John Adams – The Alien and Sedition Acts

I Love Pop, but I really, really Love Mimi

One of the greatest gifts God gives people is grandkids. The world doesn’t look as hopeless when your eyes gaze on these young descendants. Their shadows block out the glare of all that is bad in the world. Your heart beats differently around them, and that’s a good thing.

I have been very fortunate to have three of those angels fly into my life. Two of them call me “Pop.” I’m working on the third one. You see, he’s just nine months old and he thinks learning words like “Ma-Ma” and “Da-Da” are more important than my title. I have no doubt he will get there though.

I believe all three of those grandkids love being with Pop. Pop is fun. Pop is nothing but a big kid disguised in an adult outfit. If you want to be chased, tickled, or beaten in basketball, Pop’s your man. Sure, he requires a little hug now and then, but most of the time he is just fun to be around. Don’t tell the grandkids, but Pop usually sleeps really well after a day of playing with them.

Mimi, my wife, on the other hand, is what I would call fun plus. Mimi isn’t going to jump up and down with them, but she has an amazing knack of finding active games that don’t usually require a raised heartbeat like Pop’s games. When the heart racing games come around, she becomes more a cheerleader and a photographer with her cell phone.

Mimi is more likely to suffer defeat in checkers or a board game than Pop, so the grandkids usually turn in that direction, instead of Pop’s, when they feel like celebrating victory. Mimi is also much more likely to remember birthdays, great grades, and special events than Pop. She reminds Pop of their occurrence so he can join in the celebration, but if it were left to Pop, to remember it would probably just pass as just another day.

Mimi also makes sure there are just the right snacks and the bellies are always full when hunger raises its head. Mimi is always on the ready to change a dirty diaper, remove the leftovers from a face, kiss a wounded knee, and wipe away a tear. The sound of love beats from her heart when she hears the giggles every morning the grandkids wake up and hide behind the chair and jump out to scare her in the morning. Strange how she gets scared every morning even though she knows it is coming.

I saw a little plaque once that said that grandparents have a special bond with their grandkids because they have a common enemy. I’m not so sure I would go so far as to say that one of your children is your enemy, but there is a little truth in the statement. For the grandkids, the grandparents are a very safe haven that is going to love them no matter what, and that usually comes with very little of the discipline or arguments that naturally occur with the parent-child relationship. The grandparents, on the other hand, get to see a product of all the hard work and trials of child-rearing transform into a character, a grandchild, whose faults are often hidden from them.

The role of grandparent is a role of love. It’s hard to tell whose beam is brighter, the grandparent or their child. By having a child themselves, your child beams with delight at the joy they have brought their parents. It’s almost like, “I’ve finally done something totally right in my parent’s eyes.” The grandparents also beam with delight, not only by the cuddy gift swaddled in a blanket, but that they were there to see their own children have the opportunity to become great parents, too.

I don’t think you can totally display unconditional love until you have a child. I don’t think you can understand unconditional love until you become a grandparent. When you become a grandparent, those sleepless nights with a sick child, seeming to hear “no” at the end of all your sentences, the silence that sometimes follows an argument, and false “wisdom” your child demands that they possess and you don’t, seem to be replaced with a pride that you have finally raised a child who will be able to handle those heartbreaks when they come their way with their own children.

Sometimes being a grandparent is hard, though. It’s a lot easier to step in and do things for your children, it’s much harder to teach them to do things themselves. After all, if you do it yourself it causes less heartache and less stress for the new parents. But the wise parent knows, to become a wise parent, like life itself, has more to do with being ready to stand up in the hard times more than just witnessing how to handle the hard times.

So as a grandparent, you sometimes have to sit back and offer a kind morsel of wisdom, a hint of experience, and a word of encouragement when your own child suffers the pains of parenthood. Then you just step back and beam with pride for the job you have helped trained them to do. Of course, the smiles and hugs from the grandkids are just icing on the cake.

I’m not sure how our country has gotten into the shape it has gotten in. Maybe this is a phase we have repeated over and over again, with little breaks of getting along with each other thrown in to keep us together. If you really look at the Founding Fathers, or other periods in our history, we always seem to gravitate toward looking for the worse in each other or demanding things go our own way.

It seems like, in most of my life, our country has been divided. I vaguely remember the 60’s. I do remember how much everyone seemed to hate each other. I remember the form of showing that displeasure was often protest and violence.

Vietnam, possibly the most unpopular war in our history, was one of the biggest causes of those protests. Hippies, with their long hair and peace signs, rattled the established culture at the time. Draft dodgers were the villains of the day, like those who take a knee during the playing the of National Anthem are today.

