Or throw a temper-tantrum

Lately there has been a lot of movement towards protesting. Or perhaps I could say throwing temper tantrums. 

As a child I was an expert at screaming fits. My mother says the first two years of my life were spent crying. Sometimes we blame my ears, my illnesses, or my older sisters. But I use to tell my children they would have to find a better way to get their way because I was an expert at temper tantrums. I told them my mother couldn’t take me to the store until I was eight years old because by then I had finally been able to use words rather than fists and feet on the floor! 

I find no real benefit to protests. To me it is just an adult temper tantrum. 

When I first saw the bow of the knee during the national anthem, my mind began reeling with all these implications. First of all I thought that bowing the knee was a sub-servient statement. 

This made me so confused. To me  the thinking behind those who did this was completely backwards. History tells us that the reason  our founders came to this country was that they no longer wanted to “bow to the  king” of England. Our country would be an equality-standing as equals kind of place. 

So that is why our national anthem played at so many millions of events has an etiquette of standing. If we take to the knee is that not a return to servitude?

History can never be erased. 

The past is there loud and clear. Or it is silenced by the voices of the present and those future generations are not allowed to learn from it. The past is a grand teacher of so many lessons. 

The first protest to our anthem seemed completely in-appropriate to me. It is a protest against the past. Who has ever been able to bring back the dead?  Can we ever tell someone in our past not to birth us?

This whole protest thing is so confusing. Even the fight to remove statues of dignitaries. I am reminded of the Equptian leaders erasing all monuments to the previous tier and replacing them with the present head of state. Thoughts of dictatorships and portrait murals come to focus. Memories of falling debris as the Iraqi citizens toppled their dictators regime. 

I thought I lived in the United States of America-not the Middle East. 

If we bow the knee and choose to take on servitude once again is this  really a free country or is it a country of slaves? We have the freedom to choose our present and our future. The past however is not ours to choose at all-EVER!

Chose to stand as equals. We do not serve the whims of a king, a president, or an inadequate congress. We can vote, we can petition, we can make phone calls, we can protest, demonstrate and even riot. But there are always consequences for our actions. 

Consequences on a large scale that future generations may chose to scream so loudly against that the past will be forgotten. 

I chose not to forget the past. To remember that others made decisions that in their time seemed appropriate. And today I will chose to stand against the childish protests of our generation. I will continue to live my life in peaceful protest against the whims and winds of the masses to rewrite our rich history. Like it or not the past has its mistakes. I will not mistake the in-obvious bow-of-the-knee as a peaceful demonstration of ones opinion. Do something else that speaks louder. Call your representative. Write a letter copy it a thousand times and send it to all the newspapers, or social websites, or start a petition.  Or maybe read a book to a little child?

Do something! Don’t bow on an act of servitude. Those days are past!

When I bow the knee it will be an act of prayer. I will not bow to the statues, monuments, or idols of this day. Like Daniel in response to the King, I will continue to pray to my Creatir. Asking the King of my heart what appropriate responses are to the behaviors of this present age. 

And I will invite others to find answers to the questions of this generation. Our decisions today will effect the future. And someday “when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord” I wii bow in humble adoration, thankful that my mistakes are erased in the cross of Christ. 

Maybe this whole protest thing is a little too big for my country mind to grasp. But I have learned there are a better ways to get what I want than by falling to the floor and kicking with all my might and screaming  obnoxiously. Sometimes a plate of cookies is all it takes. 

Maybe I should be the cookie lady at the next local demonstration.