Our National Destiny

I cannot imagine anyone who is not glad the election of 2012 is over.  Well maybe the advertising people who earned millions of dollars or the critics who delighted in finding targets at which to sling their darts of outrageous fortune or derision or invective.  

  

I am sorry that Mitt Romney lost.  He is a good man, a man of character who could have brought a very different tone and a restoration of foundational political principles to the leadership of our country and perhaps could have brought Washington together.   

Though I have little confidence that it will happen, I hope President Barack Obama, having competed against such a good man and won by such a narrow popular vote margin, will be able bring our political leaders and the body politic together this time around.   It can only be done by leadership and all of us having a better understanding of history and by the earned grace of God.

I am afraid, though, that the America, the United States of America that those of us born before about 1960 knew, the America that had/has been the magnet for so many immigrants, will no longer be recognizable unless we truly become ‘one nation under God.’

A house divided cannot stand. 

 I came upon a revealing statement Mr. Romney made, that was not broadcast on CNN or other vilifying sources: 

            “Over the years, I have watched a good number of people live out their lives in the shallows.  In the shallows, life is all about yourself.  Your job, your money, your house, your rights, your needs, your opinions, your ideas, your comfort.  In the deeper waters, life is about others: family, friends, faith, community, country, caring, commitment.  In the deeper waters, there are challenging ideas, opposing opinions, and uncomfortable battles. [A man I know] told me that his life ambition was to be listed in Forbes among the four hundred wealthiest people in the world.  His ambition, his preoccupation with self, overshadowed his marriage and his loyalties to his friends—so he lost them all.  He became wealthy in the way he hoped.  But he swims in the shallowest of waters, because he swims alone.” (from his commencement address at Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts, May 23, 2004)

We need to clean up our inward act, become united, and then reach outward with strength of each other and Almighty God to help us reach our worthy personal and national goals.