Blog What is the American Dream?

Today we have those who seek to tear down America’s heritage by vandalizing and destroying memorials to those who went before. But while some have torn down statues memorializing those who fought in the South during the Civil War, now what is coming down are memorials to President Lincoln who ended slavery.

These thugs and American-born terrorists are also destroying statues to African American heroes. Many committing these crimes want to destroy America, others are simply ignorant of American history and what the American Dream is all about.

Before America, there were individuals and groups who wanted to live and worship without undue government influence. Those who held views that differed from the “approved” government religion often found their families broken up when members of the family were jailed or even hung or burned at the stake.

Then they heard about a land across the ocean and they began to dream. These persecuted people groups felt called to the new land. Groups pooled resources, others sold all they had for passage to the new world known only to sailors and merchants. Pilgrims and Puritans and others came and settled into the new world.

Regardless of the work involved, regardless of losing loved ones, they built homes in the new world where they worshipped in peace, accepted personal responsibility for their choices, and were involved in the governance of their settlement. While some of the settlers did not get along with the natives found in America, others such as the Pilgrims hashed out a mutually beneficial treaty that lasted 50 years.

Other settlers followed, dreaming of freedom of choice and faith, dreaming of a place to build homes and a future. While many early and later immigrants came to worship in freedom, others simply wanted new opportunities or to escape dictatorial governments.

When the American government became a reality, the core of the America Dream was “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Dream was about faith, freedom, and family on a solid foundation of Judeo-Christian ethics and principles of honesty, morality, and hard work.

The American government system turned the usual method of governing on its head, making citizens the masters who chose their own leaders and the right to get rid of those leaders who did not govern for “the will of the people.” As citizens got comfortable and the government grew, those in government accumulated more power, leaving less for citizens. Still, we vote for our local, state, and federal representatives, senators, and presidents.

In the 1950’s the American Dream became owning a house (not a mansion) with a white picket fence in a nice neighborhood with a church and school. Citizens could find a place safe for raising a family, and where a person could have a job to support the family.

Even though America is no longer the “land of the free and the home of the brave” it once was, even with all the turmoil, mainly from those whose hatred and/or ignorance of the truth about America’s past—and some of these work in the media or in government jobs, America still offers more individual freedom and opportunities than most other countries. This is why so many still seek to come to these shores—to make their own American Dream come true.

By those we support and vote for we choose to destroy the American Dream or keep it alive. Please do your research beyond the media agenda.

(C) 2020 Carolyn R Scheidies
Kearney Hub column 9/15/2020
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Blog Politics Freedom—historical context

Read: I Peter 2:13-17

As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.--I Peter 2:16 (KJV)

Fireworks boom in the ears and marvel the eyes as they spread colorful displays high in the night sky. For all the buildup and excitement, not to mention money spent on fireworks for Independence Day, how many of us sit down with our children or grandchildren to teach them, and to remind ourselves, what it is we celebrate on July 4th and why this celebration is so important?

Do our children and grandchildren understand the struggle the Americans had against an autocratic king across the ocean who refused to grant basic liberties accorded to other British citizens, while continually finding ways to raise taxes--on almost everything?

Do they understand that many of our founding fathers, the ones most committed to making sure Americans were treated with dignity, lost property, lost their money, and lost loved ones in a war they believed critical to freedom?

Do our children and grandchildren know aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins who have gone to war to preserve a nation of freedom--some even paying with their lives? What of families, wives, mothers, and children, who lost loved ones far across the ocean in foreign lands?

Do they understand the true cost of growing up in America?

These days, schools don’t often teach history without spin and revision. It is up to us as parents and grandparents to pass on the faith and freedom that is the basis of America. If they do not know, if they aren’t taught the actual history, if they take their freedom of faith for granted, they will lose freedom and the right to worship.

It is already happening. America’s freedom started with men and women recognizing the true source of freedom--Jesus Christ. We need to pass on this faith as well.

Do I?

Thank you Jesus that, despite all the problems, I am privileged to live in America. Help me not take either my faith or my freedom for granted. Help me pass these concepts on to a new generation. Amen.

Meditations:
Monday: John 8:32
Tuesday: Galatians 5:1
Wednesday: Galatians 6:13-14
Thursday: Romans 6:7-8
Friday: Romans 6:22-23
Saturday: Romans 8:20-21

From Listen? Who Me?
(c) 2018 Carolyn R Scheidies