American Spirit – Then and Now

The Tao suggests looking deeply into the ordinary to see the spiritual nature of life. To question, “What are the qualities lying beneath what I see?”

 

Where is America’s Spirit Today?

Ponder the American flag in the header. What do you see? Feel? It’s one of a smattering of practice photos I took with my smart phone during a recent walk through a cemetery. Although the flag was blowing in the wind at the moment of capture, hung low it appears devalued to me. Perhaps even defeated, stationed among aging leaves in a cemetery — a home for the deceased.

Passion and Polarity

Polarity is nothing new to America or life for that matter. It just feels accentuated at this time, like a pounding migraine. While my patriotic parents experienced national unity during World War II and Americans came together shortly after 9/11, most Boomers will remember the Kent State protests and abominable vilification of Vietnam War vets. No matter which side, Americans are spirited.

The Tao encourages me to look beyond adversity to claim the wisdom beyond it.

Current D Days

Distraction

For several years I’ve witnessed an erosion of American spirit amidst growing apathy, idleness, and indifference. Too often, incumbents in my area’s elections run unopposed. I question how much of this is due to tech’s creation of sheeple and fake news.

Disruption

Learning that the USA now intends to forcibly remove people from their homes, or forcibly vaccinate, feels like communism to me. How will you feel when a family member is removed from your home to isolate the coronavirus? If I refuse the vaccine, will I be hauled away? Will the Thought Police replicate China’s social score system to further control and confine us?

Deception

The answers lie in California’s pilot program slated for nationwide implementation. Their army of 20,000 well-paid disease detectives is under the guise of “for our protection.” Warily I question if the unemployed hungry masses will clamor for these jobs to essentially become the new secret police since marketing so cleverly conceals the truth e.g. convenience/privacy invading, protection/control.

Debilitation

If that sounds too unbelievable, and particularly in freedom loving America, so does isolation, discouraging religious participation, disallowing groups to conjugate, encouraging thought/behavior/activity minders, and proposing forced testing and vaccines. Yet, that’s exactly where we are after brazenly disregarding numerous other laws.

Too closely these protections resemble horrific junctures in world history. Ones that millions of military personnel sacrificed their lives for because they valued our precious rights and freedoms. Whoever thought this couldn’t be happening again needs to pay attention and review the nascency of the holocaust.

Deterioration

The rapid deterioration of our independence and liberties through joblessness, lockdowns, and enslaving our children’s children’s children with enormous debt is alarming. Too quickly, China snatched up our life saving supplies, our farms, our produce, our land. Whoever thought Americans would be required to wear masks as we’ve seen in China for years? Would our deceased military personnel and forefathers, who forfeited their lives for our freedom, be shocked to witness America’s spirit pummeled by communism? (Note: I am not bashing China. I am observing the undoing of America.)

American Resolve

 

As we scramble to regain footing during this pandemic, it is my memory of America’s historical bravery, a willingness to stand up and fight whether against taxation without representation, or civil and women’s rights, that gives me hope. I crave a resurgence of American spirit that once stood for character, enthusiasm, resolution, backbone, grit and guts.

 

 

Allegiance to America’s Spirited Foundation

And so, on this Memorial Day weekend, when Americans celebrate fallen heroes in the military, I also salute revolutionaries who were not afraid to stand up for what they believed in. I include people like Rosa Parks and Margaret Sanger with my heroes, spirited civic soldiers if you will. (Notation:  My admiration of Sanger is solely for her work in freeing women from enslavement through reproductive rights.)

 

 

 

 

 

Note: I am not condoning protesting health care workers nor am I condoning forced vaccinations or being removed from one’s home. I am condoning and supporting American values such as freedom, independence, self-reliance, privacy, diversity, directness, and equality.