Citizenship?

Lately, I have been deploring the fact that you can't learn script in school anymore and when I deal with handwriting from kids I am aghast.  It seems that a lot of the papers I get are barely legible.  Another thing that I have been lamenting about is the fact that many of our students no longer take a class called Civics.  It was a class designed to help one to learn more about what it meant to be a citizen in our country.  It worked through everything from the pledge of allegiance to how our government works, to encouraging voting and volunteerism and the list goes on.  

It's interesting that when I was taking it we kind of made a joke of it.  Who needs to learn about being a good citizen, isn't that understood?  In 7th or 8th grade when I took the class I spent most of the time in the back of the room playing with Donna Hennings braids.  Pretty much none of us took the class very seriously.  

Today I wonder if people can seriously consider what it means to be a citizen and what we want our country to be and become.  If the polls are right, there is a lot of unhappiness about what is happening in our country.  We have slogans like "Make America Great Again" or "America First".  We also have a history of the Vietnam War and a country in protest along with twenty years occupying Afghanistan and the controversial  Iraq War.  Today some people think we're not at war with Iran but it looks like we are if you ask me.  President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about the dangers of the military industrial complex.

Growing up I learned that after winning WWII we set up the Marshall Plan and began to rebuild Europe.  How's that for going the extra mile and I am more than proud that we did.  When I went to Vietnam I found the Vietnamese to be very warm and welcoming to us Americans and I visited the Hanoi Hilton where John McCain was held captive for five years.  I also saw the monument they erected for him where he landed after parachuting out of his plane.  

We went after AIDS in Africa and we have always been the first to come in to rescue whatever nation or people needed help.  It wasn't putting America first, it was a good strewardship of our resources to help other places that were hungry and war torn. To me America has always been great, but not without flaws and not without mistakes - some huge.  All of this has not been easy as John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and scores of others who go nameless have tried to right the wrongs in our society.  

I remember very little from my Civics class but I do remember it was an attempt to create an attitude in which we were to love and serve our country.  I also remember the idea of a "public servant".  Which meant that who we elect were to serve the people and to make every attempt to make our lives better.  This November don't miss an opportunity to vote and interrupt your life now and then to pray that justice and generosity of spirit will  prevail.  May the greatness of America show in how we live, how we serve and how we try to help others no matter what their nationality, creed or color.  When we do that we're making America great.
                                                                                                           MEH