The days dwindle down

Coming closer to the end of one’s tenure in physical life leads that one to consider both past and future and the multiple meanings of both.  There isn’t anything unique to that; millions of people who have gone before and who are in similar periods of contemplation have had such thoughts or are now contemplating what and how to face that transition.  Then there are the thoughts of sadness for those who are prevented from the luxury of contemplation or who are not wise enough to seize the opportunity to contemplate their various lives.

Love is the spiritual force that drives our contemplations and our hopes that we might add something more that is positive to the world and to those we love.  Why is that the motivation?  Merely for kind memories after we’re gone?  Or, is the existence – virtually universal – of love in the “hearts” of those who know us, now, or who remember us from years prior, but even, somehow, of love we have for children too young to know us, really.  Love is more than a vapor that blows this way and that: it is like an abiding, surrounding fluid that is everywhere we look and think.  One cannot wash it off.

It can be repelled with hatred, illustrating the force that is love and its strength and simultaneous fragility.  Each of us has a responsibility – spiritually – to defend love from the nibbling intrusions of hate.  Some become so fearful of the imputed power of hatred that they stop feeling, let alone expressing, love.  Yet love is infinitely stronger.  Religious explanations of love are somewhat confusing since most are complicated by political or financial power over populations.  The confusion has become worse as scientific inquiry has appeared to disprove many religious tenets.  This threat to religious infallibility has caused many branches of Judeo-Christianity to soften scripture and history so that modern social justice may be elevated to something religious.  True Love is largely left behind.  The frequent declaration of God’s love for each of us is disconnected, somewhat, from the universality of love and the earthly, daily battle with hate.

The best expression of love… and the best way to multiply love, is marriage and children.  It is a simple, not quite infallible formula that has worked for millennia.  It is a formula that, like changing water into wine, changes everything in the worlds of the husband, the wife and the souls entrusted to them as co-creators with God.  Love expands in families.

Hatred, on the other hand, usually is not generated inside of families.  It steals into families, perhaps because of drugs or alcohol, or because of some human vector that generates unrequited angers or, worse, self-hatred.  It spreads.  The wise society maintains a social – perhaps religious – infrastructure that can mitigate, if not resolve, familial dysfunction.  It would strengthen everyone.  It would assure that subsequent generations of citizens will be smarter than the last, and well-balanced and nurturing.

If unchecked, hatred becomes a means of judgement, both of acquaintances and friends or family.  Like other addictions, it begins to look for reasons and justifications for itself.  Soon, it’s pleasurable and satisfying.  Those who don’t hate seem less wise than the one who is smart enough to hate those who deserve to be hated.  In short order, correspondence is reduced to only the circle of co-haters – all enjoying the satisfaction of being more discerning than those who float along disregarding the hateful qualities of this or that person, or group, that are so obvious.  Society, the civil, unregulated cooperation that reinforces everyone, can break down at this stage.  The visible and invisible lines of hateful judgement create unbridgeable chasms that advance some at the expense and pain of others.  There is no longer society… only an uneven police state in which most trust very few others.

The aging individual must choose, now, what his frame of mind will be when the hour comes to leave.  Leaving immersed in hatred would seem to be the wrong “way” to face whatever comes next, and this should include self-hatred, possibly the most common form of hate.  Hating oneself leads to a search for confirmation from others, perhaps from society, that the self-hating individual is correct in his outlook.  If he is “confirmed” as a member of a properly hated group, he will then have found a mission to either spread the hate or better define it, or to find a way to correct the reasons or balance the reasons it is hated.  Inevitably this “balance” is perceived as an economic one: forcing people who have nothing to do with why a group is hated today, though long dead, to pay reparations to others alive today, who have virtually nothing to do with the hated people, again, long departed.  It is illogical in its conception and unfair in execution: a reward for hatred.

It appears that hatred is a personal matter, one that individuals can control or reverse.  Historically, however, most starkly described in “1984,” hatred is a political tool.  For many movements, for whom to hate is the sea-anchor that keeps them on course.  It is part and parcel of psychological warfare where repetition and cross-citation becomes “truth,” not because it is true but, because it is believed.  The same process works personally, creating self-hatred.  It is all destructive: from simply feeling like a failure, to rejecting opportunities to triumph… to attempting suicide.  “Satan” wins.

Some are unable to process love, which is one of the most difficult mental states to overcome.  It is the enemy of self-worth or self-esteem.  One should not prepare to die feeling this way.

Nor should a nation die in self-hatred.  Good national “health” and a good future, depend upon knowledge of real history, good and bad, and accepting that the imperfections of humans have happened, are happening and will happen, and that we are willing to apply steps of improvement to how we act.  Nationally, we can do better for ever larger numbers of people… if we believe in our ability to do so.  Hating one another, or our nation, or ourselves, is the recipe for failure.  Do we know better?

