What if Thomas Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy could come together today to speak to America with one voice? Here’s what they might say, with content that I have amended and revised for relevancy to our contemporary issues:

These are the times that try our souls. Our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all Americans should be united in their love for this country.

This nation, under God, shall need a new birth of a government by the people and for the people that shall honor the legacies of those who have given their lives so that we can be free from tyranny and persecution.

So many of our brave and the proud have paid the ultimate sacrifice. We must never forget that their blood that lies beneath the sacred soil we walk upon has preserved the United States as one country, one flag, one people to carry their torch toward generations yet to be born.

We must understand that Americans of all colors, creeds, cultures and persuasions should not be judged by appearance or by lifestyle, but by the content of their character. We must cleanse our hearts from the poisons of prejudice. The evolution of the American people is bringing together interracial and intercultural relationships in unstoppable and natural unions driven by an unconditional love that holds an impenetrable shield to ward off hate and bias.

One day, there will be no document that asks if we are white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Jew or Gentile. One day discrimination will disappear. We will simply be called Americans because the blood of every ethnicity and every race of every single citizen will be running through all of our veins.

If we are to survive as a nation, this must be our hope, a hope of a collective harmony that will transform the jangling discords of our country into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood and sisterhood. We have this hope that we will be able to work together, pray together, struggle together and sing out a united chorus of joyful glee to the valleys and to the mountains of this sweet land of liberty.

We must come together to rebuild what has been broken. We must remain united in spirit as a means to liberate the capacity of all Americans to utilize their individual talents and to pursue their personal dreams.

Let us incorporate the advances of technology, but stand guard to ensure that our digital devices do not replace the sanctity of looking into each other with our eyes and listening to each other with our ears. Let us not lower our heads to look down at flashing screens, but raise our chins to look up into the faces of our neighbors, our parents, our children and our elderly citizens. It is imperative that we do not surrender our humanness to the wires of artificial intelligence.

We must not oblige ourselves to the political rhetoric from those who seek authority over us. We must teach our children to think for themselves and not to blindly follow the propaganda of those who have status or political power.

We must trust ourselves to listen to the voice inside our souls, for that is where our Creator has placed our truth. This is the voice we hear in solitude, but that voice grows faint and inaudible once we enter the worlds of social and visual media. Beware the powers of persuasion that intend to strip our individualities and clone us into sheep to be silenced by the staff of the herder.

We must question every answer and challenge every demand that we should follow the proclaimed leader, for what’s at risk is losing the freedom our ancestors have preserved, the freedom to live how we want and never to fall prey to the hunger of false gods and purveyors of corruption.

Let us respect the living universe, created by the same life force that borne us into this world. Let us share our faith inside the church built by the Creator that holds the forests, the lakes, the oceans and far beyond the horizon.

Let us look up to the stars to remind us what an extraordinary privilege it is to be alive upon a planet that has existed for billions of years.

Let our children build castles in the air but then put their noses to the grindstone to build foundations underneath them. For nothing brings more reward than the fruits of our labor.

Yet, let us not work to the exhaustion of hours, for as wives and husbands, as mothers and fathers, we owe quality time to be spent with our children so that they might grow with beating hearts that feel compassion and empathy for each one of their fellow Americans.

We come from different places to live in the greatest country in the world. The benefits we receive must keep us humble and grateful with an expectation that we not just take, but that we give. To be one united country and to live as one united people are gifts we can exchange with each other, that in return will deliver the promise that giving back to our neighborhoods and to our communities will bring us together with the prideful sense we belong to national family.

Ask not what our country can do for us. Ask what we can do for our country. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us to a safe and sane future.

This is the America we all should want, the America we all should have, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com