Hope for a New Generation

The freedom that we enjoy, we take for granted. We travel without end from one city to another, from one state to another, from one border of the United States to another without thought of restriction. We can visit most any store, whether it be grocery, drug, gas station or food chain most any time of the day or night. Without thought, we turn the faucet in our homes to receive fresh running water at little to no expense. We sleep, we eat, we laugh and we cry without animosity or fear of being incarcerated, confined or exposed.

Men and women, from all walks of life and through many cycles of years, fought hard to give us this freedom that we now enjoy. My mother and father, along with their mother’s and father’s worked the land to provide food for our tables, selling and delivering this food to others in need when times were tough. My mother and father sacrificed many “niceties” to be able to afford us the education we needed to work with our hands and minds to progress us to the depths of the soul and journey to a better place in the World.

And now in the year 2009, we as Americans wonder where this freedom resides. Sure we can still visit those 24 hour stores and travel across the country, but the truth of the matter is, we have become accustomed to having things handed to us just because we believe we deserve it. We have become a nation of people who expect someone else, maybe the government, our grandmother/father or even another country, to come to our aid and bale us out of the situations we now face.

The truth is that we have to first free ourselves of the material things that we have gained during the good years and begin to buckle down to find our priorities in life that will allow us to continue to enjoy this freedom of “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. There is a sense that we can return to our roots and remember how to live on the land. There is a sense that we can remember how to use our own hands and minds to return to the nation that made us strong. When we begin to take accountability for our own accomplishments and mistakes, remembering those who helped us get to this place, our sense of self-respect and pride for Country can resume.

At this point in time, many need the aid of another to survive. The economy is weak, the value of the dollar is small and our Nation is in need of unity in order to receive justice for all.

Our mother’s and fathers did not believe that the child needed material things to be whole. The child needed freedom of expression, freedom of imagination, freedom from constant travel, sports, and food, a place of refuge and safety. But the child also needed structure and support to know right from wrong. Once settled in spirit a child and parent can regain the freedom of love that lives within each of our hearts; the love that unites us into a country of one. We have everything to fight for, we have to believe that the forefathers who created this country can still be present – that our history is rich with honor and glory and that we, the people, have what it takes to bring us back from the strongholds of Corporate America. We simply need to look deep within ourselves to find the courage and will it takes to survive. It is only then that we can see what truly matters. It is only then that we can find the things that made our Country whole.