"The Indomitable Human Spirit Embodied in the Joy of Wonder"

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Reprinted with permission of author;

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"The Indomitable Human Spirit Embodied in the Joy of Wonder"

from "In Defense of Rural America"

By Ron Ewart, President

National Association of Rural Landowners (www.narlo.org)

and nationally recognized author and speaker on freedom and property rights issues for over 10 years

© Copyright Sunday, November 29, 2015 - All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

 

Note: With all the doom and gloom that dominates our world that we see through a distorted window every day in what is called "The News", we decided to depart from that doom and gloom and illuminate the good within us, in keeping with the Thanksgiving holiday.  Hopefully, it will resonate with the good in all of us.  Next week we will return to the raging land battle between the West and the East ..... in America!

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At night, as the soft padded paws of the great predator stop in a jungle clearing and the eyes of the giant feline look up into the night sky to witness a streak of light passing before the stars, does the big cat "wonder" as to what the light streak might mean, or from whence it came, or what caused it to emit light, or what is it made of, or why is it there at that precise moment? Does he ponder as to whether the streak of light was in front of the other points of light, in between the points of light or behind the points of light? Does he guess as to how far away the streak might be or how fast it is going? Does he have a concept of time, speed, distance, or light? Maybe. Probably not.

 

However, does a little boy or girl witnessing the same event, ask those questions? Some do and it's that "some" that has vaulted the hunter gathers of thousands of years ago to a point in time where the answers to the questions of who, what, where, when,why and how have allowed man to press ever onward and outward on a preordained destiny that will lead him, albeit haltingly, to the stars and to the infinitely small depths of matter and energy.

 

Probably wrapped up in the DNA molecule, locked in each cell of contemporary humans, is a gene, not yet isolated, containing chemical protein that may be radically different than the genes in the DNA molecules in all living things on Earth. No matter that it may have taken millions of years for that one gene to appear along the evolutionary stream. No matter that its appearance may have been a total random act of nature, a freak, a mutation, or that somehow it was divinely ordained. But that gene, or a combination of genes, created a path for man that has led him, in 5,000 years, to the brink of jumping off this once infinitely large planet, into the Solar System and on into the galaxy and then to the Universe. How exciting to be at the bottom of the staircase of that climb and "wonder" what we might find.

 

All animal and plant life on Earth have one overriding prime directive that takes precedence over all others; self-preservation by survival and procreation. Almost 100 percent of the effort to survive by any non-human living thing is expended towards preservation and procreation. That prime directive is programmed into the chemistry of all living things.

 

Man is also endowed with this programming, nor would he have survived this long with out it. However, mixed in with all of the other pre-programmed directives is the one emotion that is the catalyst for the drive that has taken him to the point where he is no longer the slave to his environment but has become a net changer-controller of the environment. Some say this may be his undoing, but our instinct says not.

 

Whatever the gene or gene combination that crystallizes the emotion of "wonder" to well up inside certain humans may one day be isolated. Its isolation may be a milestone, in the short term, but the effect of the gene is much more important than the cause or specific location in the DNA molecule. For it is the effect of "wonder" that will have empowered man to accomplish that very isolation.

 

It is the effect of "wonder" that allows the young, (especially the young) the less fortunate, the intellectual, the rich, or even the poor and almost all members of the human race, at some time, to look at, hear, feel, or touch some particular event, or a thing, or a happening and be amazed, be awed, be ferociously curious, be astonished, be surprised, shocked, or bewildered. The triggered emotion resulting from that "wonder" drives man in a totally different way than his warm and cold blooded Earth mates. Anyone without this sense of "wonder" is not fully alive.

 

The causes of wonder are, without a doubt, infinite. However, the result of selective "wonder" has uncovered the laws of thermodynamics, the law of gravity, quantum theory, the theory of relativity, the four distinct forces in nature, archeology, biology, zoology, paleontology and all of the other "ologies". Selective "wonder" has lead us to an understanding of our bodies and the inner workings of our brains that has resulted in modern medicine and the behavioral sciences. It has truly helped us find our "point of reference" in the Universe, as we know it today.

