Thank you Mike McCombs – yet again!
I was so relieved at seeing “Manning’s column disgusting” from Tom Johnson in the last issue.
Thank you so much for printing it. I cannot fathom why we have someone like Manning who is so negative and divisive in our hometown paper.
Shouldn’t we have someone who is better for the people? Keeping prayer out of the schools?
A Christian who doesn’t want organized prayer in schools because the people wanting this care less about being a Christian than getting their way? What Kool-Aid did Manning grow up on?
Simply – when you take God out of the schools … who does that open the door for? Yes, you guessed it – the Devil himself. Keep prayer in the schools and families teach your children right from wrong and have Jesus and God in your home.
– Jeanette Carlson, Lady’s Island
Our Slough of Despond
When John Bunyan captured that phrase in Pilgrims Progress, he so very could have been speaking of today. Little of what we see or read in the news is good; faith in our fundamental institutions has been severely shaken, and many Americans express outright dismay for the future.
We Lurch – from one political party to its polar opposite, from one cause to another, from espousing one creed to having no creed at all.
We Stumble – from civil war to attempted coup, from one conflicting policy to another, from one corruptive narrative to the next, from denial to acceptance of acts of violence deemed horrific in any civilized society.
We Bumble – from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan to immigration onto our shores and to dealing with whatever foreign flashpoint is next.
And yet, what Alexis de Tocqueville called in 1831 the “Great Experiment” in democracy is still here. We have indeed lurched, stumbled and bumbled our way along, but the fact remains that this nation is still the one representing the greatest opportunities to the most people in the world. We represent a chance for betterment, for achievement, for openness and expression and for helping shape the world order towards democracy beyond the dreams of most of the globe’s peoples.
What de Tocqueville saw on his tour of the states in 1831 was the metamorphosis of the words of the Founders into pragmatic realities. That, despite all our problems, continues to this day. As we confront the endless barrage of issues and troubles, let us keep the big picture in mind. We are still the United Sates of America and we are still, at core, the embodiment of the Founders’ ideals.
– Philip D. Saracin, St. Helena Island
