The Sleeping Giant
In a sense, we are still free. At least we're not being overtly subjugated by another nation. But the essence of freedom goes beyond the lack of physical oppression. It boils down to a fundamental question: by whom or what are we mastered? Benjamin Franklin observed, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
How can virtue characterize our nation when the President winks at adultery, the Supreme Court nods approval to slaughter the unborn, and lawmakers play patty-cake with sodomy? Corrupt and vicious, we now require masters.
And we do have masters that take many forms: ravenous taxes, fear that stalks our schools, foreign entities whose ever-tightening grip is plundering our real estate, national treasures, and corporate enterprise.
While I would like to put all the blame on the "wicked people" of the land, their shortcomings are but a manifestation of something far deeper, more personal, and uncomfortably close to home.
Thomas Jefferson said, "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."
We seem to have taken freedom to be a license to do whatever we want. And as even we who claim to be "good people" have become increasingly loose in personal virtue, cruel masters have arisen to oppress us.
But it doesn't have to stay that way; Justice need not sleep forever. Like a sleeping giant, she can be awakened at any time to loose our bonds, releasing us to be a virtuous, righteous people once again. The cost of freedom, as always, will be high, for "good people" must choose to do what they ought, not what they want. Our future hangs by the thread of their convictions.
THE SLEEPING GIANT
There is a giant who sleeps today
And rests her mighty hands,
But yet she's conscious of the wrongs
That permeate our land.
In days gone by she has prevailed,
Promoting peace and rest,
But we've rejected what she's done
And steadily regressed.
She sees perversion growing worse
As leaders side with wrong.
The wicked flourish and are praised,
Our moral compass gone.
She watches lives of unborn babes
Be viciously struck down;
The weak are for convenience slain
When greed and pride abound.
We wonder what will waken her,
Some heinous deed to be?
The world is locked in evil's grip
But not without a key:
When God's own people humbly pray
And from their sin refrain,
The giant of Justice will rise up
So righteousness can reign.
Copyright 1998 James McAlister
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