From outside the box

Where is America going? What are we becoming? Are we headed in the right direction? Is our greatest danger from without or from within? Will we be done in by terrorist or will it be an interior collapse? Will we rise to the occasion and work our way thru all of our challenges and be stronger and more unified in the end? You can't help but wonder about these things because our American culture seems to be changing so quickly. We are going somewhere, but where? I can't blame traditionalist (usually conservatives) for being skeptical of a lot of these changes. I just take issue with them over which changes are bringing the country down.

Most of us baby boomers remember the fifties as a time of prosperity and predictability. We were grounded in good old fashioned family values. Things were more black and white, right and wrong, they were more clearly defined. Of course much of those memories are filtered thru the rose colored lenses of childhood. The fifties had all of the basic culture nightmares we have today, folks were just better at hiding them. But my point is, ever since the fifties our culture has been on a fast track to somewhere, we just don't know where yet.

Right wing conservatives see our culture problems as a morality issue. Since the black and white era of the fifties we have entered into many gray zones of questionable life choices. We now allow abortion, we can live together without being married, gays are practicing their life styles out in the open, sex and violence are too acceptable in movies and on TV, and many baby boomers have abandoned religion altogether not to mention their children that are growing up without it. And they would argue that these choices (among others) are at least in part to blame for our modern day problems of gang violence, drug and alcohol addiction, children growing up in single family homes, and too many families on welfare. And one would have to admit that some of these are real problems that are threatening to take America down.

You can't blame all of our problems on morality or the lack of. For one thing, we are out of touch with what true morality is. Allowing others the freedom of personal choice is only a moral problem if you think it is. I believe that our main problem is that we are not recognizing the real problems. We talk about health care but we don't address the real cause. We don't need more hospitals and better prescription plans. We need healthier life styles. Senior citizens are overly medicated. We medicate our children because they have too much energy. Maybe we just need to exercise more and eat less. We use our leisure time to focus on sports and movie stars when instead, we should be engaged in healthier lifestyle activities. All of the sex and violence in our entertainment culture is not a cause of problems, it is a result of our lack of consciousness and awareness. When we have a stronger sense of who we are in relation to each other and the rest of life around us, we will not be entertained by violence and sex in movies, music, and video games.

I do believe that America is at a cross roads. We may not destroy ourselves or loose our country, but we do have a real chance of morphing into a lower version of what we are and have been. Our leaders are drowning us in debt, just as we are with our own abuse of credit cards. Corporations are only concerned with the bottom line. We buy into the fear tactics used by our government to maintain and enhance power and control. We have an abusive relationship with our environment as well as with animals. We exploit them for food as well as entertainment (rodeos, circuses, zoos, and caged pets). We use God as an excuse to judge others for their personal life styles and religious choices while we justify our own lack of awareness and shortcomings simply because we cannot see beyond our own limited vision.

On the other hand, we can move forward from this cross road into greater prosperity and create a better world than we have ever known before. We can't do it by attacking life choices and clinging to antiquated backwater religious beliefs. We need to start cleaning up our environment. We need to demand true leadership of those in charge of running our country. Our leaders need to start bucking the powers that be and looking at long term solutions rather than short term gains. We need to expand our concept of God. We must quit limiting Him to being judgmental and vengeful and allow Him to be all loving and accepting. We need to develop a deeper understanding of our own relationship to God, to realize that we are connected and not separated from Him and then we will understand our own connection to each other as well as everything in existence. We need to dream more and fear less. We need to take personal responsibility for the state of our lives. We need to quit suing each other. We need to understand that we have the power to change whatever we want to change about ourselves and rely less on government and doctors and drugs and junk food and ministers and radio personalities and feel good cliche's. We need to explore our own artistic nature more. We need to be more tolerant of others on the highways. We need to recycle more and waste less. We need to be more open to ideas that challenge our traditions and set beliefs. We need to understand that true patriotism is in questioning the motives of our leaders, not blindly supporting them. We need to drink more wine. We need to physically touch each other more. We need to listen to more music with harmonies. We need to treat our dogs and cats better. Men need to watch more "chick flicks". Women need to quit trying to change men. We need to treat each other as equals. Men need to be gentler to women and children. Church leaders need to challenge their followers to find the truth within their own hearts rather than depending on what they (the leaders) interpret it to be. We need to mediate more and worry less. We need to teach safe sex in 3rd world countries instead of relying on "just say no" policies that are proven not to work. We need to quit killing creatures for sport. We need to get off of fossil fuels. We need to feed all of the hungry people in the world (this is where the UN could show some real leadership and make itself valuable). We need to pay teachers more money. We need to walk more. We need to kiss and hug our kids more as well as our dogs. We need to be there for our children 100% and NEVER abandon them no matter what! We need to quit starting wars. We need to quit arming small countries to keep certain regimes in power (that may not be good for the people of that country) so that we can exploit their resources. We need to understand the difference between religion and true spirituality. We need to practice the golden rule....always. We need real campaign finance reform. We need to drink more water and eat less meat. And mostly.... We need to say "I love you" more.

If we could do half of these things, I believe we will evolve and be greater than we have ever been, not only as a country, but as individuals as well. We would once again be a beacon of light for the world. If the world looked up to us, they would want to imitate us, not kill us. We are at a crossroads. But heres the thing....we are always and have always been at a crossroads. The crossroad we are at as a country is but a macrocosm for the crossroad we face everyday in our own personal lives. Who we are today is a product of the choices we made in the past.The choices we make today define who we will be tomorrow. Which way will we go?