"All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.” —T. K. Whipple, Study Out the Land
Pioneers cut America out of the wilderness. A garden was cultivated out of the weeds. There were trees to cut down, rivers to cross, houses to build, wells to dig, land to plow, animals to tame, roads to pave, and culture to build.
As Doug Wilson has said, "There was plenty of work and no jobs." Jobs are provided by those who've already put in the work. Work comes first, jobs come later. Plowing precedes produce.
Americans come from a race of trailblazers. Wilderness was in desperate need of man's dominion. Civilization lived within and was imposed upon the wilderness without. We are the descendants of their devotion and the benefactors of their backbones.
Their DNA still runs through our veins though it is often choked out by weeds. It remains in seed form though buried under an avalanche of entitlement and a cluster of conveniences.
May we again rise up and make things. May we subdue our surroundings, but first by the grace of God may we domesticate the wilderness that has grown up inside of us. May we exercise dominion in seeing to it that the garden of God first be planted internally and then by His strength may we see it externally again spread throughout the land, felling the forest of self-indulgence and erecting the standard of sacrifice and civility. Amen.
James 1:21
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment