Reflections

In the late 1600’s and early 1700’s people began to come to this country in large numbers. The young men of Ireland, who climbed aboard merchant ships often became indentured servants. Their passage was anything but easy, and many died on the hundreds of voyages from scurvy, viruses or injury as the ships made their way from the shipyards of Ireland to ports around the globe. I am imagining my ancestors were just such people in 1700 who may have lived a life of indenture to come to the settlements in America.  They worked on the ships for maybe four years and then were typically given a flint-lock rifle, clothes and maybe a place to live and were on their own in the new world.

People who made the early journeys to the America’s possessed imagination and perseverance as well as the ability to adapt to whatever might be thrown at them or they would not survive. They were going to a land with little government, only community agreements on how to feed and clothe themselves and reckoning what was right and wrong, sometimes with cruel consequences. The ideology that all men were created equal hadn’t been hatched yet much less for indentured slaves, so they came to the table in small ways until they could prove their worth. They became mill workers, farm hands, dock workers and carpenters as they endeavored to fit in.

Together those early immigrants bonded and fought to carve out a nation, a desire they shared. They argued and agreed in like numbers hammering on ideology as much as the logs they were using to construct their shelters. Their backgrounds were very different, but they shared the bonding of sweat and blood through the 1700’s as they moved toward a nation with tenets eventually agreeable to most. They realized early their differences were their strengths because we all looked at things differently based upon individual experience. Seeing the many dimensions of the human existence they forged agreements not always favorable to each of them, but in terms they could live with.

As this nation matured it took on a collective attitude that together we could be better than our individual selves. Our imaginations were challenged, and ideas pulled from them. We moved into communities where benefit of the whole became the doctrine. Invention took off as our collective imaginations soared and we created tools, constructed foundries and bound books of knowledge for the path forward could only get better with education. We always looked forward, only looking back to assess our mistakes.

The slaves brought to this country from the African continent were utility and left without any representation along with women. Following emancipation a few of them with the imagination to look forward chose to escape their bonds and they became drovers, explorers and guides to families moving west. Women too began to explore their worth. The two Beckwith mountains west of Crested Butte were named for an African American explorer who saw the west long before most. The ex-slaves contributed to the great cattle ranches of the west pushing cattle from Texas north to Kansas to meet the railroad that eventually was constructed across this continent. They were as much a part of the building of a nation as anyone but were stricken from our history out of both fear and greed.

The 4^th of July highlights how far our collective imagination has taken us. We put a man on the moon in twelve short years, but we can’t seem to grasp how alike we are. It seems we argue, and lay group claim to the very thing that made this nation what it is; free. Freedom was the one thing that brought every man, woman and child here, yet it is being used by some to divide us. There is fear instilled in us for monetary gain of a few that “the other” is taking that freedom from us. The notion is planted to divide, but historically bridged when our collective thinking moves us to take stock. Eventually we are led to understand the reasons division is used. Historically, we slowly see past the fakery and move to a combined understanding that we are the ones in control, not the divisive few.

We have survived as a nation on change and adaptation, protest and eventual agreement; together. This country has moved forward at a rapid pace and perhaps has gotten ahead of itself as we have forgotten the lessons from our not-too-distant past. Perhaps all of us need be reminded why our ancestors came here and put some real thought into our freedom and the freedom we have helped others obtain around the world. The imagination of our forefathers has carried us for 250 years. They imagined a world unlike the nations they abandoned, and the United States of America has indeed led much of the world from the front because it carried the lessons of our past on its’ back.

Our independence came through imagination and hard work, together. We Americans have the lineage of our ancestors still in our veins, and we all bleed the same life-giving blood. If one of us bleeds, we all bleed because that is how this country was imagined. America works together, or it won’t. That should be an easy choice.

My great, great, great….grandfather served in the revolutionary war from Mill Hundred, Talbot County, Maryland. He was born in that county from “Freemen” parents who brought with them some of the blood of the Angles and Saxons of England. I do not know what trade any of them pursued, but judging by the address, they worked a mill of some sort along with some of ninety-nine other families, thus the street name.

Obviously, my distant great grandfather was privy to everything leading up to the Revolutionary War and part of the shaping of this country after the war for a time. His children carried on where he left off, seeing a country founded on Greek principals of democracy and the sculpting of a new country. They painstakingly bartered, wrote and re-wrote to shape first our Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution with its’ Bill of Rights.

The most repeated theme throughout all of the original wording and the many amendments is individual freedoms and equality among the citizens of the new country. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is most stressed among the documents in one form or another, and never once is written equality except for…liberty except for…never once in all those pages is anyone singled out of the pursuit of happiness or individual freedoms.

Summarily, not one political party is singled out for smooth sailing down some sort of path to domination. Not one church is designated to counsel our government and amazingly enough, in all my research on my family I have never run across much in the way of admonishment of anyone for being of opposite political ideas, religion or nationality. The ridiculous witch burning preformed by the original colonists was about over by then thankfully and generally, people had work to do just to survive. There was some mention of those pesky “Indians” because they were half starved and diseased from the coming of the Europeans, so they would beg at the doors in the townships.