A Partnership of Success

Nations are living organisms: biological – with an emphasis on logical – made up, obviously, of living, breathing people who share basic concepts of right, wrong, love, family, economics and social status.  The health of the nation connects to the health of its members, physically, but also to the health of its beliefs, religious and otherwise.  Some nations started because of religious beliefs, but most are or were tribal.  Weaving through hundreds or thousands of years of history – perhaps “progress” – nations either progress evenly enough that its members accept, over time, their relationships to political power-holders, elected or otherwise.  It is a function of “social status” noted earlier.

Wars change nations, usually by a form of cruel, expensive, bloody separation or segregation: almost purification.  If there were some semblance of justice in the origins and results of war, stronger nations, healthier nations, will result.  Former amalgamations of nations are distilled apart leaving nations comprised of people who more evenly – fairly – share the basic concepts of life and cooperation listed at the beginning of this observation.

Historians, of course, amidst their natural biases, justify or castigate wars along a spectrum of perceived fairness or righteousness in their origins.  However, time reveals the health of nations following the wrenching of war, and the correctness of the new or modified nation’s composition.  Is the society healthy?  Do its members accept, if not reinforce one another?  Is there a path for the divisions of social status to soften or encourage improvement of the economic and social status of its members?  If so, that nation will retain its shared identity and ethical agreements.

The advent of writing and written “history” of nations and wars, began a process that has left “modern” peoples with an image, at least, often biased and one-sided justifications of conflicts over the past 5,000 years or so.  The use of writing, long, long ago, was a tool of kings or emperors: ruling classes, certainly.  The recorded story would automatically be told from the outlook of “rulers,” and then, only of the victorious rulers.  As writing and reading spread through greater fractions of societies, somewhat truer, more accurate pictures of the how’s and why’s of wars have been “painted.”  Throughout, the tendency for dominant elements of societies – governors – to control what those dominated know or believe about the nature of the world around them and, more specifically, about the workings and intentions/philosophies of their “governors,” themselves.

Occasionally – very infrequently, actually – only once, in fact, a nation is (was) formed based on the best of the philosophies and histories that human history had delivered to that point and place in time.  To define that nation, the philosophies of individual sovereignty, responsibility, liberty and from-the-people authority to govern, and the reasons for employing those ideas, were written into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights of 1789.  Underlying all of them is the tradition of Judeo-Christianity: 5,000 years of learning what are rights and wrongs and how honesty and honor can and should dissolve lies and hatred and disrespect.

Through it all the Bible has made clear that the most powerful relationship with God is an individual one.  Fellowship and congregation are wonderful reinforcements for the individual’s ability to internalize the concepts of God and His rules for life and ascension.  Without religious freedom the evolution of souls and the growth of individuals would be impossible.  Without the lessons religion provides, the model for 2-parent families and effective fathering of sons and daughters, including economic security, would slip away.  There are those, today, who think the government will take better care of children than will their parents.  God forbid.

The Constitution is both a covenant and a unique, exceptional, partnership with the people – citizens – of the United States.  Unique among nations and history, the CITIZENS of the United States formed the government of the United States.  The founding had flaws, primarily slavery and slaves, themselves.  The problem that the founders hoped would fade away became the gut-wrenching lever that separated the states.  The Civil War became the awful medicine that commenced the cure of slavery fairly quickly, and the cure of racism that has progressed for decades afterwards.  But, in both the forming and preservation of the Union, God blessed our nation with the wisdom and fortitude to earn the right of national identity.

Our identity depends upon our general grasp of the IDEAS, the philosophies that underlie our founding and why the Constitutional model is designed the way it is.  As we select our representatives, governors and President, we should be looking for each of their understanding of our Constitutional Republic being a PARTNERSHIP that makes possible the success of every U. S. citizen.  U. S. citizenship is the “Gold Standard” of all citizenships around the world.  One of the prime tests of the right to lead Americans is whether the person seeking that power/status is prepared to defend the unique value of U. S. citizenship.  Anyone who would dilute, or threaten that value, by definition is unqualified to lead us.  Only U. S. citizens live under the protections and guarantees of the U. S. Constitution and those comprise the most valuable possession – personal property – of every citizen.

An example of PARTNERSHIP would be careful defense of our borders on behalf of every state and every citizen, with proper and strict control over non-citizens allowed to enter our nation.  An example of TYRANNY would be loose or virtual non-control over illegal entrants.  An example of PARTNERSHIP would be careful, balanced budgeting and management of the people’s money, taxes and banking/investment regulations.  An example of TYRANNY would be $35Trillion in national debt and $1Trillion owed in interest every year.  An example of PARTNERSHIP would be honest law enforcement and equal application/protection of the laws.  An example of TYRANNY would be use of law enforcement agencies and even courts, to persecute people because of their beliefs or politics.

An example of PARTNERSHIP would be telling U. S. citizens the truth about government actions and legislation.  An example of TYRANNY would be for the government or its agencies to lie to Americans… or to bring up for a vote legislation with more than the number of words than are in our amended Constitution.