A true patriot is the one who will boldly stand against the abuse of liberty when the culture around them is using those liberties to stand for the lesser things that are certain to destroy those liberties as well as the patriot who is standing for them.

One sign of a troubled democracy is that it has taken “freedom” and “license” to mean the same thing.

My great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. And such was the carnage that he never spoke of it right up to his dying day. Therefore, we might consider that it was the sacrifices that he witnessed, and the pain of comrades lost that he carried to his own grave that are but a tiny part of the inestimable price paid for the liberties that we abuse.

I would much rather ‘build up’ your faith than ‘play on’ your fears.

We grant that which is ‘right’ this impenetrable notion, that it will prevail even when the worst of life repeatedly comes crashing against it. And when that which is ‘right’ succumbs to the assaults of that which is not, we must remember that evil may have had its day, but it’s just a day.

Rather than being incensed by the nature of the bruise, maybe we should be inspired by the possibilities in the bruise.

Outwardly we might say we believe that liberty is a gift. But our belief that we have a ‘right’ to that ‘gift’ is the thing that’s certain to kill it.

As a child, I would sit at the top of the old towering pine and watch the world gloriously spread itself out at my feet. And it wasn’t until I climbed that tree many decades later that it dawned on me how much I have trampled that world under my feet. And so, maybe I need to do a lot more climbing and a lot less walking.

I tend to walk around convinced that any amount of forgiveness that I could extend could never possibly compensate for the offenses that I’ve had to endure. Yet, maybe the greater offense is that I’ve got that backwards.