 

As the human population grew and selective "wonder" evolved, and writing and printing allowed the selective "wonder" to be dispersed to an ever-increasing audience, information about our life, the planet Earth, the Sun, the Solar System, the Cosmos and the microscopic world increased at an exponential rate. Each new discovery was built on the last, the speed of discovery always accelerating.

 

"Wonder" and the path to selective "wonder" are predominantly spontaneous in humans. The act or emotion of "wonder" may also exist in animals but their ability to communicate that wonder in a language we humans understand is severely limited, if it exists at all.

 

But each one of us, sometime in our life, no matter what our situation might be, has experienced spontaneous "wonder". Whether as a child, teenager, young or mature adult, the ability and emotion of "wonder" resides in all of us. The emotion may be fleeting or long lasting. It may reside in a childhood memory or it may lead some of us into the path of selective "wonder". In the final analysis, it is that same innocent "wonder" that will be our inevitable salvation. Some may argue otherwise but they are surely wrong.

 

No one has truly experienced a full life if they have not seen, in the soft, shining face of a young boy or girl, the awe of an event that the child has not seen before. Or had to answer the flood of questions that the "wonder" of the event releases.

 

That precious "wonder" flourishes in a free society of individual rights. It dies when squelched and squeezed into oblivion by an all-powerful, abusive, tyrannical government, or radical ideology. It is our firm hope and prayer that we as individuals and as a society will foster that "wonder" in all ages, but especially our children. They and their "wonder" and their energy are truly our last great hope.

 

But without individual freedom the smile on their innocent faces turns to frowns, despondency and the loss of hope and their bodies shrivel up and become emaciated, when they are subjected to the Hell that is slavery, war, poverty, famine, or worse. We saw those frowns on the faces of the Syrian refugees fleeing their homeland. Sure there is evil in the world, as we saw in Paris a week ago, but the goodness in man triumphs over that evil, time and time again.

　

Ever since man first burned himself with fire and realized he could use it to his advantage, or transported some object by rolling a log and converted that idea to the wheel, he has been forever driven towards more knowledge, more understanding and a wider, larger, broader world in which he can explore.　 To do that he simply must go faster and he must develop the machines to achieve the ever-increasing speeds he will need to reach his goals.　　

 

We are going to the stars one day and nothing anybody can do will get in our way. The strength, power, creativity and spirit of the incomparable individual will carry us there. Yes, the world is a mess and America is less free than it was, but those people that possess the Joy of Wonder in their minds will rise above it all and lead us to man’s destiny on his path to the stars.

　

Some day in the not to distant future, we are going to develop power sources that will literally boggle the mind. Our prediction is that each home, each office, each business or building will have its own centralized power unit. And in that unit will have the source of　energy to purify our drinking water, destroy our raw sewage and gray water, heat and cool our homes and offices and provide the electrical power for our lights and appliances.

 

Think of it! Those in your twenties, watch how our planet will shrink in your lifetime. In ten to twenty years there will be airplanes or space ships　that will leave the United States,　rise into the stratosphere or higher, glide at three to five times the speed of sound and land in Russia or China in a couple of hours. At 3,000 MPH we can go halfway around the world in 4 hours, when a little over 150 years ago, we were limited to one or two horsepower and it took over a month to cross the continent.　

 

Yes, we have come far. Nevertheless we, as individuals,　have a significant obligation to ourselves and to our children to defend our freedom at any cost and to learn everything we can about everything we can know in our lifetime that　we can document and prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and then pass as much of that information on to our offspring. We have an imperative to do no less. And Common Core State Standards is not the answer.

　

What we need to do, more than anything else, is to educate our people in all of the true knowledge we have discovered over the last 5,000 years without propaganda and hidden socialist agendas. And we need to foster unabashed individualism if freedom is to survive. Knowledge is the great equalizer among men. If　all individuals　possess the same knowledge, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to "Lord" over the other, thus muting the necessity of　war.

　

The problem in this country and every other country for that matter and all the people on this Earth is not poverty. It is not the disparity between poverty and wealth. It is not pestilence or flood, famine, hurricanes, earthquakes, war, or any of these things. What it is, is the absence of freedom and pandemic ignorance. It is also the efforts by a few national and international elites to break the backs and spirit of the individual. The power of a freethinking individual is a dictator’s worst nightmare.

