June 16, 2009
US Constitution and Maps
I’ll never forget the things I learned when I was a Boy Scout. One of the skill sets I was most interested in happened to be mapping, maps and anything that had to do with finding your way. Without a map, it’s easy to get lost. I’ve discovered that up in New Hampshire on my own land! I have a fancy GPS unit now, but even those are reliant on batteries and satellites. Sometimes there’s no substitute for a traditional magnetic compass and a reliable printed topographic map. Once lost, it can be hard to get back home to safety. I always carry a compass and a paper map even when I have my GPS unit.
Reading the news, watching television and reading emails I get regularly I’ve come to the conclusion that many in our great nation are lost. The principals by which they live and expect others to live have strayed from the pathway that was blazed over 200 years ago by the Founders of our great nation. These lost people I encounter each day have relied on other things and people to try to guide them, but in some instances those things have been very unreliable.
Fortunately we have the ultimate map when it comes to our freedoms and the powers granted to the government. That map is our Constitution. Can you remember the last time you looked and read that map? Was it grade school or perhaps high school? The same thing happened to me, I sort of forgot about it until a few years ago.
One winter’s day, about four years ago, I discovered a very neat reproduction of the original document. I sat down intending to read the Preamble just to jog my memory as I remember having to memorize it for Civics class. Forty-five minutes later, I was finished with the entire document. I can tell you that it was invigorating to read it. The men who collaborated on that document created the supreme law of our land, and the principals enormous personal freedom and that of less government resonate in that document like a tuning fork in an empty church.
I BEG you to read the Constitution. Take your time. Think about what your reading. Then relate it to the things you hear politicians blabber about each day.
