COMMENCEMENT

It’s likely that all my readers have gone through a commencement exercise.  You remember the color, the joyfulness, that there were many onlookers proud of you and hoping for your future success and you remember that there were speakers. But you don’t remember what they said.  You had other things on your mind.

There was also a commencement of this new nation when it declared its independence from England in 1776 (and formalized in 1789 when our Constitution was ratified) that we combine for convenience and celebrate on the 4^th of July.  

The second sentence of The Declaration of Independence famously said:

            We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 The preamble of the Constitution of the United States readS:

             We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

In order to “provide for the common defense” of these principles “we the people” must more frequently—I would even say daily—remember that as each new day ‘commences’ (i.e., we have a new Commencement) we  have a personal responsibility to defend in our sphere of influence, no matter how small it may be perceived, civilization itself.

 

There is a time to lay down arms, and there is a time to take them up, and that we are now in a time to take them up should be “self evident.”  We have a right protected by our Constitution to “keep and bear arms” to defend against and preempt barbarous attacks upon our persons and our country and our way of life. Civilization is increasingly vulnerable not only to fanatic terrorists,  it is vulnerable to cowardice and betrayal.  Our education should supply us with a memory of a thousand struggles, of thousands of battles, and of millions of those who fell and now stand with honor to establish and defend those principles that in these documents should be “self-evident” and personally subscribed to if we too are truly Americans. 

If civilization can be attacked on many fronts (e.g., the many venues chosen by suicide bombers and terrorists; a hostile press and media; some self-serving politicians, a decadent ‘entertainment’ industry; a law-breaking populace of certain citizen and non-citizen groups, mobs, and deranged individuals) it can also be defended on many fronts.

 

We may not have to bear arms such as guns, but we can bear our voices and our consciences, our personal convictions and our example and not cave in to pressures of a weak and decadent society.  We can volunteer to serve in many good causes, we can write our elected leaders, we can write our blogs, or letters to the editor of our newspaper opinion pages, we can write our letters and notes to our friends and relatives, we can salute and fly our flag,  sing our National Anthem, personally obey the laws of the land—we can take a stand and thereby we can stand out and we can make a difference. 

  

Will it take sacrifice?  Yes.  Sacrifice probably of time, of income, position, title, acceptance of fair-weather friends, perhaps even of life.  But what will be earned is a kind of battlefield commission that will give you neither rank nor insignia nor anything but honor.  The sense of honor may be slow to awaken in some of us but if it exists in enough of us it will prevail for it always has, and that is what got us here in the 241 years since we declared that we were a united people.  United in great principles that the free world, the decent world, has always respected and sought to become part of because they sensed deep-down that it was “endowed by its Creator.”  People of the world have always in far greater numbers sought to come here than to leave here.

And so I ask you each day to ‘commence’ the day with honor.  Choose your battles but stand your ground. For little things cascade into big things, and even should the larger battle not go well for a time be determined to hold your ground. You might lose some things, but you will gain what really matters—God’s valuation and validation—His gift of strength to those who need it most, when they need it most.  And you will be justly honored by those who come after you. God has blessed America.