Five Days of Independence

Five days of independence... no gig, no job, a lawn, a picnic, two days of old friends, old movies, one more song in the can.

My son tells me he is becoming disillusioned. At sixteen, I say, that's normal. You are comparing your values with the values of the world, thus, discovering your own values.

That's a good thing.

Will it get better, Dad, and how long?

It will and I don't know. Our culture phases, and so do our relationships. They will swing about as far as they swung. The important bit is what you are doing now: learning about your own values.

Five days of independence. My country is divided. Some say our religious values and our politics are too far apart. Some say they are too mixed. I don't think that is the problem. I think our values are too far from our hearts, our own values too far from our own desires. We've let symbols, wealth, and politics become too centralized and forgotten that it is the single human heart that chooses good, evil, truth, falsity, fidelity, cause and compassion. We believe stories that make us comfortable or resigned and forget that we should be about changing ourselves because that is ALWAYS within our power.

My independence is that I may choose for heartfelt reasons, or for mindfulness, but that in this land, these can be the same for not man nor government may force that choice from me. The beliefs that divide us may divide us from each other, but the heart that chooses against itself chooses a broken heart.

Those who seek power through our hearts seek wisely because that is where power is to be found in politics, but the mind of the broken hearted turns away from the politics of power yielded to power wielded. When democracies cry, change comes.