internalconversations

As Americans we are all connected to each other about the way we do one thing: how we govern ourselves.
The three dominant religions in the world are also about one thing: how we govern ourselves.
In other words, there is a connection between religion and government—therefore national and international politics; therefore war—that will not go away.
In other words, religion lies like a force underneath the major wars we have going on today, and those brewing.

Studying the history of government, the founders of our country found that, one way or another, people always seemed to end up directed by a thumb not their own. Thumbs were even found directing what God was heard to say!
The founders were determined to reverse this condition. They wanted to create a country made up by people with the ability to lift themselves out from under a directing thumb.
They devised a set of rules to live by that would give them that ability.

The rules were devised to keep the thumb in its place. As Americans, we pledge allegiance to those rules.
Allegiance is an invisible force, like gravity. Like gravity, it works through the body—its only downfall.
The rules extend protection even to God from thumbs directing what God was heard to say!

When the thumb is kept in its place direction can come from other parts of our anatomy. The rest of the hand, for example.
The rest of the body: the whole body is open to direction. Eyes and ears are all about direction. So are legs.
Legs listen to gravity, eyes to light, ears to sound. And heart, lungs, liver, ..?
All are open to direction.
As Muslims, Christians, and Jews, what God was heard to say comes to us through our religion, from which those rules to live by have set us free.
We have to remember why: thumbs were even found directing what God was heard to say!

It remains for us to use that freedom.