Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: November 20, 2008 - # 8847 - Title:  Roots (821)

In order to meet my deadline for today’s edition I had to write this column prior to Tuesday’s election returns and learning who will be the next president of the United States. But now that we know the results of the election half the voters greeted the results with exuberance and the other half with a feeling of despair.

This was a nasty political race with half truths and deception spread by both parties, parties who ought to be ashamed of their actions. But I suppose “we the people” should know better than to expect anything better, especially those of us who have witnessed past presidential elections.

But the election rhetoric became so obnoxious that Joan and I tired of it and refused to listen to the charges and counter charges during the last few days of the race. Some of the claims were so despicable I began to wonder if “we the people” are so ignorant of our roots that they expected us to believe their claims.

This rhetoric caused me to wonder if today’s younger two generation are still connected to the roots of America’s unique form of government. As I was pondering this thought I had the opportunity to observe how turnip and Swiss chard seeds put down deep roots in the soil that provides the nutrients that give life to the emerging plant above the soil. Before these plants ever break through the soil their roots go deep down to assure they have the energy to emerge and bear the fruit expected of them. Later, while having my back yard  cleaned up, I saw what happens when a plant is severed from its roots, in this case several young sapling trees – they simply wither up and die, both the root and the sapling.

As I observed these natural laws in action I was reminded of my own roots. I have traced my family back to 1600 on several lines. My roots are rooted deeply in the lives of God fearing men and women who loved their God and their God’s laws – those same laws that Thomas Jefferson indicated were the “roots” of America’s liberties. Jefferson believed this so strongly he made “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” the foundational cornerstone of his Declaration of Independence and was sustained in those beliefs by those we today call America’s Founding Fathers, those who signed that inspired document on July 4, 1776.

A growing number of Americans now believe, as did Jefferson, America, like ancient Israel, was founded on those laws James called the “perfect laws of liberty” and fear that, regardless of which party wins the presidency, that this election has severed America from its foundational roots. Perhaps this is what Mitt Romney meant when he made the comment recently that the two major candidates in this race are taking “America out of America.”  

Whenever I feel downhearted, or perhaps a little depressed, I turn to the scriptures to find a feeling of direction and understanding. Currently I am rereading the New Testament and find the words of our “Creator” (Jefferson’s word) in Matthew compelling where He tells the parable of the sower. The sower sowed seeds and some fell “upon stony places, where they had not much earth” and when they sprung up “they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.” But other seeds fell “into good ground, and brought forth fruit …” in great abundance. This fruit was, I believe, the ‘perfect laws of liberty.’

When America was founded the seeds of freedom and liberty were found deeply embedded in the hearts of the Colonists, including that hand full of men God had raised up to create this land of liberty, a land destined to become a beacon of hope for all mankind. Few believe those seeds of liberty were planted by chance but that they were sown by the Spirit of God into the hearts of those who yearned for their liberty.

During Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society presidency America began to sever itself from its roots with legislation directly violating Jefferson’s laws of God. The two American generations born since the Great Society have been denied the opportunity to be taught how God helped create America and the principles of true liberty embedded by the Founders deeply into America’s three foundational documents - the literal roots of America’s liberties. These two generations, though they mouth the words, have little understanding of the origin of the words “under God” in our flag pledge or “In God we Trust” on our money.

Nor do I believe they have any idea of why God helped create America’s Constitution. It was to be more than a Constitution for America, it was, and is, in its original form, a beacon, a hope, a pattern to the hopeless worldwide.

Can America return to its roots and once again become a light and beacon in a harsh and cold world? It can, but the question remains, will it?  To do so, America must return to its roots.