Today's Pilgrims

You can trace, without fail, the problems that plague a struggling company or nation, to the loss of it's original mission statement. Business's that have lost their way forgot the principles they were founded on, and government is the business end of a country. It doesn't take a whole lot of looking to arrive at this conclusion here in the United States.

For instance, ask any child about the Pilgrims, your answer will surely include something about the first thanksgiving, but little else about the reason they left the security of England to migrate to an unknown world, we inhabit today. What drove those settlers of Pilgrim Rock to a sixty day ocean crossing in a boat that was designed to transport wine across the English Channel? The answer to that question is the root that drove the founding of this great nation, yet we either ignore it, or it's dismissed. I know a scant few people who can relay the information that their journey took sixty days or it was in a boat not designed to cross the Atlantic. So how can we expect future generations to understand the principles upon which this country was based?

The future of this country is based in the past. The Pilgrims traveled half way around the world, had virtually no food, were surrounded by hostile Indians when they arrived, all in the name of religious freedom. They steadily lost family and friends during this quest, but never relaxed their rigid religious convictions. They set up a cage for people who didn't honor the Sabbath. Sinners were whipped and placed in stocks, adulterers were forced to wear labels on their clothing, and a sodomizer was put to death. They knew freedom alone is not God's desire for humans. Freedom is accompanied by a second pillar: responsibility! There is no freedom without obligation.

We've strayed a great deal from that mission statement. We've forgotten exceptional people have to be subordinate to God's ultimate design and align our ambitions around those principles. Maybe it's time to reconnect with our past, and teach the original mission statement to our children. Our morality has suffered because we lost touch with our past. The common thread that links the destruction of every great civilization is the loss of morals.

We can embrace history, learn from it, and pass it on to our children as a tool for guidance, or we can continue on the path we're on, and ignore the inevitable. Are we arrogant enough to believe we can over come what has toppled every great civilization?

God Bless!
Capt. Bill