This is a good week to look up at the night sky and wink at the FULL MOON alright; I have every night so far! It seems brighter for some reason or I just have not appreciated it enough until now. It seems so close, yet it took tremendous effort, determination, faith, nerves of steel and a willingness to go where no one has gone before. That is what makes America so great, we dream big and we make it happen because we work together to make it so.
I posted this on my facebook page regarding the passing of legendary astronaut Neil Armstrong. Being an Ohio native who watched the moon landing, I will forever remember it as the week I turned seven years old. Not yet a Cub Scout at the time, I remember the collector glasses that you could get at the local store that commemorated the event. It was not until later in life that I learned that Neil Armstrong was an Eagle Scout as were many of the men who went into space. What an honor to attend the same camp as Neil Armstrong with my son on the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing. Now that Mr. Armstrong has passed these surly bonds of earth, I am compelled to put a few things into perspective.
It does not take a hero to have faith in something greater than yourself or superhuman strength to overcome adversity in life; it only takes a dream and a little help from a few like minded people with the audacity to think that anything is possible. With all of the political jockeying going on in our country right now, I am realizing that my beliefs, dreams, aspirations and hopes in life are tied to a few simple ideas that have been passed down through time immemorial.
America as we know it began very different than the way we see in the modern era. People came for various reasons and circumstances. Some were born here and were open to the idea that sharing a place to live was a natural part of how human beings behaved. For others, freedom for themselves, their children and future generations gave them the resolve to endure an arduous ocean voyage, sickness and even death to have the opportunity to live in peace. Still, for others the choice was not their own and they reached these shores in bondage and destined to live out their lives in slavery. And still, many came as a result of war or the slim hope that opportunity would bring prosperity to their humble lives.
As I sit here composing my thoughts this morning, I cannot remember an instance in the past eighteen years where I had to practically beg to keep the lights on in my home or contemplated the value of it being less than what I owed. It is indeed a reality of the modern age that people are suffering in this great land from financial crisis that is not of their own making. Jobs are few and wages dwindling, crops are failing due to drought and storms pound the southern shores and threaten yet again the well being of those who endured the same not long ago. Yet, in spite of all of this there is hope in the life and death of one man who dared to push the envelope of fate and emerged victorious shoulder to shoulder with his crew and the thousands who gave their collective minds a shot at infamy.
Yes, I have stood outside in my back yard all this week and winked at the moon for Neil Armstrong’s sake, for I think we learn from his courage and humility that life is a delicate balance of faith. hope and a tiny morsel of insanity that pushes us as a nation to go beyond what the radical extremists tell us is not worthy of God’s attention and that our free thinking is an infidel’s folly. No, we are one nation under God and we will continue on as a lesson that Neil Armstrong taught us by example. And so, let us wink at the moon tonight and be humbled beneath a heavenly sky full of possibilities. Let us throw into the fire that which does not grow our determination and watch it fade away in a vapor.
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