Learning is Painful. The more I learn the more difficulties I detect. The more I see, the more torn and confused I become. Where to start? There are certain types of learning that are pleasant and warm. A new recipe or a gardening tip is representative of pleasant new ‘knowings.” Likewise discovering a new restaurant or encountering a long-lost friend are both feel-good types of learning. Admittedly not all learning is necessarily painful, but there is one particular learning experience that I find profoundly painful. When I come across some new irrefutable knowledge that upsets a basic paradigm or world view of mine, my pain is palpable. It forces me to react one of two ways: to ignore it and blithely go on with life (this approach could be emotionally and psychologically dangerous because I KNOW the truth) or attempt to unravel and rebuild my entire structure of assumptions and beliefs that were anchored to the faulty foundation. Think of it like someone knitting or crocheting (?) an afghan, and when it’s completed, she or he detects that a hitch, a stitch or whatever they’re called was missed early in the process. Oooops! Unravel and begin again.
My most painful paradigm shift began in 2004. My wife and I were living in Downingtown, Pennsylvania….at the far west end of the “Main Line.” We were aggressively working for Pat Toomey’s Senate campaign for the Republican primary versus Arlen Specter, an unreliable opportunist who was enamored with Scottish law. Shortly before the election the polls indicated that Toomey was within three points of the incumbent and closing fast. In swoops Air Force One with President George W. Bush, who with Rick Santorum, the other Senator from Pennsylvania, cheerfully endorsed Specter over the truly conservative Toomey (who now represents the Commonwealth in the Senate). The race closed to two and half points, but the fickle lefty, Specter, prevailed. I had been extremely active with the GOP for more than 4 decades, but I learned a valuable lesson on that fateful day. For most politicians….regardless of labels….party and advantage always trump principles. My world view had been jarringly flipped. My sense of the order of things had been trashed.
Yes, I knew that many politicians were self-serving and followed the expedient path, but “W” and Senator “Pro-Life” were rock-ribbed and resolute…….uh, not really. For them as with most of their colleagues principles were talking points rather than internalized driving forces for action. Principles for them…were nice but not necessary. As the old bromide states: I saw the fork in the road….and took it. My closed view and partisan preferences were now open for scrutiny. My self assessment about what mattered most for me was begun. My analysis of the nation, its vision and its reality, was undertaken. Many of my civic and political assumptions had been proven to be false. The fabric had dropped a stitch and needed to be unraveled and reconstructed….more thoughtfully and more substantially.
Fortunately for me and the significance of my quest I was taking a course in Bible Ministry from Liberty University at the time. It helped to anchor my questions and focus my search for true meaning while ignoring distractions such as “the letter behind a politician’s determines his/her worthiness.” All bets were off for me, and all doors would be opened and explored. Reacquainting myself with the founding, the framing and the discussions that surrounded them was vital. Although I had been a consistent reader of U.S. history, I focused on the Colonial and Revolutionary periods followed by Reconstruction and Early 20th Century analyses. My goal was to understand the building blocks that were crucial for forming, reforming or altering the nation. What ideas or philosophies moved the players in our national drama? I sought to discover their underlying assumptions and resolute principles. During this process I became aware of how dismissively many viewed the “originalist” position. They blared that it was old fashioned, out-of-date and unable to cope with our modern times.
The critics were either too dense to understand or too underhanded to admit that our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were anchored on immovable principles that supersede the ordinary whims of self-styled elite people. My paradigm shift involved an epiphany of awareness that enduring principles are sufficient if people are virtuous and moral. The state (government) in the early days is a reflection of the people. In other words…a moral people yield a moral state, but as the people discard their moral and virtuous principles, the state begins to form in their image. The end result is that the immoral and unprincipled state develops into an entity that is openly hostile to morality and principle while emerging as the master rather than the servant of the people. The state claims to be upright and virtuous, but its self-serving definitions are at odds with the inalienable rights of the people and are contrary to the principles on which the nation was founded.
As my learning and understanding increased, my internal pain was exacerbated because I became increasingly aware of how far my country had drifted (or fallen) from its original standard. My pain is the result of a broken heart.
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