Aaron Got Me Thinking Again ... Back to 1787 ...

In 1787 the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America were NOT a bunch of old guys.  

These guys had four months to come up with a solution to the problems of a nation that was broke, losing status overseas right and left, plagued by self-serving officials, and whose people had lost all faith.  

Four months.  Fifty-five people, of whom only a handful were even in their sixties.  Starting from scratch.  Debating, arguing, compromising on lesser points but NEVER on the principles.  

And getting it right.

1787 was 226 years ago from this year of 2013.  

Not only have we not been able to improve on their efforts, it's beginning to seem as though we've all forgotten that those guys knew what they were talking about.

They gave us an experiment, something never tried before in the history of mankind.  

They didn't just come up with it out of the blue sky, you know.  

Most of them had been doing their homework for years, and I'm not just talking about old Ben here.  

They pooled what they all knew, put it all together, and gifted us with a form of government which, when properly administrated, is the best system ever.  

They didn't just know their history, either.  They knew people.  

If you do YOUR homework you'll find out that they figured certain situations would come up, and included provisions for dealing with them.  Those answers are right there in the Constitution of the United States, if you care to look.  

Anyway, those 55 guys took FOUR MONTHS and came up with a document that turned their troubled fledgling nation right around.

Yes they had Ben, who was 81 at the time, but the rest of them?  

Well.

Fourteen of them (14) were over the age of fifty.  Twenty-three (23) were in their forties.  Fourteen (14) were in their thirties.  Four (4) were only in their twenties.  

Here's a list with their ages:  
It's from TeachingAmericanHistory.org

Age – 50+

---

Hugh Williamson (NC) — (1735 – 1819) — Age: 52
Robert Morris (PA) — (1734 – 1806) — Age: 53
George Read (DE) — (1733 – 1798) — Age: 53
John Blair (VA) — (1732 – 1800) — Age: 55
John Dickinson (DE) — (1732 – 1808) — Age: 55
George Washington (VA) — (1732 – 1799) — Age: 55
Daniel Carroll (MD) — (1730 – 1796) — Age: 57
William Samuel Johnson (CT) — (1727 – 1819) — Age: 59
George Wythe (VA) — (1726 – 1806) — Age: 61
George Mason (VA) — (1725 – 1792) — Age: 62
William Livingston (NJ) — (1723 – 1790) — Age: 63
Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer (MD) — (1723 – 1790) — Age: 64
Roger Sherman (CT) — (1721 – 1793) — Age: 66
Benjamin Franklin (PA) — (1706 – 1790) — Age: 81

Age – 40s

---

Gunning Bedford, Jr. (DE) — (1747 – 1812) — Age: 40
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (SC) — (1746 – 1825) — Age: 41
William C. Houston (NJ) — (1746 – 1788) — Age: 41
James McClurg (VA) — (1746 – 1823) — Age: 41
William Paterson (NJ) — (1745 – 1806) — Age: 41
Richard Bassett (DE) — (1745 – 1815) — Age: 42
Oliver Ellsworth (CT) — (1745 – 1807) — Age: 42
David Brearly (NJ) — (1745 – 1790) — Age: 42
Caleb Strong (MA) — (1745 – 1819) — Age: 42
Pierce Butler (SC) — (1744 – 1822) — Age: 43
William Blount (NC) — (1744 – 1800) — Age: 43
Elbridge Gerry (MA) — (1744 – 1814) — Age: 43
Thomas Mifflin (PA) — (1744 – 1800) — Age: 43
James McHenry (MD) — (1743 – 1816) — Age: 44
James Wilson (PA) — (1742 – 1798) — Age: 45
John Langdon (NH) — (1741 – 1818) — Age: 46
Thomas Fitzsimons (PA) — (1741 – 1811) — Age: 46
Alexander Martin (NC) — (1740 – 1807) — Age: 47
William L. Pierce (GA) — (1740 – 1789) — Age: 47
George Clymer (PA) — (1739 – 1813) — Age: 48
John Rutledge (SC) — (1739 – 1800) — Age: 48
Nathaniel Gorham (MA) — (1738 – 1796) — Age: 49
Robert Yates (NY) — (1738 – 1801) — Age: 49

Age – 30s

---

William R. Davie (NC) — (1756 – 1820) — Age: 30
Alexander Hamilton (NY) — (1757 – 1804) — Age: 30
Nicholas Gilman (NH) — (1755 – 1814) — Age: 32
William Houstoun (GA) — (1755 – 1813) — Age: 32
Rufus King (MA) — (1755 – 1827) — Age: 32
John Lansing, Jr. (NY) — (1754 – 1829) — Age: 32
Abraham Baldwin (GA) — (1754 – 1807) — Age: 33
Edmund J. Randolph (VA) — (1753 – 1813) — Age: 34
Gouverneur Morris (PA) — (1752 – 1816) — Age: 35
Jacob Broom (DE) — (1752 – 1810) — Age: 35
James Madison Jr. (VA) — (1751 – 1836) — Age: 36
Jared Ingersoll (PA) — (1749 – 1822) — Age: 37
William Few (GA) — (1748 – 1828) — Age: 39
Luther Martin (MD) — (1748 – 1826) — Age: 39

Age — 20s

---

Jonathon Dayton (NJ) — (1760 — 1824) — Age: 26
John F. Mercer (MD) — (1759 – 1821) — Age: 28
Richard Dobbs Spaight (NC) — (1758 – 1802) — Age: 29
Charles Pinckney (SC) — (1757 – 1824) — Age: 29

Do we have fifty-five people among us who could spend four months to fix OUR nation?  

