Firehose of Faith and Freedom

When you have a lawn, you have the occasional dandelion or patch of crabgrass. You must eradicate the weeds, or you’ll lose that soft patch for your kids to play on, or that spot where your buddies can sorely lose at cornhole. But like anything in life, the weeds are expected. We can usually deal with a few troubles as they pop up. We pluck them out and move along. Then there are the larger issues. Your pristine lawn is the perfect target for anthills and mole tunnels. One tip for you: Deal with underground yellowjacket nests after the sun goes down.

If we zoom out, and look at America as our humble postage stamp of land, I’ll argue that she needs the same attentive care as our lawn. She needs the clean, fresh water of Liberty. It is the most essential element for Americans. We look to the Old World countries, and we see a heightened crackdown on Free Speech. People are even being arrested for silently praying. Why would that be? The main motivators for humans are Love and Fear, and when the government doesn’t love what you’re saying, they can come to fear it. Why would prayer strike fear? Man likes control, and God is too big for man to control.

Someone said Charlie Kirk was assassinated, not because he was talking, but because people were listening. He frightened people. He didn’t give you a polite sip of the Gospel. When Charlie spoke about Jesus and America, it was a firehose of faith and freedom. People who came to him as nonbelievers walked away at least knowing Charlie believed. Maybe that’s enough of a mustard seed for them to roll between their fingers, as they contemplate their own faith. May all those seeds fall on fertile ground. Through his numerous videos, his influence continues. The only remedy for being bound is Free Speech and Heaven's Mercy.

The Covid lockdown was a mad science experiment of control on the world. We scampered like lab rats into our cages. 18-year-olds were at an impressionable age of 13 when the lockdown occurred. They saw how the adults reacted to the crisis. Learning in a classroom was “too dangerous.” The civilized world as a whole let fear rule our hearts, which ultimately only leads to more fear. Churches were deemed non-essential at a time when we needed that arm shot of God’s Love the most. If only we’d known then about the extent of our own government’s growing war on Christians.

America needs protection from enemies, foreign and domestic. When we finally poked our heads out into the daylight, we found our land was being encroached upon. Amongst the hardworking carpenter ants, who busily tear away at the fabric to build their own anthills, there were millions of murder hornets coming in a steady swarm. Time and money spent on foreign invaders are precious resources that are stolen from our younger generations. By allowing this invasion, we’re directly responsible for the fear and desperation that plagues our youth, seniors and veterans, and other marginalized parts of the population. Get off my lawn.

America needs transparency and daylight. Have you ever seen a bigleaf maple tree? They grow to over 100 feet and the leaves are over a foot across. It’s fast growing, so it’s best to uproot early. Its large canopy will overshadow everything in your yard. We’ve been under the cloak of big government, kept in the dark. Only after we got into the books, did we realize how much fraud, waste and abuse was happening within the past few decades, and notably the past few years. We’re still trying to claw back as much as we can, and as much as the activist judges will let us. We’ll likely never know the full extent of the damage.

How does America grow after what I would argue is one of the darkest times in our recent history? I once had a neighbor that watered, then mowed, watered, then mowed. He barely gave the grass a chance to grow before he hammered his too big mower over it like a villain in a Pixar movie. The blade was lowered as low as it could go, so much that you could see dirt being thrown into the air. His lawn was the worst on the block. It had no chance to reach its potential. There were no weeds, but the grass was beaten down and sad.

We fertilize our lawn in the spring and fall, giving it key elements like nitrogen and potassium. Any number of fabricated disruptions in civil society are not the best nutrients for our citizens to thrive. The recipe for a nourishing land is written out for us in the Bible and the Constitution. God is the Source. The legacy from the Founders includes a little line about pursuit of happiness. It’s not guaranteed happiness for everyone, but something better. We each have the freedom to pursue our own path to success. We are close to experiencing a new “Golden Age”. It’s a labor intensive joy to keep it. Pull up a chair and put your feet on that lush shag carpet of Freedom.

-Blackfoot