Essentials in Civil Government: the preface

For the next who-knows-how-many days I will be posting an excerpt and quote from an old book I found in a musty box sitting on the warehouse floor of an antique shop. When I first opened the cover, something about the first page struck me as being totally obsolete and at the same time, so intriguing. Underneath the title, Essentials in Civil Government, were the words 'a text-book for use in schools'. Something about those words struck an odd chord in me, and I read on.
The book starts out with a preface that I believe to be amazing. This is a text-book first written in 1908. I wish the text-books of today were written with the same intent and purpose. (For legal purposes the book is no longer under copyright law and may be found on google books for reading.) Here is the opening paragraph:
"Of the whole number of pupils who can study Civil Government with profit more than nine-tenths are in the upper classes of the grammar schools and in the lower classes of the high schools. In these classes there are nearly two million young people who can be led into a just appreciation of the rights and duties of citizens. Here is a rich field for the sower, an opportunity vast in its proportions for improving the quality of American citizenship and elevating the American electorate."
The most important part of this paragraph being the last statement: "an opportunity vast in its proportions for improving the quality of American citizenship and elevating the American electorate."
Now we water down the quality, disparage the rights of citizenship, and tear down the American electorate. All out of a "sense of fairness and equality and preservation."
The best part comes at the end of the second paragraph, however, which says: "The primary aim of the book is to establish political ideals and to indoctrinate in notions of civic morality." Civic morality? The book just gets better.
I do want to note that on some subjects it is outdated, such as a woman's right to vote, though it never suggests that it would be wrong, just states the facts. By S. E. Foreman, PhD, it is one of the best two dollars I've ever spent.

--MovingGirl

wow.  last time anything was written in here was July.  i miss a lot of things.  writing is one of them.  and i've been searching for a place to dump my "cerebral vomit" and i completely forgot about this blog.

so this is more for me than for anyone else.

i'm realizing a lot.  i'm selfish.  a lot more selfish than i thought.  i always thought i was a generous and giving and selfless person.  so i'm prideful too.  i'm being humbled.  and as i'm writing this i'm remembering a time i asked for this.  i literally asked for it.  and gosh it hurts.  and right now i'm struggling with my faith.  don't read that wrong.  that really means i don't have enough for what it seems God my have planned for michael and for me.  i get the idea telling lillian lauwers where i'm at would bring me some encouragement.  her husband had some similar experiences i think.  i need reassurance.  i'm scared out of my wits.  i'm broken and hurting.  i'm supposed to go through this forgiveness thing and i don't even really have the motivation or the emotional energy.  i'm scared to open up those wounds i've tried to ignore for so long.  and right now i just don't feel like God is near me.  i feel lonely.  lonely and scared are the two words to sum up everything i feel.  i know in my head he's there.  i want intimacy with him.  i'm so jealous of those around me who hear him so so clearly that they have no doubt and i have to strain to hear a little whisper that i'm not even sure if it's God or my own thoughts.  i'm exhausted.

i don't know what God has planned for michael and i but i'm scared about it, especially where i'm at not feeling close to God.

i suppose that's it for now.

i hope this blog picks back up, because it was beautiful.

Tornadoes

Midwest got hit hard and many places are still under tornado watches, some with flash floods too...

If anyone has a few extra minutes to send up prayers regarding the destruction and pain resulting, please do so. I'm a bit worried because the words going out were that it was only going to get worse (after the Alabama tornadoes). I pray for mercy and grace in this time.

Pray with me.

--MovingGirl