where all is perfect and God’s presence is enjoyed eternally in a problem-less place. Here, there are most definitely problems, growing like weeds. And weeds can overtake once-healthy plants. Sometimes we allow those weeds in our own lives. Even knowing that they may one day strangle us, we don’t pull them out or do much of anything about them.

And yet, we Christians pray The Lord’s Prayer, that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. We want our devotion and our service to God to show that He is present in this world. We do this by loving and caring for the people He created; people made in His image and likeness. And because I am an American, may I especially include our American brothers and sisters?

Here on Earth, we can choose not to respect our American brothers and sisters. We can choose to hate, or disrupt, or bring down those in our American family. We can choose to call them names, like racists and much more; we can yell in their faces that they are deplorable, or chase them out of public places, ruin their businesses, or spread lies about them. We can choose not to see their connection to us through the same God who made them.

But—-

When this happens, expect courageous Americans proud of their history, and their flag, to stand up and fight back as they have done from the birth of our nation.

The very roots of our democracy, built on a Constitution that states allegiance to the laws of God, have been attacked and shredded by the so-called–and perhaps even well-meaning–progressives. But the end does not justify the means if the means are innately evil.

Today our America is being threatened from within, until it has become infested by those who would turn evil into a false good, and good into a false evil. One daily hears their dangerous propaganda through much of the media–making up their own rules to demolish the sanctity of life through abortion on demand, creating their own brand of diminishment the sacrament of marriage, putting illegal non-Americans ahead of those who worked diligently to become legal American citizens. Spouting their petty, adolescent criticisms to anyone who disagrees with them, they take every opportunity to belittle our country and our President. These are only some of the means they use–means that are anything but good for the American people. I am one of the Americans who resent those means. And there are many more of us.

Many of us descend from American pioneers all the way back to the Mayflower, who have fought, or have relatives who fought for our country throughout its history of nearly four hundred years. Others are  more recent immigrants who did the hard work it takes to come legally into our country, and our country has been better because of them. The majority of us who truly love America have been taught respect for other human beings from birth to death, no matter who they are. We have been taught respect for our country, respect for our flag, respect for the office of President.

And yet, these lessons are daily demeaned by those who call themselves progressive.

Perhaps we should all go back to our beginnings here to realize what a wonderful country our forefathers intended for the citizens of America, and then, assess how each of us is doing as a citizen today.

William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony, “Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647,” had this to say:

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together.    

Do we today, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together as Americans?