God, a 7.9 earthquake…. and the fall of the American empire

….as I walked across the parking lot I first noticed that something was wrong when I glanced over at my truck and it looked like it was a boat rolling up and down on the waves, then came a weird feeling in my body leading me to think I was having a heart attack which at that moment would be very apropos.

I have often thought about the saying that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” in reference to the state of our nation today. I know what you are thinking but no for the first time in a long while I am not talking about politics but about; the almost total lack of responsibility people have for their actions, the loss of respect we have for those in authority and the way many people now see this country.

I also know it sounds trite but if one actually gives it a good bit of thought there were many things ‘from the old days’ that were better than they are now. Take for instance the bulwark of our society the family, and please I am not saying women belong only in the home, however for decades women ruled when it came to anything in the home…. no matter what any man says.

Today with more than 70% of married women working and over 50% of those have children one can expect parents to have problems nurturing the traits of respect and responsibility fully in their children. It is far easier after a long day at work to just let their children ‘go play’ unsupervised as long as they are ‘quiet’ and do not disturb their parents. It should be noted that the ‘go out and play’ of today bares no resemblance to the ‘good old days’ when our mother would tell us to go out and play and be sure to be home for dinner or your father will not be happy. Today’s go and play for the most part consists of our children burying their heads in a smart phone, tablet or computer and either LOLing with their BFF’s or staring blindly at a monitor while killing as many people as they can, but of course we know from the ‘experts’ that this behavior does not promote the desensitization towards violence…. yeah right. Just like it is far easier for that parent to ignore any acts of disrespect their children may do instead of confronting them and showing them their actions have consequences like punishment for that disrespect.

But I digress because part of the focus of this posting was the sentence, “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and if you are older you learned in school about the rise and fall of the Roman empire, where you could travel the known earth and never fear of being attacked because you were a Roman and any attack on its people would bring immediate and devastating punishment. Rome ruled the known world until it became so decadent and immoral with Romans concerning themselves with only their own pleasure and without respect for their fellow Romans that the rest of the world took notice and the mighty Roman empire became a thing of the past.

That should sound familiar because for a time America was the shining light of freedom every other nation looked to for help when needed and its citizens were rarely mistreated anywhere on the planet. Then came the gradual erosion of the truth in what our leaders said and our allies could no longer depend 100% on our support plus our enemies saw that we were becoming week and unless we had an overwhelming force, (like in Iraqi), would not engage in any conflicts.

Finely add to that the fact that here at home the concept of family with a mother and father teaching their children respect, responsibility and that actions have consequences has now been relegated to little or no respect for authority and that their actions even to the point of rioting, burning and looting have no consequence… as witnessed by the police in Washington state standing by as rioters destroyed many small business almost on a daily basis, and if you step back you can see a repeat of the decline of the Roman empire right here in America.

….so to finish the incident in the opening paragraph it is a good example of the consequences of not paying attention to things that happen in the past. Moving to my remote home in Northern Alaska I traveled as little as I could to Fairbanks the closest town, a 130 mile round trip, and because of this for a couple decades I failed to attend church on a regular basis. However when the Army was sending me to the Seattle VA hospital for some testing on my heart I thought it was time to return to church… just in case.

At 1:12 Alaska time on November 3, 2002

as I walked across

the church’s parking lot

after confession

The largest recorded earthquake

in 37 years

made my heart race

and

turned my legs to rubber

Only after

the earth stopped moving

did I think maybe

just maybe

this earthquake

was a

reminder

to not delay my

next visit to

church.