Well today is the 18th of April. This year is already passing with a whirl, like a blurred movie title it is heading for the off screen exit stage right. This is an interesting year for me. I am back in New Zealand 6500 miles away from closest friend, I am getting back into teaching with new hope and purpose. I am loving what it is to be a New Zealander and to live in New Zealand, to have a job, to see the ocean. That being said it is a gladness that has its roots in blurred dreams.
I wanted to get married (and that is still going to happen) and make some kind of new life with Susan in America. My experience of America at this time however (2008) was of a place in turmoil. The elections final phase, the illegal immigration issue, the economic melt down, these all created an environment that was hostile to the dream. Like spermicidal!
It made me realise how complicated and regulated the world is now. I longed for the simplicity of the past settlers to America, hoping for new life and endless possibilities. And not just simplicity for America’s settlers but any of the nations of times past.
It was a continual source of mental rumination to me that the very choas that perhaps made America great when it was the welcoming melting pot of the world, was now one of Americas fears. Be it illegals from Mexico or anywhere in the world, the statue of liberty’s hand now had reformed its pose from welcome to one with a gesticulation that was more like whoa, see the hand, you aren’t wanted, needed or welcome here anymore.
I guess it’s the old story of learning happening when your feet are on the ground. The historical pictures we build up of nations, people and places have moved on from our romantically formed perceptions of them.
The reshaping in this instance is a somewhat painful process, feet on the ground learning with the rethinking and reforming of perception usually ends in an inferior internal picture to the one we originally had, even if it was romantic.
That is the way of reality therapy.
I still wish it had been different and more like The Beverly Hillbillies, The Lucile Ball Show, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, The Munsters, Lassie, The Andy Griffiths Show, Mc Hales Navy or I Dream of Genie and Get Smart. Call me dumb, call me a dreamer but I didn’t realise it had all changed.
The educating of Graham Hughes aka BlindPoet has left me with a new picture inside of America. I think America is an amazing place and I say that with utmost sincerity. America is a noble conception under siege from within it’s own walls. Wall Street is the home of greed. Some of America’s thinking has become sick. For my part before I get anyone’s hackles up, my belief is that all nations have within the seed of their greatness the seeds of their own fall as well. I don’t wish ill for America I really don’t, they have contributed greatly to the West, we have so much to thank them for as allies, noble visions of faith and freedom.
I hope that somehow America will hear the voice of God calling them to humility and humility and humility.
Pride has killed America.
To me it’s like a person who has an idea, everyone loves it, flocks to it, embraces it and experiences it. A critical mass of people builds who follow the idea and attendant dreams. As time passes no one examines the idea, reflects on it, notices it’s weaknesses or challenges it beyond their own comfort levels or the safety of their fortress. Slowly what was once great gets weakened by inbreed thinking and lack of reflection and eventually the pathway is lost, and only a strong remnant remember and live it.
Please I am not bagging America for the sake of it, that is the easy cry of the so called Patriots who can stand no criticism or the idea that they have lost their way.
The return to greatness isn’t the way of control and rules and deportations. It’s finding heart again, and where the great American heart came from.
I will never forget the utter wonder I had on my travels with Susan by road or by plane at the expanse and beauty of America. It is a great landmass, and has been inhabited by giants. People who had great thoughts and dreams and character.
John the Baptist once said talking of Jesus, ” I must decrease that he might increase’. In a pluralistic world I believe that is the challenge of America.
And I hope it finds it.
I really do.
I hope so soon.
I want America to be great in discovering it’s insignificance.
