If you watched Glenn Beck give the keynote speech from Jerusalem this morning, you experienced a glowing moment in human history.  If you missed it, it’s not too late. The intention and purpose of the speech can be summed up in two words: Rights and Responsibilities.  I say it’s not too late because, if you understand what those words truly mean, its not too late to go live them in your own life.

As for Rights, for more years than I care to count, we have treated them with disregard.  We have failed to understand their source and, by so doing, acted as if our individuality and the power of self-determination rests better in the hands of a “capable” few over the many.

As for Responsibility, we traded our dignity and the very connection to one another that makes us uniquely human… to make free willed-based choices and live with the consequences of those choices… for the illusion that if we did not look under the rock, nothing sinister could possibly be concealed there.

We were foolish, adolescent, myopic and flat-out wrong.  The refusal to acknowledge the Source of our freedom and the willing abdication of what action freedom demands of us, has brought us to this moment. Now we must take the more difficult road home… but it is the only road worth taking… for all others lead to enslavement.

We have two choices in life. Always. To be in service or to be en-slaved.  For several thousand years we have periodically been enslaved. More so than not. This is not the first time. But it may well be the last time.  There is an expression among people who believe in reincarnation. “You do it again ‘til you get it right.” It presupposes endless chances.

I am not so sure. Sometimes we run out of “do-overs.” Such may be this time.

The technology has outpaced spiritual and social development. Violence has reared its ugly head. The world is looking for scapegoats. It has looked before and found them before…as  too many turned a blind eye and a deaf ear thereby allowing the slaughter of millions. Repeatedly.

Glenn Beck’s message is more than we can “never forget.” His message is that we cannot permit blindness, deafness and the violence that inevitably accompanies them to… this time… define who we are or to silence open acknowledgment of the Source of All That Is.

Know your rights, their Source, and the responsibility that being blessed with them requires of you.

Yes, the burden is great but the reward is greater. And just as devaluation of rights leads to enslavement… so too does refusal to bear the burden of personal responsibility lead to a world wherein violence and destruction reign by fear unopposed.

This is a do-over.  Let’s get it right this time.

Comments are closed.