Lincoln's Hildene Roadway...Manchester, Vermont
WE the People…
As I listen to and follow all the political goings-on. Which
I began doing so, more fervently since August 2015, like never before. I am stunned how some of US accept lying from
officials. Officials holding high
offices. Especially, officials swearing on the Bible. Which I do not take lightly, and never have.
Most don’t know this about me, I am a person originally of a
Christian based-faith. I can say how it all started, that is my reading the Bible. The one WE swear to in OUR courthouses and
when WE serve in high offices. The one WE
swear to as Marines, and so forth. As WE have said, “God, Country, Family,
Corps”. WE didn’t say a particular office or political party. Remember that.
Most also don’t know that I’ve the read the Bible for the
better part of the last fifty years of my fifty-seven years on this earth. It
was not something done in my family, or ancestors of many generations of the
past. There were few on either side of
my parent’s families who did. As Catholics it was not encouraged as something
to be done. One relative, a Catholic
began reading the Bible more later in life.
Another a Lutheran, was a Christian Science convert. She died the year I
was born. Something I didn’t know when I first started reading the Bible to
heal myself from ills as a child.
Alas my parents were shocked I had taken such a route by age
eight. I didn’t know what it was; it just occurred. I had no name for it. So, by age forty I finally made one up. It
was and is personal, I’m in my own religion. And it is alone from biological
criticisms. Yet it is not lonely, I’m with Spirit.
By the time I was age eleven I realized a hypocrisy of
Christians. I revealed it to my then Catholic
Mother and Lutheran-based Father. I knew
when I revealed this to them in the family kitchen, that I may just get
whacked, slammed and or shunned for my speaking against Christian religions
especially the one I was Baptized as. As
also was unlike me as a child of the 1960’s and 1970’s. I didn’t speak out. I
was the quiet kid. I took life seriously, yet not myself. For I knew I was not
important. I was merely a grain of sand
in all the beaches of this thing we call earth.
However, I knew to broach the subject of religious hypocrisy
to my parents (or what I have made clear to my Maker, my Biological parents).
As well, how I would do it with such respect as a child. That along with what I
revealed as my beliefs would thus be respected, perhaps with some compromise. Indeed,
it was. And I was not shunned. I was not smacked or hit in anyway. I spoke
from the heart. And well, I spoke like a
person who’d read the Bible. Because I
had read the WHOLE darn thing, the Old and New Testament. I’d listened to my
Sunday school teachers of three or so different religions as a child. Yet, I’d
had my mind made up that the Bible was a guidance for humans to use prudently.
Not to condemn somebody with.
So, here now, I come to a point where I know the place WE
are in history, it may not be what most of US desired. I can say I did not. I
can say, I knew to defend against enemies from any foreign state and also
within OUR country. I knew not to be
bigoted. I knew not to make fun of the disabled. I knew that immigrants didn’t have it easy,
just because they made it across the border. I knew to respect the flag, not to
make it a god, because it is merely cloth. I knew to defend the weak, the poor,
the destitute. To wish others, life liberty and the pursuit of happiness with
selflessness. When someone needs a penny or a dime or a quarter or even a
dollar, because they didn’t have the cash right there at the cash
register. Don’t let them be embarrassed,
if you have it to give. Be a hero. And if you are played for as a fool; then its
on them, not you.
I also knew to will children who didn’t have a home, to have
one, no matter their differences, because we are all connected. And to give one,
because I needed to give one, for my growth and theirs. And it didn’t matter
the background of the child, because as I could with my spouse try and understand
what was and is important to each individual, even the one I’m married to and
to the ones we raise.
Yes, I may have higher standards, maybe, who knows. One
thing I know is I have to answer to myself at the end of the day. I know what ever or whom ever it is: he, she, it, they, etc… What I also know is,
that when I go to the dust once more, there will be a calling to and for my
soul. So, I prepare everyday to be kind. I can’t be perfect, but I will work at
it, and have been.
I have such the moral compass that over the past year, I
extricated myself from my former Marine Corps Retirement Group. For I cannot be a part of any organization
that despises others their rights, knowingly or unknowingly; because of their gender,
race, color creed, sexual-orientation, religion or the like. I’m well weathered
enough, to know a ‘Good Old Boys White Club’ when I see one. I’m no fool.
As far as politics, I’ve called privately to a handful of
people the last four years of elections spot on 94% of the time. Even the ones
that brought US not the results seemingly good for OUR local, state and federal
governments. Where WE went wrong as a country I can guess. It is WE have
allowed the very thing OUR Founding Fathers did not want, and that was the two
party system we now have. How do WE correct this to regain and improve OUR
democracy? I have one answer of many.
First, Church and State must stay separate. WE can debate all WE want
about healthcare, gun control, immigration, public education, and the
like. But WE cannot do it with civility
if WE remain tribal.
Currently, WE have people who are unwilling to protect and
carryout their oath of office(s), and this is not working. And those people
being tribal in those offices are not thinking clearly. They have paradigm
paralysis. This is due to being tribal. Their egos have taken over, where their
souls should be making the decisions.
They are not mindful. Whether they know it or not, they are being greedy
and selfish. I don’t think WE want that.
It is extremely unhealthy for well over ninety percent of the population
of the people of the United States to have that in OUR government. In the end, WE will all lose.---Jody-Lynn
Reicher
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