In 1887, Alexander
Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh stated: The
average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of
history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations have
always progressed through the following sequence:
From
bondage to spiritual faith;
From
spiritual faith to great courage;
From
courage to liberty;
From
liberty to abundance;
From
abundance to complacency;
From
complacency to apathy;
From
apathy to dependence;
From
dependence back into bondage.
The sand in the clock
of our history continues to drain. When the sand empties, the clock will stop.
The clock only requires someone to turn it over to begin anew. Civilizations?
That is a completely different story. My perception of human life and
civilizations tells me that we, you and me, only get one chance to do it right
irrespective of our age, color, sexual orientation, monetary worth, political
or religious values or beliefs. No matter what happens in the future yet to
come, we will all remain in the middle of our own personal caravans. Our past
has gone on ahead and the future we seek is trailing swiftly behind. We continue
to live in the present. What has happened and what will happen are simply parts
of now. During our lives we pass the creation back down the lines of the
caravan through our presence and our actions.
The United States of
America in which I have lived my entire life is fighting for its very
existence. The war is being fought both from within and without. I cannot
accept and refuse to accept the passing of this great nation. How do I confront
it? Do I speak rationally and sadly or do I speak forthrightly and with feeling?
My inner voice, the voice of the rational mind, speaks quietly to me and asks
me to speak quietly in kind. The other voice I hear, my sometimes irrational
voice, speaks of personal anger, fear, mistrust and, yes, even rage.
The rational, pensive voice I listen to daily speaks using the words and emotions as they are used in Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not
Taken”:
“I shall be
telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages
and ages hence:
Two roads
diverged in a wood, and I---
I took the one
less traveled by.
and that has
made all the difference.”
My irrational voice urges
me to listen and act with passion. It speaks through the voice and tearful
emotion of Marc Antony as he spoke to the masses following Caesar's assassination in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. As Antony
spoke in behalf of the fallen leader, he concluded his funeral soliloquy
with:
“Cry Havoc and let slip
the dogs of war!”
What course of action
we have taken and what will remain of the United States of America after we are
gone is what we wrought by our own hands. For our children and their children,
the caravan will have moved on. I hope for
them we will have chosen wisely in our past.
