Whatever Happened to Domestic Tranquility?

According to the framers of the Constitution one of the original intentions of ordaining that revered document was to insure domestic tranquility. The term was used in the preamble to the Constitution and has never been used to adjudicate any constitutional questions.

In this moment in time, where a sitting President has recently announced to the nation that our laws needn’t be enforced (DOMA – Defense of Marriage Act) it would hardly seem like the time to drag the preamble into the fray and look for some meaning or guidance. Yet, at the moment it may be all we have.

It may be agreed upon that the Constitution does not contemplate the secession of states from the Union but who would have guessed that we would elect a President who would secede from the Constitution. In this day of high perversion, can America deal with this complexity?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may be wrestling with that question as he tries to save his state from bankruptcy. Unions are battling for bargaining rights while Wisconsin’s students are still failing eighth grade reading tests; no tranquility there.

Walker may have to fire a small army of state workers but Democratic Senators are still drawing their pay and benefits even as no one in the state of Wisconsin, including law enforcement, can find the little band of recalcitrant absentees; no tranquility there.

The news is rife with sound bites, video clips and hurried analysis offered by a thousand different experts, but any calm, reasonable, meaningful or contemplative assessment of what’s happening is relegated to the backwaters of the internet and a few good news magazines. On the street there is little contemplation going on but only something akin to thuggery and even violence. No tranquility there.

In between this entire ruckus, Hillary Clinton pops into the news cycle from time to time to announce the latest efforts of the State Department to form a cohesive foreign policy stance to deal with the explosive demonstrations erupting across the Middle East like wildfires in a windstorm. No tranquility there.

Perhaps the last thing Americans want to hear at the moment is that by listening to all the voices they are probably not hearing anything. The author of the book of Ecclesiastes said there was a time for everything. It is understood that there is also a time to listen and a time to hear, unfortunately the two are not the same and in a time of conflict very few can be counted upon to discern the difference.

Jesus said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” (John 6: 12) How do you tell a nation that has nursed moral relativism for more than a generation that truth is not after all, the slightest bit relative?

How do you tell a generation that while they see themselves as “progressives” they are not progressing at all but may be in full reverse?

How do you tell a nation, that only the higher pursuits of morality, brotherly love and Godliness can right them again, when all that is base, perverse or sordid is popular or in vogue?

Going forward as a nation, or as President Obama says, “Winning the future” cannot be accomplished by abandoning the base upon which the best of a nation and her people is founded and anchored.

It is our Constitution that must guide; now more than ever. The calls many lawmakers, statesmen and others have made to return to the founding principles is not simply sentimentality or nostalgia but rather it is the only possible way to recover a nation out of her very death throes.

Add to that clarion call the urging of today’s preachers, evangelists and ministers who are calling for a return to the Bible and our foundational faith and you have a remedy that if ignored can only lead to more conflict not domestic tranquility.

Just as confusion is the opposite of peace so is being scattered the opposite of being gathered. America has been under the wing of the Almighty for many generations until now. This generation has listened to the high voice of its own pride and determined that God no longer rules, speaks or even exists.

Substitute the word America where you see the word Jerusalem and you will have the long and the short of it but make no mistake, this is a call, not an option. Not heeding the call is to reject the possibility of any options. The result of rejecting the call has been universally the same throughout the long history of nations; is anyone listening?

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Mt 23: 37)

Being gathered unified and attached firmly to our base is domestic tranquility and always will be.