Life, Liberty, and Happiness

I had the wonderful pleasure of spending some time in our Nation's Capitol during the week of June 24th. While learning my way around on the Metro, something occurred to me. People on the Metro don't get too friendly with strangers. They'd rather read the news paper, interact with their smart phones, listen to their headphones, or even nod off to sleep before engaging in idle chit-chat with a stranger.


Don't get me wrong-- they will help you if you're lost or get on the wrong train. But outside of that, people expect you to leave them alone-- no matter how close they happen to be sitting next to you.


But, noticing the distant coldness of other people isn't really what occurred to me. The atmosphere that I just described is largely common knowledge concerning densely populated environments.


What occurred to me was how that perceived "coldness" from others may have simply been the people minding their own business while pursuing life, liberty, and happiness for themselves. And since they are so absorbed in their pursuit, they don't have time to worry about your pursuit; just don't get in their way.


For all my life, I have live in the Deep South. Here, strangers love to strike up conversations. Strangers often "speak" to each other-- meaning they say "hi" to you-- a total stranger on the street-- and expect a greeting in return. And many Southerners can take great offense if you don't respond; this is the beginning of politeness. Neighbors will meet you at the end of your driveway and start telling you all of their business as they seem to expect you'll trade your life story for theirs. They pry: What church do you attend? Where do you work? How many kids do you have? Why do you have two kids at your house during the week, but three kids at your house every other weekend?




But, in the smaller Southern cities we do not cram onto a Metro system like in D.C. We often commute 15 or 20 minutes to work by car. Now at work, a few of your co-workers may pry into your life just like your next-door neighbors do.




This same culture that I described (which is a generalization . . . so, it's not true for all of the South) also has a knack for wanting to squeeze everyone into their mold of objective morality. Is this behavior simply the result of people not knowing how to pursue freedom and happiness for themselves? Perhaps they need to know what you're doing in your private life so that they may know whether to ostracize you or accept you; they need knowledge of what you do behind closed doors so that they can know if you fit into their objective morality or not.




We'll, you don't have to worry about that on the Metro in D.C. Driving into D.C. is so difficult during rush hour that total strangers will carpool so that they can access the HOV lanes on the freeway. But, guess what-- they don't get into each other's business either. As a matter of fact, the carpooling culture has an unspoken rule to not strike up idle chit-chat with each other while riding into the city together.




Again, this seems like coldness and rudeness-- something Southerns generally hate on the surface. But, I wonder if that "coldness" is nothing more than an extension of people being extremely comfortable with themselves.




Then they silently dare you to tell them how else to live.




Isn't that really what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is all about?




Happy Independence Day!

History Lesson

My most boring moments in school usually involved history class. I generally hated history.

I would perk up during the chapter about the American Revolution, though. I always thought it was awesome how those guys came together and formed a government that has lasted until today.

Out of all my life, I had only two high school history teachers who kept my attention. Otherwise, history was a drag from grade school through college.

B O R I N G.

Then, September 11th came. Current events suddenly became very important to me.

Then, the Shock and Awe came. Immediately, my mind went back to Desert Storm.

Seeing many of the same faces in G.W. Bush's administration that were in G.H. Bush's administration was suspicious in my opinion. Oh well . . .

But that's when I realized history was very important, yet I hardly knew any of it.

Then, I realized that I knew even less history when I started to explore my faith.

I've learned a lot of history since my deconversion. I share the new things that I've learned with other people. And generally, they never knew such events happened.

I was like that, too. But once you learn about an actual historic event, you cannot unlearn it.

If history is boring for you, it is not because history sucks. You're bored only because the thread of life has not woven your personal present into important past events. A good history teacher tries to do this for you. A poor history teacher only feeds you dates.

Think about it. Challenge your preconceived notions.

Know your history.

Freemasonry and the American Revolution

The History Channel showed an interesting segment concerning the role Freemasonry played in the birth of the United States. From as early as the Boston Tea Party, Masons played a large role in the growth and establishment of the United States during the Revolution.

Interestingly, Freemasonry in the US fueled the Revolution through one of it's great ideals:

Free Thought based on Reason.

While God is acknowledged – reason – not faith – is the virtue of the Freemasons of the Revolution. This is why Muslims, Jews, and Christians all come together under a unified order. The lines of religion are blurred – making reason and action the choice stance against the challenges of life.

This rejected the religious tyranny prevalent in Europe at the time of the Revolution.

Many of the founding fathers were Masons. Masonic connections spanned across nations and this came in handy for keeping the US Revolution alive. Ben Franklin used his masonic connections to get desperately needed aid from France so that their lodge brother General Washington would not cave in during the war.

With Freemasonry so intertwined with the birth of our republic and with Freemasonry being so non-embracing and non-endorsing of any specific religion – how can we say the US is a Christian nation?

Freemasonry encouraged reason and open mindedness – the very ideals of freedom. Fundamentalist religions so often enforce closed mindedness because free thinking is quite incompatible with Fundamentalist theology.