Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“Remember this, fix it in your mind, take it to heart, you rebels, Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.”
Isaiah 46: 8-9
It was still and a bit overcast as I walked down the front drive to retrieve the morning newspaper, but I can see through my office windows now a ray or two of sunshine begin to dart through the trees.
I would suspect that he had sailed through many a quiet, overcast and also sunlit day, on the journey that eventually lead to the discovery of America in 1492. It’s both interesting and encouraging as I sit here this morning—despite the disheartening selective national memory of our heritage at times—that we still recognize Columbus Day across our land.
Perhaps our all too frequent lapse into forgetfulness concerning our heritage can be attributed to something my Granddaughter Hannah introspectively examined within herself a few years ago. It seems that as her Daddy picked her up after a long day at school she was a bit disappointed because her class didn’t go to the computer lab that day as she felt they had been promised. Aware of her schedule, her Daddy reminded her that the lab was scheduled for the following week.
“Oh,” she reflected, “I guess I just mis-underlistened.”
It’s a human malady that grips all of us at one time or another in our daily lives. I wonder if that’s the problem that infects our national patriotic psyche at times.
Perhaps we have just “mis-underlistened” at times to the voices of all those who have gone before us, or to the God who established and blessed this great Nation. That we “mis-underlistened” would be far easier to accept and rectify than what appears to be a bent toward hardening hearts that have abandoned and forgotten who we are, Whose we are, and from where we came as a people and a Nation.
In his book “The Light and the Glory”, Peter Marshall, the son of the late U.S. Senate Chaplain of the same name, and best-selling author Catherine Marshall, asks us to consider that—
“This nation was founded by God with a special calling. The people who first came here knew that they were being led here by the Lord Jesus Christ, to found a nation where men, women and children were to live in obedience to Him…This was truly to be one nation under God.”
Peter Marshall goes on to suggest that not only was the founding of our nation guided by the hand of God, but the very discovery as well, and he shares some writings from a journal entitled “Book of Prophesies” which was written by Christopher Columbus:
“It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel his hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures…”
I wonder if we have “mis-underlistened” through the years. Student textbooks’ often note that Columbus’ discovery of America was accidental. But what if his discovery had not been accidental at all? What if it was guided by the hand of God and inspired by the Holy Spirit?
Through the centuries, many have listened to those echoes calling from the earliest of our roots…
“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…”
(Our Founders)
“We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America…appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world…And for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence…”
(Again, Our Founders)
“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”
(Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863)
“And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forbearers fought are still at issue around the globe—the beliefs that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”
(John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961)
“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America.”
(George W. Bush, September 11, 2001)
The signs, signals, and voices from the foundations of our past are still all around us; notwithstanding that at times their call to us seems but a faint echo from a proud and distant heritage.
Is it because we are not listening anymore?
Or maybe we have “mis-underlistened,” and need to refocus our attention on the things and people of our heritage, our roots and traditions upon which we as a Nation and people were established.
I wonder if our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are listening. I wonder if generations to come will be listening.
We must.
Hannah, Ellie Kate, are you listening?
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2012. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
