Over the past year the White House has ordered the removal f references to slavery and certain persons be removed from national parks and federal historical sites in what it calls removing ideologically based history. Slavery was a scourge on our history. We imported millions of persons, enslaved them, and thought nothing of its consequences on the soul of our Nation.
It was the primary cause of the Civil War and no amount of rewriting history to satisfy a group of benighted idiots can change that. Yes, we should celebrate what was good but we cannot deny what was a terrible evil, no matter what the White House says. Over the centuries autocrats and tyrants have tried to rewrite history to prove their point. The war in Bosnia and the current invasion of Ukraine are examples of rewriting history.
Our founders were, like us, flawed, for as Scripture tells us, no one is perfect. Now a Federal Judge has stopped the removal of the reference to Washington’s nine slaves in Philadelphia. It’s not only sad but frightening when we refuse to acknowledge our history, for, as Georges Santayana wrote, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Prayer for the Day
As we strive to be your disciples, we are but imperfect, O God,
And remain so in our present as we have been in the past;
Remembering our failures to live your call to love one another,
We know that to be truly forgiven means to change our ways.
Hold us fast to memory and our history so we live as we ought,
Not denying our past but moving boldly into the future.
In the name of the One who accompanies us in our journey,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
And at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts, Trump officials ordered the National Park Service to stop showing films about the women and immigrants who once toiled in the city’s textile mills.
Mattaqthias Schwartz, The New York Times
The Secretary of the Interior has asked people to report signs in the Parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” This grows out of Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which seeks to erase “negative” stories from public view.
From “Save our Signs,” to preserve te full story of America
Have mercy, O God, according to your steadfast love;
According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Psalm 51: 1-3, a psalm of David after having Uriah killed because he
Committed adultery with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife.