One if by land, two if by sea

On April 18th, 1975, President Gerald Ford visited the Old North Church in Boston, MA. It was the 200th anniversary of the famous lighting of the two lanterns in the steeple, whereby American patriots were warned of the British advance on Lexington and Concord.

Ford spoke of the Republic weathering many storms, then asked the gathered crowd to pray that these United States would endure as a society which combined reason with liberty, and hope with freedom. He then lit the lantern, and there it remains to this day.

I got to see it firsthand in August, as I'd proposed to my wife in the very spot where Robert Newman escaped out the window. Yes, I am a hopeless history geek.

Born and raised in NJ, I now live in Charlotte, NC, the city Lord Cornwallis coined a "hornet's nest of rebellion". I am also a patriot, father and fledgling Christian. I own firearms, served the Republic honorably, trudge off every morning to a job I don't particularly care for and often have to stretch a dime into a dollar just to make ends meet.

In short, my life could not be any more unremarkable or blessed.

To believe the Federal government and America's state-run media, however, I am incompetent. I am a racist and a terrorist, an extremist clinging to the ideals of a bygone era. The Constitution is not binding, it is merely suggestive. Unalienable rights are being usurped at every turn by an apparatus deriving its power not through consent, but by fiat, fear, eavesdropping, fining and killing. Authority ultimately resides not with We The People, but with the millionaires we elect and the corporations they serve.

How did it come to this? I am just one Citizen - what could I possibly do to counter such an evil behemoth? What difference could I possibly make? I can think of a hundred other things I'd rather be doing, and could definitely do without all this heaviness. Believe me, I get it: ignorance is bliss. There are only so many hours in a day, kids to drive to practice, work to get done and Honey Boo-Boo to watch.

It's a frustrating and futile position. But then I looked back to our Founders, inwardly to my faith, and now to present-day patriots. Lo and behold, my beliefs are not unique, they are legion, and I am not alone, I am in good company.

No lesser light than John Adams felt a similar epiphany, writing to his beloved Abigail with the stark realization that it was up to him to act, right then and there:

"We are waiting for a messiah who will never come." 

Should I play it safe and not rock the boat? Should I defer my duty to my sons and let them sort it all out? Thomas Paine wrote:

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

Do I doubt that I was created with an inherently free nature, and thereby doubt my Creator? My respective Holy Book tells me:

"You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don't let this liberty be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love." (Gal. 5:13)

As I proceed down this path, might I be cold, hungry, imprisoned or even killed? Dr. Joseph Warren, the forgotten founder and "greatest incendiary in all of America", spoke to these misgivings from Boston's Old South Church in 1772:

"If you, with united zeal and fortitude, oppose the torrent of oppression; if you feel the true fire of patriotism burning in your breasts…if you perform your part, you must have the strongest confidence that THE SAME ALMIGHTY BEING who protected your pious and venerable forefathers, who enabled them to turn a barren wilderness into a fruitful field, who so often made bare his arms for their salvation, will still be mindful of you their offspring."

What have I surmised from all of this? We're the generation our Founders warned us about. It's time to hang the third lantern in the steeple.

The American Spring begins May 16th, 2014. 

My goal with this blog is to record my growth through the process of awakening. I don't have any answers, other than what the Constitution already tells me, and I have no idea where this will lead. All I know is that I feel tyranny like a sour stomach. It encroaches, it gnaws, and I know I'm not alone in this. 

I hope to learn, experience and share as my journey progresses, and I thank you for reading.