With Independence Day right around the corner, how timely to reexamine a phrase from the U.S. Constitution considering the season in which we live. It’s the first three words in the preamble, We the People. Gosh…remember this? Takes you back to your political science class in high school, doesn’t it.
Join me in diving into the divinely inspired phrase birthed by our forefathers. We the People was a concept God dripped into the hearts and minds of courageous men charged with forming a government to oversee the states; names we are familiar with like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. But it was Gouverneur Morris, the delegate from Pennsylvania, who wrote much of the constitution and penned those first three words. We the People is powerful! The constitution’s opening words were used as a way to unify America’s early settlers who were in desperate need of an identity. The amazing thing about those three simple words, We the People, is that they are timeless (that’s just like God to be thinking ahead, eh?) and never more than now do we need to write We the People on the tablet of our hearts and meditate on its full meaning. That’s because the enemy of our souls, Satan, is set on dividing what God created—us, humanity. Just look at the divisiveness in which our Republic is drowning. On the surface, I think you’d agree Mr. Pitchfork is doing a pretty good job at pitting friend against friend, son and daughter against Mom and Dad, and wife against husband. Folks! We the People establishes “us,”—you, me, your neighbor and his neighbor, your near family member and your far distant one—as a sovereign people blessed to be born in these United States. Collectively, yes together, we are charged with overseeing the directives outlined in the constitution. How have we’ve been doing at this task? I’m not asking those elected servants in office. I’m asking you, a fellow citizen of the United States of America, because it’s our job, not theirs.
What was accomplished 236 years ago, on September 17, 1787, when the U.S. Constitution was signed, still stands. We the People hasn’t changed. You and I are still “We the People,” guaranteed the same authority over the constitution and the duties to enforce it. When was the last time you read the U.S. Constitution and its 27 amendments?
Continuing on in the Preamble we read this (using original language and spellings): “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Read it again. Doesn’t that sound empowering? It does to me. There’s nothing about democrat, republican, or politics. Those God-breathed words inspire each of us to look inside our hearts and do our part to insure domestic tranquility. Ahhh…I love that word. Here’s tranquility’s definition: the quality or state of being tranquil; calmness, peacefulness, quiet, serenity. I think you’ll agree that tranquil is not our Republic’s condition right now. Even if you tried to ignore the pandemonium brewing beyond the borders of your homestead, the disruption trickles in: our grocery stores with empty shelves and crazy high prices; our retail outlets with signs in the windows designed to separate not unify; neighbors desperate to share the latest bad news with us; and our cell phones with texts and headlines that creep in even with our notifications turned off. You can’t ignore it even if you wanted to.
We the People, You and Me, (yes, capitalized You and Me) have a duty to insure this state of being in ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, and our family members. It’s our duty! It says so right in the constitution. Please, my friend, spend some time preceding July 4th, Independence Day, meditating on your responsibility as a sovereign citizen collectively with those around you to inspire and maintain a kind, gentle, forgiving heartfelt and repentant mindset to affect change towards tranquility. I love you. God bless America.