The Dismantling of a Society

 It was far into the night when I heard a faint knock at my door. I opened to find a woman standing there with her one palm out-stretched, she apologetically asked me, “Can I borrow a thread … just a single thread … I have been to many doors, just begging for thread before it’s too late…” I almost asked her what color she needed, then I noticed in her left arm she held a worn and torn American flag. Her face was almost translucent, with a sort of timeless and simple beauty. Her dark hair, pulled in a bun behind her head, a white work apron hung over a navy blue full-length dress. Something deep in my soul stirred with a sadness that I would see this day, as I tilted my head sideways to accommodate the shift in reality that was happening in my brain. I opened the door and welcomed her in, in all her weariness and as she passed through my entry way it seemed odd that I could hear no shuffling of her feet. But that was to be expected.

She occupied the area of the chair with a somber humility. That flag was draped across, no, cradled, in her left arm with a reverential sorrow etched across her face. I had seen this look only once before in Michelangelo’s piece called “The Pieta,” where the Madonna held the broken body of Her Son. It was hard to be in the presence of this kind of sorrow. With tears in my eyes, I asked her, “… the thread?” She replied: “All I need is a thread of common sense from every person. Just a thread of common sense so we can mend this glorious banner and all that it stands for …” I tried to hide the cynical pursing of the lips thing I do when I hear hopes such as these, but I apparently failed, and that was when “school began to be in session.” She began:

Look what these foolish people have done to the most beautiful country, the most noble dream that was ever had by mankind! I knew the men and their wives behind them who dreamed a dream of peace, and prosperity and freedom. They knew that peace would only come for all when peace could reign in the hearts of each. It is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of God in the human soul. They knew that prosperity was not a hand-out, but a hand-to-the-plow, and to the anvil, and to any other godly task that sought to cultivate the earth and bring forth fruitfulness. They knew that freedom comes with a cost and demands a responsibility, lest it disintegrate into immoral license. Look what these foolish people have done! The dream that some paid for with their very lives, others have trampled upon while surrendering their own souls to lawlessness and debauchery.

She paused to wipe tears from both sides of her face with the edge of her apron. I hesitated to offer her a cup of tea, lest I remind her of the incident in The Harbor where people first reminded government that unbridled taxations are acrimonious to us. I asked her, “Do you know when the disintegration began, can you put your finger on that moment?”

There are key points that we see as we look over the past fifty years or so. But perhaps it was always a seed of evil here or there in someone’s heart that began the process. Until every heart is full of charity, true kindness to its neighbor, stability will always have a tentativeness to it. But there were key things that I think you can piece together:

Remember how important images are. (she told me, didn’t ask me) When that box with pictures in it was invented it began with stories of families, friends, humorous characters. Now it has degenerated to tales of unrighteousness. Think about what this current culture perceives as “entertainment” – murdering, adultery, cheating, blowing things up, etc. Some even watch what others do in the privacy of their bedroom as entertainment – that is depravity and theft of an unprecedented level. I realize you call them actors, but do they not lose a piece of their own soul when they portray wickedness for you to watch while you eat popcorn? It should nauseate you as a society, instead you generate more and more of it by rewarding the actors with money and status to feed their emotionally broken egos. Then when they kill themselves – literally or figuratively – you mourn their loss as if you ever really knew them as a person who had a soul to tend. It is appalling. And God in His heaven sees this and mourns it.

Then, some strange mentality began to invade the land about removing the Ten Commandments from society. Fools! Without a law, every man will be a law unto his ownself. Since selfishness runs rampant, that can never work out well for a healthy society. For example, in denying the commandment that states: “You shall honor your father and your mother,” You teach the children of the land that they no longer need to Honor their elders, and thus you bring forth a generation of willful, entitled, godless spawn. Then you wonder why, when grown, they kill their own children in the womb for convenience, and abandon the elders who loved them in homes for the aged. They do not play well in sandbox or greater society! They have no moral compass so the gift of freedom becomes merely license for the powerful who will eventually lord it over the ones with less power. They mouth the words of equality, but they make plans for their own rise to hierarchy. This insidious form of self-orientation has come like a foul odor into both institutions of the state and into organized religion. Where there is no godly order, there is no order at all that could respect the hearts and minds of the people. Freedom, when it is perverted to license, actually becomes the very worst sort of slavery – and it is deeply destructive.

Her tone continued with a sobriety and sorrow that I have never heard emanate from the likes of men:

And to the women – you who have permitted this foolish idea of sexual license to become the acceptable standard – do you see now how unstable families have become?! Those who do not honor the marriage bed before marriage are hardly capable of honoring it after marriage. Is it not for the purpose of raising families and creating loving societies that you should marry? Or has this, too, degenerated into selfishness? Passion separated from integrity is like a smoke without a fire: it can evaporate in a short time. The goal is to become the type of people who walk with God, and work for God as they build the society of love around their area of influence. You are to be the city on the hill, the beacon for humankind of what good order and fruitfulness looks like. Imagine the glory of an entire land submitted to this Law of Love!

