A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.
My path recently crossed two icons of nostalgia in the arts: first, Don Mclean’s classic song, American Pie, as well as Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings, all serving as a picture to mourn the loss of baby boomer innocence. The song and paintings are a reminder that the loss of that innocence came with the loss of those freedoms. Ultimately, the greatest consequence in our lifetime is the loss of morality in only 60 years.
Now the halftime air was sweet perfume While the sergeants played a marching tune…
Rockwell’s Freedom from Want is the quintessential picture of a New England Thanksgiving with its unwavering joy, close-knit family gathered around the table, sumptuous food, and elegant crystal. However, we are now selfish more than we are thankful. Our affluence has tilted the scales opposite of the depicted scene leading to an arrogance that has resulted in a breeding ground for our own ignorance. Basic economics says you must pay your bills, not print more money when in debt. Further examples of spend-now pay-later include the use of COVID funds on things from gambling debts to state and high school football stadiums in Wisconsin.
But February made me shiver, with every paper I’d deliver, bad news on the doorstep.
Freedom of Speech is portrayed as the man with a lone dissenting opinion in a town meeting. These days political correctness and mob rule have silenced truth and isolated people rather than cultivate constructive discussion. Social media and other media of our day are designed to promote political and social division through venting, violence, tribalism and sexuality, because that sells more commercials and news stories than any other method.
Two of our nation’s most revered presidents warned us. George Washington in his Farewell Address warned against political parties: they arouse—to paraphrase—the spirit of revenge, leading to corruption and government despotism, corrupting individual liberty. Lincoln quoted Jesus saying that a “house divided against itself will not stand.” The premise of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has been changed in our day to become “before they do unto you.” Though Lincoln spoke of the civil war then, we have replicated this civil unrest today with each keystroke warriors make in anger. Lincoln’s war was for the unity of the nation as “cessation from it was anarchy.”
Helter skelter in a summer swelter, the Birds flew off with a fallout shelter, eight miles high and falling fast.
Rockwell’s Freedom from Fear depicts a child being peacefully tucked in even as a war rages on. Our most prevalent fear now is death, not war, as we have not seen global scale conflicts for some time. With the constant stress of self-preservation, we have been led to self-medicate rather than face problems. Entertainment, alcohol, drugs (“eight miles high”), music, behavioral and informational addictions are just a few of the many escape hatches from the inevitable.
Now for ten years we’ve been on our own, but that’s not how it used to be.
Why, in one lifetime are we here with loss of restraint, freedoms and the loss of morality? This leads to a discussion of the fourth freedom. Washington, once again in his Farewell Address, Jefferson in books on Jesus Christ and Lincoln in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, as well as other speeches, tied the nation’s morality to an accountability to God Himself, coined by the phrase “Under God.”
Did you write the book of love, and do you have faith in God above, if the Bible tells you so. Do you believe in rock and roll, can music save your mortal soul?
Our constitution, by design, includes the freedom for all citizens to worship as they choose or whether to worship a God at all and denounces coercion as with a state church. Rockwell’s painting, Freedom of Worship, depicts various religions and people praying. The caption says “Each according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Let us not ignore that they were worshipping, not in unity, but according to their own dictates. This is consistent with the New Testament of not imposing religion, but an environment encouraging religious self-restraint “under God.”
And in the streets, the children screamed… but not a word was spoken, the church bells all were broken.
The problem is what I call the “God is dead” mindset, echoing back to the Time Magazine cover of 1961. The nation has divorced itself from the tether to an almighty God, and therefore from moral accountability. The removal of such a restraint in our culture has resulted in a house, once again, divided against itself, and as such, our nation will not stand. Religion, especially Christianity, as that was the country’s initial reference point, has been isolated and silenced for various reasons with the ensuing moral behavioral results.
Besides the “God is Dead” mindset, our courts sanctioned the new community standard over the founder’s wisdom privatizing religion with the various walls of church and state separation rulings. They silenced from public places the worship according to dictates of conscience with the removal of religion from government and education, only fueling the religious mocking of mob rule. That social engineering, coupled with our selfish affluence, has resulted in the loss of restraint and loss of a creator consciousness after just one generation. Looking at the churches in trouble, it’s not God that is dead, but we are spiritually dead to Him as we are now in charge. It’s as though God says, “Thy will be done,” to us and let our own immorality correct ourselves. As such we are no longer a nation “under God” but live a Christian mythology that does not affect our conscience or behavior.
And the three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died. And they were singin’ bye-bye, Miss American Pie…them good old boys drinkin’ whiskey and rye, singin’ This’ll be the day that I die.
What is the solution? Can we go back? We are poor students of history and it often does repeat itself. A study of Old Testament Israel’s demise closely parallels our current demise with its “I can do it myself” lip service to God. The solution starts with doing our homework and asking questions effecting our conscience. While 87 percent of Americans say they believe in God, our Biblical ignorance and defiance of what the Scriptures actually say are reflected in our behavior.
A second solution, ironically, might be to ask for history to repeat itself. There was a great spiritual awakening in the Connecticut River Valley, including the formation of Granby in 1740. Do we have the humility of heart to ask for “help” and sober up or will we continue drinking “whiskey and rye, singing this will be the day that I die”?
Editor’s Note: Walter “Skip” Mission occasionally teaches Bible classes at the Granby Senior Center.