It was something I could no longer put off. My eyesight was steadily growing worse. About five years ago, my doctor informed me that I had advancing cataracts in both eyes. It was not a surprise. As a writer, I could tell. I found it harder to read without reading glasses. I needed glasses different from bifocals when using the computer. At night when driving, stop lights began to blur, appearing to have a corona around them. It was harder to see simple street signs. And at night, the stars were no longer bright spots in the heavens, but blobs of faint light. It was time.
This week, I had my first cataract removed and the result is amazing. Just ask anyone who has had this procedure. It is stunning how much brighter your world becomes. Reds are redder, blues are bluer, and greens leap from the forest like a startled deer on the run. Once I saw the trees. Now I see the leaves on the trees.
Cataract surgery is a true gift for those of us who need it. Essentially, the scales have been removed from my eyes so that I can clearly see once again. I needed that surgery. And so too does our nation. It is time to deal with our nation’s blindness.
As the years can dim a person’s eyesight, so too can the passing of time becloud the insight of a nation, its founding, its purpose, and its direction. Consider the state of our national vision today.
In recent years, a destructive movement has sprouted that seeks to change the very nature of our republic. Its momentum is accelerating across society. Some now suggest that we are entering a post-constitutional age where the rules that govern us are no longer a matter of law, but of whim. While the constitution protects free speech, we are told that some forms of speech—things people simply disagree with in the course of debate—are off limits, indeed forbidden. And while that same constitution established that a person is innocent before the law until proven guilty, we are now to believe that guilt must be presumed, and accusers believed even before credible evidence is weighted in the scales of justice. Once it was said justice is blind. In truth, we have become blind to the obvious language and clear workings of our Constitution. Yet our inability to see clearly is manifested elsewhere
The state of the American family structure is in peril. Once families were regarded as a fundamental and vital element in society. And marriage was once an institution where a man and a woman unite in love and, if it be, bring children into the world to nurture in love. That would include raising those children to be responsible citizens who would be educated, industrious, law-abiding, and respectful of the dignity of all people. But today, there are those who dismiss the need for traditional families. This may be the most serious national cataract yet.
It is time to regain our sight. Indeed, our national cataract surgery is overdue. How will that happen?
It will happen once we insist on the election of responsible citizens who are not blind to the importance of the rule of law and the centrality of families as the ultimate civilizing agent in society. It will come when those who govern us—the ones we select—reject the false promises of socialism and increasing federal control over our lives as the best way to preserve our freedom and prosperity. It will come when we insist that those who wield the awesome power of governance in America are reminded that they are the servants of the people and that we the people who elect them are the sovereign. It’s not the reverse.
And sadly, we also have become truly blind when we seem unable to distinguish good character from bad in our candidates for public office. We must look deeper. But to see good character is to know good character, and that is a matter of the eyes of our heart. That requires a surgery only performed when we submit ourselves to the will of our creator God.
It’s time for America to behold the bright colors of constitutional governance, the value of the family structure, and the essentiality of good character, not the dull images of post-constitutionalism, failing family structures, and poor character in our leadership. It is time to remove the cataracts from the eyes of our hearts, embrace virtue, and once again behold the bold colors of the founding vision. And when those brilliant colors are again arrayed around us, we’ll marvel at that wisdom of those who preceded us and embrace their vision as our own.
I can see clearly now. So must our nation.
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