But in that time period, that was not the only protest. Racial tension was hitting one of its peaks, too. African-Americans decided the pace of progress to equality was going way too slow, if it was moving at all. In addition to protest, violence was a tool that was employed. Tear gas was fired, people were beaten, and cities burned.

The gun also became a weapon of choice to use to protest. John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and others would fall from the aim of the bullets of protesters. Small steps toward progress were no longer acceptable. No, real progress was the demand of the day.

I have often wondered how we have gotten to such a point that we can no longer talk to each other if there is a difference of opinion. I hear it said all the time, “I don’t think it has ever been this bad,” and “I don’t know if we will ever be a united kingdom again.” So I decided to try to see what started this mess in the first place.

The Bible is full of stories about rocks. You have Cain being forced from the Garden of Eden and being forced to till the rough soil outside Eden. I imagine that soil was filled with rocks. You have Moses disobeying God by striking the rock and not listening to God’s instructions in how he should do it. Moses was kept from setting his foot in the Promised Land.

Of course you have young, small David picking up a few pebbles and hurling them at the head of the much larger giant, Goliath. David would become a hero. Jesus was also tempted by Satan to turn the stones into bread while He was being tempted in the Wilderness. Jesus also told the crowd, “Whoever is without sin can cast the first stone,” when they were trying to stone the woman caught in adultery. We all know how that one turned out.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have lived, and been a witness to some of the Biblical events. We hear the stories. We villainize the people who don’t do the “Christian” thing. But what would we have done if we were in their shoes? Even if we weren’t in their shoes, would we have stood up to them and told them they were doing wrong? It’s easier to see things when you know how the story ends, but it’s much harder when you are in the middle of it.

This is one of those Bible stories that I sometimes wish I could have been there. It’s not that I wonder what I would have done, though. It’s a story in which the person is one step from the peak of his personal, worldly, self-driven life and you can see God setting him up for the lesson that is not only going to change him, but also change the world around him. It’s almost like the moments before Moses turns the corner and sees the burning bush.

When our country decided to split with England and become our own nation, we had a common cause that we rallied behind. That cause was freedom and we wanted it so badly that everything else came in a distant second. Differences were either overlooked or they weren’t even thought about because the cause of freedom rang so loud that its sound rang loud in people’s heart and all the outside differences got drowned out.

When victory came, the hard work of forming a new nation began. We wanted our nation to be different than any nation that had ever existed. Since there was no How to Form a New, Radically Different Nation for Dummies book at the time, the Founding Fathers had to form groups and committees to discuss ideas on how to form “this more perfect union.”

These Founding Fathers often had very different ideas on how to form “this more perfect union.” Sometimes they totally disagreed with each other, but for the most part, they respected each other enough to listen to the other side. Some would get so angry and express that anger, but in most cases, they never took other’s differences to a personal level. They realized that not everyone agreed with them, but each of them had a right to express what they did believe. That was one of the freedoms they fought so hard for.

Then a very bad word, a word you do not dare to utter today, came into being. That word was “compromise.” The main purpose of compromise was that freedoms should be the overriding factor in determining whether something should be bound to the Constitution or in our laws. So, in order to “form this more perfect union,” compromise, which no one really enjoys doing, became a very strong tool that was used to keep the country, or the country to be, together.

When the country was formed, and we found our first leader, George Washington. We once again found a common cause with which we could rally behind. I’m not exactly sure which of Washington’s shiniest resume items stood out the most, but something caused this devotion. It was very real and it kept us together.

Were we a nation that still had the mindset of our motherland, England? Did the people of that day think of Washington more as a king than they thought of him as a replaceable President like we have in the Presidential elections today? After all, that, a king, was the only type of leader most of the citizens of that time had ever known. Did anyone dare speak a bad word of the king, I mean President?

Or was Washington such a great hero in the war, who led us to our independence, that people felt that they “owed” him their total devotion and respect? After all, Washington stood tall when most wanted to just give up.

We know most people, in that day, feared looking bad in the eyes of George Washington. No one dared to look disloyal to him. Everyone tried to get him on their side. Even when John Adams became President he bowed down to Washington’s demand. When everyone demanded that Washington return to lead the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, Washington stated he would not do it unless Hamilton was given the job of leading the charge with him. Adams despised Hamilton, yet he caved to Washington’s demand.

So here I would stand, in Bible times. If I could choose my spot, I would probably stand about ten yards from our villain. I don’t believe I would be looking at him as a villain, though. In fact, I might have looked at him and seen an early version of me.

