Happy 225, America?

Happy 225, America?

July 5, 2001

STRAIGHT TALK
By Muriel Sluyter

Greetings, Gentle Reader,

Our country has 225 years under its belt, so to speak. While we are not what we used to be, a hefty segment of our citizens try to live up to our founding fathers’ vision. A great deal of vice has crept in, under the guise of freedom, as many of our citizens have lost interest in following the founders’ "True North," but we still have much virtue.

Abraham Lincoln lamented, "We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own."

John Adams said, "We see every day that our imaginations are so strong and our reason so weak, the charms of wealth and power are so enchanting,...men find ways to persuade themselves to believe any absurdity, to submit to any prostitution, rather than forego their wishes and desires, Their reason becomes at last an eloquent advocate on the side of their passions...they bring themselves to believe that black is white, that vice is virtue, that folly is wisdom and eternity (but) a moment..."

James Madison, detailed archivist of the Constitutional Convention, member of the First U.S. Congress, introducer of the Bill of Rights to Congress, and "Chief Architect of the Constitution," said of this country, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

So, since the Ten Commandments, so revered by our founders, have been banned, so to speak, have we become rotten to the core? No. Nor will we become so, as long as there are kind people who live out their lives doing good to their fellow men. Are such people in the majority. I don’t know, but those who try to live as Mother Theresa lived still do much good.

We don’ know much about such people, because they rarely "toot their own horns." Mayhem and misery sell more newspapers that Mother Theresa ever could, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t out there, and many faithful Americans, also, are out there trying to do good.

We have people in our own community, who do all they can to help those in need. Fred and Nancy Thomas are a case in point. They are deeply concerned for the welfare of their fellow man. Just recently, they opened their engineering office to day workers. These men can come to their office and use their facilities, including their phone, in order to obtain work.

In the bitter winter months, Fred and Nancy run a shelter for those who have no place to sleep. They pick them up off the street and transport them to the shelter, where they offer a warm, clean bed and nourishing meal. Is this done for the Thomases’ self aggrandizement? Hardly. Besides, though each of them has a deep, abiding love of their fellow man, this part of their labor is hard and can be unpleasant.

Many years ago, in Farmington, N.M., as I drove to work on a viciously cold winter day, I saw an unconscious man thrown from the door of a bar, into the gutter, where he lay, unmoving. Frantically, I told my co-workers what had happened and asked what could be one, to which they replied that it happened all the time, and there was nothing that I, as a woman alone, could do about it.

The Thomases know what to do, and are precisely the type of citizens James Madison, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln wanted Americans to be.