If Only We Could Remember… Kindergarten?

Do any of us remember what we were taught in kindergarten? Young parents at least know what their children are being taught now. If they’re paying attention, that is.

Maybe some of it is more rattling than reassuring… ?!

Fifteen years ago, Robert Fulghum turned a simple concept into a national bestseller: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Here’s just some of Robert’s childhood wisdom…

1. Share everything. 2. Play fair. 3. Don’t hit people. 4. Put things back where you found them. 5: Clean up your own mess. AND When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. AND Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.   https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2399046-all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten?page=1

If only national leaders we hear so often these days — on both sides of the aisle — took these to heart!

Political rhetoric has reached a level of ferocity in the last few days. Ferocity I have not heard before. Ferocity that points to the heart of why these Wednesday blogs about Kingdom PERSECUTION matter.

Because what kind of rhetoric (and the responses it provokes) lead people from polite disagreement to empassioned persecution of those with whom we disagree? How does it start? Where does it end?

On Sunday, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) issued this call to her supporters via MSNBC: “If you see anybody from [President Trump’s] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”   https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/maxine-waters-trump-protests-wheres-the-line/

She was further quoted as saying, “The people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said “No one should call for the harassment of political opponents. That’s not right. That’s not American.”  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for “unity from sea to shining sea.”

But is anyone listening? Waters herself remains defiant. Unapologetic. Claiming she never called for anyone to be harmed.  https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-response/index.html

But words matter… don’t they? And what does the verb “harass” mean? To subject [someone] to aggressive pressure or intimidation… disturb persistently, torment, bother continually, pester, persecute.”   

https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=C211US105D20151216&p=definition+of+harass

Actor Peter Fonda tweeted for Trump’s 12-year-old son, Baron, to be “ripped from his mother and put in a cage with pedophiles.” And that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen be put in a cage and whipped.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/22/peter-fondas-unhinged-tweets-spark-debate-about-crude-attacks.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=Yahoo+Search+Results

Really?

We need to remember much more than the lessons of kindergarten. Like the words of our founding father, John Adams:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2007/09/the_judeochristian_values_of_a.html

To be continued on Friday…

But meanwhile, what say you?

Please post your comments below.

Diana Furr, a.k.a., Abba’s Girl

This blog may have raised questions for you. If you’d like to connect, engage, or get further help from me, you can…  EMAIL me at [email protected]; CALL me at 863-446-1660; or request a complimentary initial CONSULT with me at https://calendly.com/diana-furr.

2 Comments

  • Pam Jordan Wolf says:

    So very well written and reported Diana. It is high-time for civility and love to return to the discourse of this nation! This made me think of an email a friend sent me last week – with a 4 word prayer that just might change everything, if only we would each take the personal responsibility to embrace it…to humble ourselves and actually live it!

    Read the prayer here: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/06/23/four-word-prayer-that-could-change-everything-in-your-life.html

    • Diana Furr says:

      Amen and Amen, Pam. I love the 4-word prayer! I won’t spoil the mystery… hoping others will follow the link to find it. As for your reference to personal responsibility… Have people come to believe this is an oximoron? It isn’t. It’s a vital part of the Rx we need to ingest, to bring healing to our lives and our nation. It’s prescribed by The Great Physician so often in His Word. Like in 2 Peter 1:3-11… to name just one!

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