And to the men – you who think you can gaze with passion upon a woman not your wife and not be found-out? You have turned away from the gift given explicitly to you – your own wife – and allowed a stranger, who is at the same time daughter/sister/wife of another revealed in her vulnerability on the screen for all to see. You victimize this stranger in your imagination, and then you wonder why the love has left your own home? You place the burden of distorted fantasy on the human being that lives beside you and expect them to meet your unbridled, strange passions with enthusiasm, and yet you are unpleasable. When the twin purpose of love and life is divorced from sexuality, all you have is frustration and disappointment. You have made this for yourself. The God of heaven is grieved by the lies you have let take over the most personal part of your hearts. Repent before it is too late!

She continued on with a frankness the likes of which has not been spoken even in churches for years. I know she could have said more but I was almost relieved when she switched to another topic.

Let us speak of a different kind of love for a moment. “Shema.” This word begins the greatest prayer ever uttered by the human heart “Shema,” “Listen.” “Hear O Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind and all of your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

So, let us speak of the first Love – this country was built upon an acknowledgement of both divine destiny and a calling into personal accountability and relationship of each creature with its God. This is a mighty privilege and great calling. And yet an evil undercurrent began to pull this country away from acknowledging its Creator. I call it evil, because it is. A small percentage of those who have never had, or have lost their faith, or choose to reject the call to familiarity with godliness, have demanded that His Name not be spoken of or referenced in the documents and daily life of this country. That is ludicrous! They have free will because of this Creator’s gift and so they are free to reject, ignore, etc. but they do not have the right to tamp-out or steal other people’s rights in this regard. It is time for an era of Mutual Respect among persons ~ that each should be able to believe according to his own conscience without fear or reprisal or harassment.

It is very important that in the name of equality, inclusion and diversity, the very ones who cry for respect, shall not disrespect the others. Mutual respect must be across-the-board for everyone. You don’t have to like or agree with someone’s ideas. You don’t have to endorse things that are wrong or immoral, and shouldn’t have to finance the same with your tax money. But you do have to treat each individual with dignity and respect – even if they don’t treat themselves that way! The second part of the “Shema” prayer invites each to love his own neighbor as himself. Is not this respect the very foundation by which all community thrives?

This “loving” of the neighbor is the very thing the prohibitive (those that begin with “Thou shalt not…”) commandments were trying to achieve. Namely, when you do NOT covet your neighbor’s spouse or possessions, you love your neighbor. When you do not steal from a person, you love them. When you do not kill a person, you love them, truly. So, in what universe would abolishing the Ten Commandments achieve anything other than utter chaos?

Her logic was crisp and fair. A silence fell for a moment. She wasn’t done. She was just re-loading.

Have you seen the statue of the lady in the harbor with her lantern lifted for the world? There is an attraction to freedom that reaches out to both the righteous and the unrighteous. For those who are good, it offers an opportunity for a fresh start, for hard work, for pursuing life and love in an environment of possibilities and resources. But those possibilities and resources only exist because someone came earlier and worked hard to create and expand them. It is critical for moments of epic humanitarian crisis to not overshadow the need for a regulatory order. Without order, chaos ensues. If you look at the crisis already existing in your cities – fruit of a fatherless, abandoned society – that is the microcosm of what will happen if undocumented, unscreened people who have no aim to be contributors to the dream will create. It is important for good order, compassion, and clear heads guide this process. In order to achieve the right, bickering must stop among the parties, and common goals should be established. You cannot jeopardize the whole to salvage the parts. You must thoughtfully incorporate the parts that fit and re-direct those that do not.

And regarding those who came before, think back with eyes of wisdom to bring justice in areas where there has been injury. Were there not both natives as well as immigrants as well as captives that were harmed by the hardness of heart or evil within some from the past? Atonement for injustice means, not an entitling of the descendants of the offended - It should be At-one-ment with all parties in this present moment. How are decisions now made to benefit all parties? Do not disenfranchise someone in the present in an attempt to repair a breach that is decades old! Seek to harmonize all decisions and work for true equity and brotherhood. The path forward cannot be trodden alone, healing is cooperative by its very nature.

The clock ticked during a brief moment of silence as she gathered her wits about her. I felt almost inept to respond to her comments. I have lived amidst the storms of these past few decades and I wondered to myself why did she come now to repair and to warn? As if she knew my thoughts by seeing the furrow on my brow she said,

Ah, I have put my burden upon you. I can see it is late for you as well and you are tired. Really, all I wanted was to say my piece and find someone who could see the threads of common sense. I think you do hear my anguish. I am grateful for your hospitality, I must go now … please, do your part to repair our glorious standard …

She hoisted the flag draped over her left arm and I felt hot tears in the corners of my eyes and a twinge in my heart that almost felt religious. She moved smoothly across the room to the door, she did not need me to open the door for her, really, for as she passed down my driveway into the moonlit night, she vanished …

Good bye, Miss Betsy Ross, I will carry your words in my heart … you are a woman of wisdom and greatness … the world is not worthy of you.

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