Saturday, May 21, 2011
It’s 4:30 in the morning and there’s a line from a song repeating in my head. It’s the simple phrase “Wake up to reality”.
In the past two days, my husband and I have been to 3 excellent political meetings.
On Thursday, the Longmont Republican Women hosted Ken Clark, who gave a talk titled “Our Ties that Bind.”When I heard the talk before, I missed this point: “Education without action is entertainment.” It is important that we know the purpose of the Liberty groups and the Republican Party, but if we don’t do something with that knowledge, we’ve simply had a nice little meeting-lunch. Our Party is the organization under which we operate in the political process. The Liberty Groups teach us, as United States citizens, our rights and responsibilities in that process.
Sharon Saare then showed us slides of Israel. In all her world travels, she said, Israel is the country most like our own. We saw the security wall, and the peaceful little cafés – which had been easy targets for suicide bombers before that wall was built. We saw the place where Palestinian snipers used to sit and pick off Israeli children on their way to school. How could anyone but a terrorist possibly benefit from giving that land back to Israel’s enemies?
At the Lincoln Day Dinner on Thursday evening, Congressman Cory Gardner drew a standing ovation when he pledged to stand with Israel (against our own president!!). He also spoke of the steps he’s taking in Congress to get the government off the backs of the American people, reduce the debt, and help America to re-take its place as the greatest nation in the world.
Many elected Republicans either spoke or were recognized, and we raised money for the Boulder County GOP. The highlight of the evening was when the President of Colorado Christian University, Bill Armstrong, was honored (and surprised) with an award for his 50 years of Outstanding Public Service, including service to Colorado and the country as a U.S. Congressman (’72 – ‘78) and a U.S. Senator (’78 – ‘90).
On Friday, we went to a restaurant at the Budweiser Center for a meeting featuring our State Treasurer, Walker Stapleton. He spoke mostly about the corruption in PERA and what he’s doing to combat it.Since he is not worried about climbing a political ladder, he seems immune to the tactics that are often used to silence freshman officials.
The greatest lesson I’ve learned in the past two days was from the little bird that was trapped in the seldom-used restaurant. It was flying from window to window, trying to get out. I was able to approach it at one end of the restaurant, but it was too high for me to reach. Then, exhausted and beaten, it soared across the room, to the back of a chair, the base of a table, and onto a low corner window sill. I followed it, and it put up little fight as I gathered it into my fingers and started carrying it away from the windows - in the exact opposite direction it had been going for long enough to blunt the end of its beak. The poor thing could not have comprehended why I took it into a small box of a room – an elevator – or that while I stood there holding it, we were transported to another part of the building. If I had let it go when I stepped out into the grand sun-lit lobby, it would have been in the same predicament, only with more windows to beat its head against.
Once outside, I opened my hands and the bird immediately took a low, gliding flight across the lawn. Then what did it do? What every free bird does in spring, I guess – find a mate, build a nest, and raise a family. Nothing grand, just living the life it was designed to live.
“Wake up to reality.” I feel like Americans can relate to that poor bird’s plight. The little phoebe, by its nature, likes to live close to people, but it is not a person, and being in a building didn’t make it a person. We, by our nature, are designed to live close to God; guided by Him and fully dependent upon Him. But we are not God, and no matter what position we get ourselves into, we are still not God! Unlike the bird, we were also designed with the ability to plan and reason. We have lost our freedom through the neglect of our abilities and a series of bad choices – ignoring our responsibility to be involved in the selection and election of our leaders; not educating ourselves and our children about this country’s exceptional history; not learning about the God-given rights and responsibilities upon which our Constitution and laws are founded. Now, we are able to see that, in reality, we are not free!
How do we get free?
Do we help Ken Clark unite the political party with the liberty groups? Yes! Do we help Sharon Saare educate people about Israel? Yes! Do we elect more people like Cory Gardner, Bill Armstrong, and Walker Stapleton? Yes! Yes! Yes! Is that enough? No!
So here’s the plan. It is not politically correct, but I won’t be satisfied to live behind a roomier barrier. I want to live free, as I was created – in a country that is free, as it was created.
Admit, Commit, Submit, and Git.
I believe this is the reality we must wake up to: We must admit there is a Creator God, and that we are not Him. We must commit ourselves to learning about our rights and responsibilities. Then we must submit ourselves to working diligently to save our country, even if it means doing God’s will when it doesn’t make sense to us.
I’m going to Git on my knees and Git in His word, and pray that God would take me in His hands and transport me to where I need to be. Then I’ll Git in your face and have you Git on your knees, and we’ll Git educated, and Git activated, and Git our freedom and our country’s freedom back, and then I’m going to Git back to building a nest and a family and a prosperous country, and doing what I was created to do!
Or, we can just keep banging our heads on the window.
