Finding Inspiration from Our Ancestors

Friday, October 7, 2011

I’ve been inspired to resume my on-again off-again genealogical research lately and as I apply for a place in the Daughters of the American Revolution, I’m struck by the dedication and sacrifice my direct ancestors made to found this country and then to hold it together. More than that, they’ve motivated me with their confidence to choose a direction and go there – no guarantees, no safety nets, nothing more than self confidence.

We’re a nation currently floundering in a vast, stagnant sea; unable to choose a direction to row toward and without a wind or a current to take us into the unknown. Instead, we sit with our personal albatrosses, knowing what lies ahead if we do nothing, but weighted down and unsure of how or where to move.

I think we as Americans need to take a hard look at where we’ve been, where we are, and where we can go. We’ve been too reliant on others – government, corporations, Wall Street – to choose a direction and lead us there.

Our greatest power as a nation has been and always will be: strength. Our resilience and ability to stick together and pull through has carried us from colony to world superpower. We even grasped the stars. So I call upon my fellow Americans to reach deep down and draw on that strength. We can choose a direction for ourselves; band together with our neighbors. And we will haul the rest of the world along with us.