　

What we need is a way to get more people motivated to seek　that truth and　their own "point of reference" and the solid basis of why their particular "point of reference" is relative to them.　 And we must resist with all of our might, government and special interest group's　relentless　perversion of the truth. Propaganda and lies are the "tools" they use to control us.　

　

We need to eradicate mysticism and　propaganda and replace them with the truth and universal, provable realities. And then we must teach our　children to question even the provable realities and always leave room for a different perspective, a different view, or new information.

　

The Joy of Wonder will die in all of us if we, collectively, with aggressive determination, do not trample the evil that has beset us, appearing in the form of a powerful domestic enemy (The Obama types and Progressives) and a pure evil foreign enemy,(ISIS and radical Islam). Only the people of America have the power to do this.

 

The stark reality is that if we destroy　our God-given, natural　freedom that allows　our unique　individuality to blossom, we will descend into the Hell of the collective and it will take a bloody revolution to restore freedom and liberty so that the individual, once again, with all his strength, power, beauty, compassion, spirit, generosity　and the joy of wonder, will　lead man on　the never-ending, exciting　journey to explore　our Universe.　 The Universe is waiting, if we don’t stumble and get in our own way.

 

As we celebrate Thanksgiving we hope each of you will reflect on and be grateful for the freedom we do have, the love of family and the great power of the human spirit embodied in the "Joy of Wonder."

 

 

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NOTE:  The foregoing article represents the opinion of the author and is not necessarily shared by the owners, representatives, employees, or agents of the publisher.

 

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Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and speaker on freedom and property rights issues and author of this weekly column, "In Defense of Rural America", is the president of the National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) an advocate and consultant for urban and rural landowners and a non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State.  He can be reached for comment at: [e-mail].

 

[Virginia Foulk]

Years ago, my daughter lost her legs in a train accident.  She learned to survive and grow.  Five years ago, she married someone who cared a lot for her. He redid the home to allow both the wheelchair she sometimes needed and her prosthesises to get around. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer, and there was no treatment that would work. They tried, but it caused her so much pain - her leg stumps swelled up so much, that the skin stretched and split. She worked with what she had.  St Jude's Hospice Care stepped in, the minister with St. Judes' stopped by as she needed, and her husband worked with all to make her life as comfortable as they all could.

Anna loved wind chimes - they covered all the fence line, and the trees. She liked to hear them chime. Anna also loved to go to Ho Chunk to play Bingo - she sometimes stayed most of the night. She won several times, and she also won the Halloween costume party. She went as Mother Goose. Her husband helped put a huge goose yard display over her motorized chair. And we all helped her with the costume. (Anna had come in 4th 3 years before - she went as a barrel of monkeys - this was also placed over her chair and with her monkey suit both fit in the barrel.)

Anyway, Anna died in the early morning in May 2014, 2 days after her birthday. Her husband, told us about the evening before. They were side by side talking, and seemed most of the night was gone before she fell asleep. At 7am in the morning, he reached over and she was quiet.  So she left this earth in the arms of her loved one,

Several times, now, Steve comes over and tells us that Anna is not pleased with him. When I ask him how do you know. Because, even though there is no wind, those wind chimes are ringing, he says.   

I wonder about what she and my son are doing - both were doing what they loved in life, one only 22, when he passed, Anna, 59. But are they together again? Is David playing football, with his friends, who also left this earth too young (4 of them under 23)?  I believe in that wonder; it keeps me fighting for our way of life and for our people. 

We had a little ferret that was 6 years old, and had cancer. We took him to the UW hospital for help, but it was too late. He'd fallen and his back was broken from the cancer.  They have a cancer research clinic and this littler ferret could be examined. He was put to sleep and then his remains transferred to the clinic. After a few weeks, they sent his remains to us, cremated. In the little package was a small red heart, a thank you note from the staff, and a copy of the poem - The Rainbow Bridge.

So now, next to our son, and our daughter, rests a little red heart.  And that is the wonder for me. All God's creatures.