For Pete's sake, we already HAVE THE TOOLS that they gave us.  

WITHIN EVERY CHILD

WITHIN EVERY CHILD

IS THE GROWN-UP

THEY WILL BECOME

WITHIN EVERY GROWN-UP

IS THE CHILD

THEY ONCE WERE

Everything Takes Twice As Long To Get Done

When you only have half of your time available to you!

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword

This saying is as old as ink.

Since everyone already knows it to be true, and why it's true, there's no sense in beating a dead horse here.

The pen is also more powerful than the tongue and can be used to cut that tongue right out of the mouth that speaks deceitfully.  

And that, my friend, is why the pen must be used with even greater care than either the tongue or the sword.  

A pen wielded in truth and honesty is probably the most powerful weapon of all.  

A pen wielded in deceit tends to splutter and splotch when faced with one of truth, as a weak sword will shatter when struck by one that is made strong and true.

Just sayin'.

I Ask You:

Does it make any sense to spend money you don't have to be told what you already know about, something that cannot be altered?  

Someday I'm Gonna Learn

Someday I will learn how to sit on my behind and do nothing.  

Really.  

Some people already have it down to a science.

This Land Is MY Land, This Land Is YOUR Land

Having just found and read a series of vignettes I wrote quite some time ago, together with the news I'm getting about people re-opening closed memorials in Washington and National Parks in Utah, made me remember something about one of the incidents of those vignettes that I did not include.  

It has to do with the hunting one.  

We wanted to hunt on public land but the only access was via someone's property.  Everyone told us to forget it, that they would never give us permission to go through.  

Well we went to them and told them that we were going hunting.  

Great!  Where are you going?  

Well, we have some property so we're going to go there.  

Where's it at?  

We explained that it's ours because we're American Citizens and that it's the land blocked by their access, so could they please let us through their land so we could go hunt on OUR OWN land?  

They said let us know how you do, okay?  

The point is that they recognized our right to have access to OUR OWN PROPERTY and didn't quibble about it or try to keep us out.  

Life Without Religion?

I just read a little something on Facebook about people being perfectly happy living without religion in their lives.

The first thought that popped into my head was "Well now, I guess it all depends on how you define 'religion', doesn't it?"

The second thought was "Just because they don't practice YOUR religion doesn't mean they aren't spiritual in the way they choose to live their lives."

It's my opinion that nobody can truly live their lives without God being a part of the whole.

God is the Creator.  God imbues the entire world with a Holy Presence, not?

Yes.

And so, those who don't actively follow any given 'religion' are still living their lives in the presence of God; if they say otherwise, their words are hollow and without meaning - if any say OF them that they are living outside of the presence of God, their words are just as hollow and a betrayal of the very Faith they claim to adhere to.

NONE of us live without God.

Life without organized religion, that's a different story.

A person can easily enough reject organized religion without rejecting God in the least little bit.  Even those who do 'reject' God cannot deny that there IS a God.

An atheist can say, 'There is no God.'
And I would ask that person, 'There is no WHAT?'
 'No God.'
 'Ah, I see.  You realize, don't you, that the very act of denying something is an acknowledgement of its existence?'
'No, it's not.'
'It is.  I could say to those around us, this person standing before me does not exist.
'They would look at me in astonishment because to them you are obviously an existing being.
'Someone would be certain to say to me, "How can you deny what you acknowledge by your own words - this person standing before me - to be real?"
'No matter how many times I say that you do not exist, still you DO exist.'
'That's different.'
'It is the same.  Were an entire nation unaware of your existence, and I were to flood that nation with notices that you do NOT exist, suddenly to them you WOULD exist because they would be aware of you and wonder why I am making such a fuss about denying your existence.  Would you have to go to that nation to prove your existence?  No.  They already believe that you exist, by the very act of my denial.'

Now there's some logic for you.

Faith is not a negotiable concept.

It lives in the souls of mankind.

It cannot be extirpated.

Writing Fiction Can Get to A Person

Actually, the writing part went pretty well for me.  

It's the sketches that are getting to me.  

A couple of them I put off doing until I couldn't put it off any longer - so tonight I HAD to do them.  

Sketching weapons into the hands of the character Sass in my story was one of the hardest things I've had to do and it was AWFUL!  

See, she's a healer in the story, dedicated to - well, to HEALING - all living things.  It's what she does, it's who she IS.  

But her people are attacked and so she must arm herself and go to battle, where she has to use spear and sword.  

Of all the characters in my story, Sass is the one most wounded by the battle, but of course she can't just leave the people who need her afterwards to go off and heal her inside self.

She has to do what she has to do, and she does it well.  

But putting those weapons into her hands, even though it was NECESSARY, still was very hard for me to do.  

I KNOW it's just a character in a work of fiction.  I know that.  And the rough sketches are done now so I can move on to others that still need to be done.  

Here's a helpful hint:

If you are INFJ and doing a writing/sketching project, do the ones you know will be hard for you to do FIRST.  

It doesn't get any easier, putting them off, and you may as well get them out of the way ASAP.  

Just sayin'.