The villain was a rising star in the church. He probably won Bible drills, memorized verses, read his Bible, and prayed. He probably had perfect attendance for who know how many weeks in a row at the synagogue. If the church doors were open we was probably there or wishing he could be there. People, important church people, noticed this young man.

Here he stands, just ten yards in front of me. He knows his turn is coming to be a church leader. He wants it so much. If he is a church leader it is going to be so easy to show God how loyal he is to Him. He is going to have such great influence on so many people. He knows his day is coming.

Over to our right, in the distance, is a pile of rocks. They call those rocks, the rocks of judgment. They are a reminder that what the church says is right is right and everyone needs to be reminded that the church is always right.

The morning is a little cool and everyone who gathers, and there is quite a crowd, is wearing a jacket. Since it is outside, they will probably need the jackets to keep warm.

Then, in the other direction, another moving crowd is headed toward the young villain. Men, important men, are getting their backs patted and are being cheered on. I know they are important because their jackets are a lot nicer, and so are the rest of their outfits.

As they get closer to the young villain, they smile at him. They know it won’t be too much longer before he joins their exclusive group. One by one they take off their jackets and hand them to him. They know they can trust him with them. He beams in delight.

They then head toward the pile of rocks and one by one each, in the order of importance, selects a stone that suits his taste. The young villain looks on in envy. He has even eyed the pile of rocks and knows which one he would pick.

The cracks of division started forming under Washington’s administration. Hamilton and Jefferson worked opposite sides behind Washington’s back. Using pseudonyms, they wrote for very partisan newspapers to rally their support. They also tried influencing Washington without him knowing what their real motives were. The bitter rivals both eventually departed Washington’s administration and the cracks of national division could really be seen then.

When Washington decided not to seek a third term, a vacuum of leadership, which focused on unity, was exposed. Partisanship combined with a somewhat unpopular leader, whose talents for keeping people together on a team were nonexistent, resulted in dividing our country even more.

We no longer looked for what kept us together. We saw our differences and we did not like what we saw. We started magnifying not just our differences, but the imperfections in each other. It became personal. Compromise was out of the question, or was definitely not an option to the answer.

So a few months before our beloved George Washington would pass away, President John Adams decided that opposition should have no voice. Maybe he thought the role of President should be more like the role of a king. Maybe he felt no one was listening to him, so he had to put his foot down. Maybe he thought his Federalist advisers were right and their way should be the only way. Whatever the reason, Adams pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Wikipedia describes the Alien and Sedition Acts as, “They made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen (Naturalization Act), allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous (Alien Friends Act of 1798) or who were from a hostile nation (Alien Enemy Act of 1798), and criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government (Sedition Act of 1798).”

Most believed that Adams, and the Federalists, used these Acts to suppress the opposition as opposed to the protecting national security which was their stated purpose. Even Vice President Thomas Jefferson, a fierce Adams opponent, must have feared he would land in jail for his opinions and beliefs if he were to share them.

As the important church leaders head to their appointed places in the semi-circle, they bring in a man who is strangely confident even though it is obvious no one shares his same opinions. His hands are tied behind his back yet he does not seem to struggle to get free.

As Stephen approaches the church leaders, they give him one more chance to recant his devotion to the church rebel, Jesus. Stephen refuses. His opinion needs to be silenced because it is not the same as the church leaders’ opinion.

The main church leader raises his hand and quickly lowers it. One by one the church leaders throw their stones at the body of Stephen. The stones are more than the body of Stephen can take. He takes one final look to the sky and sees it open to heaven. He leaves his bruised body to his accusers and his spirit rises and enters the opening to heaven.

Our young, coat-holding villain, Saul, beams in delight. Now his church’s ideas can be shouted without opposition. He can’t wait for his opportunity to start his mission. He pats each of the leaders on their back as they come back to get their coats. They smile at his enthusiasm. They know it will not be long before he joins them.

When you are a parent, and your kids get a little older, and sometimes become a real pain in the neck, it’s hard to believe better days are coming. When a nation seems like all it’s doing is turning on each other, it’s hard to believe better days are coming. When a Godly man gets slandered and the world seems to rejoice, it’s hard to believe better days are coming.

That’s why God made grandkids. That’s why we have Presidents we consider heroes. That’s why bright lights blind people like Saul and transform them into great Christian leaders like Paul.

So when someone tells you they don’t know if their children will ever change, or our nation is beyond repair, or the Christian cause is not worth following, tell them you know better. Tell them that better days are coming.

Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, Like many people around me, I’m very discouraged by our country’s attitude. No one seems like they really care about their neighbors unless they are on their same side. Please open our eyes and help us see what a great country You have given us. Please help us reach out our hands to lift them up before we reach for a club to destroy them. Amen.