Overall these folks worked together because they had common enemies as we do today; although we have not understood that yet so we fight the battles the enemies tell us to. They stuck together knowing that each had the backs of another regardless of their origins, or religion much like our military today where division will get you killed. Sure, they ran afoul of each other and slammed fists in disagreement, but they did not consider each other as divisive just for wanting to live in peace or look upon each other as subhuman because they thought differently. The radical current thinking that we need to follow one side or another, or worship one way or another is ludicrous, and they recognized that right off and wrote of it thus in framing documents. Many of them were running from religious tyranny and governments that were given to oppression in many forms. Some were simply seeking a new land and way of life, both of which are responsible for nearly every one of the immigrants this country has seen in its’ life.

The price for freedom: others covet it. Brown, white, yellow, red and black they are the same on the inside and want more out of life for themselves and their children. They leave their native lands because of religious fanatics like ISIS or simple power brokers like Putin or Hitler who push one way of life. Most are starving for religious freedom much like the Mormon’s who came to this country, and our Constitution and Bills of Rights guarantees their freedom just as it guarantees religion will not run our government. It amazes me after watching the strife in the Middle East, which is all about tribes and religion that any of us would choose any religion to run our country. It is a slippery slope in a downpour to go there; even folks of the same faith have vastly different ideas of how to practice that faith.

My family’s independence was won together with their neighbors. They did not single out who was watching their back, they all knew someone was there to cover them and they them. They fought together against oppression and they thought together with their neighbors to bring a mighty fine living for the benefit of most. It was not always easy or even cordial, but they knew early on that if one failed they all might fail and they made things work.

What I see going on today is everyone rallying around whatever is tossed into the wind that day. There is no one with the gumption to stand up for real problems, leaving the ridiculous jabber behind. There are few who will bother to research a given windblown topic to find out how ridiculous it all is. Fewer still care about any of it as long as their patch of grass is not disturbed.

We all live in one country and we are very, very lucky to have been born here or to have immigrated here. Protecting it should be foremost to all of us and the division we are creating threatens that daily, especially economically. We have wasted several years now on division. Orchestrated division to boot; it is time to learn how to play in the sandbox together again.

Last week was a hard time in my hometown where many folks including myself attended a funeral for a young local boy who had taken his own life. The whole scene was gut wrenching sad, with parents wondering what they could have done different, classmates and friends trying to understand the meaning of it all and everyone left to wonder what was so wrong in an otherwise happy life.

I don’t know the circumstances and don’t need to know to understand that we are all given choices in our lives and some of those are easier for some than others. What sets up suicide moments vary somewhat, largely though the core reason is the same…insecurity in one form or another.

In every day life, we are compared to others, measured by their successes and scored accordingly. We never seem to be judged by our own merits and certainly not without strings attached. People who do not even know who we are judge us and often unmercifully especially if we show vulernability. Even physicians do NOT hold mental anguish and pain in the same light as physical pain. For an adult, the day-to-day bombardment of judgment is handled because we simply deal with it or become callused to it in most cases. As a teen though, every part of our being is sensitive to how we measure up against our peers and most often, the very things that affect us emotionally cloud the lens we look through.

I was and sometimes still am one of the most insecure people I know. Most of us feel that way, but few will let on that they are. In fact the bully’s and brutes around us are the absolute most insecure. They run people down only to build themselves up. They appear so strong but can’t muscle past their own conscious that knocks them around on the inside.

At one time or another, we are fooled into believing that we must be “perfect”. Whatever that is? Achilles was a grand “mortal” in Greek mythology, athletic, strong and fit to lead a charge into any battle. So his family decided he should live indefinitely, and he was held by his heel and dipped in The River Styx and became immortal. But alas, the heel they held him by was left without the anointing waters so he died in war by an arrow to his heel. We all have our Achilles heel, a soft spot, perhaps an empty spot where our insecurities are hidden and we are most vulnerable. The problems we face are real, but they are usually passing right on through on our journey in life, but sometimes we choose to grab them and hold onto them for the sake of familiarity. I suppose even a wet blanket makes us feel more comfortable than no blanket at all.

Most of us think that we are the only one that does not fit in. We are not pretty enough, or popular enough. Some like myself came by that honestly enough because I was always compared to an older brother and later to other kids my age. Seemed like they could do no wrong and I was doing everything wrong it seemed to me. I got pretty down on myself and wanted nothing more than to run away. Where I was going I had no idea, but it seemed it would solve things at the time. Self-identity takes everyone time to establish and there is plenty along the way to alter our paths.

A kid needs room to think, imagine and take a look at themselves from the inside. We are keeping them busy enough with activities and that is certainly part of well rounded youth, but there is a quiet part too where we need to go and sometimes that needs to be heard; the soft spot of that heel. There is a secret room inside all of us, a place where we go when we need a break, or need to think things through and often enough life allows no time for that. We must make the time to reach for our deepest thoughts and bring them into the light and help others to understand that it is OK to reach out.

There is no reason for blame in any of the situation we find ourselves as we have no idea what goes on in those interior rooms that others keep. Inadequacy is not something any of us can see from the outside looking in, but we can encourage growth in people around us that will displace feelings of failure. In our day to day lives the people we interact with might pick up their self esteem just by throwing them a smile or giving a quick hug; it works wonders for me.

This town will heal as will the families involved, but it will be hard. We need to pass out the hugs not just at the point of grief, but every day of every year and just maybe it will be at the right time to save another from their Achilles heel wounds.