What could The Wordy Shipmate have to do with America today: Part 2

Following from where we left off, this gets very emotional. On September 11th, 2001, the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists and the Twin Towers fell. This was the most significant tragedy in my life. Sarah Vowell also reflects on what she dealt with. She talks about what she would see and what she actually did. "When the local TV news announced that rescue workers sorting through the rubble in search of survivors were in need of toothpaste, half my block, having heard that there was finally something we could actually do besides worry and grieve, had already cleaned out the most popular name brands at the corner deli..." (pg. 52). Everyone during that tragedy was helping everyone else in their time of need. If the Puritans could have seen this they would of been proud. This is what I think the Puritans would be like, helping eachother out when necessary. This is what John Winthrop strived for with his speech A Model of Christian Charity. He told all of the puritans that were going to be in his community to help one another, and treat eachother with love and respect.

The next part in this blog has help from a man named Mario Cuomo. He speaks to Ronald Reagan, telling him to not look only for the city on a hill, but in the citites that aren't on that hill. "He points out that the country is in "the worst recession since 1932," and that the two-hundred-billion-dollar federal budget deficit is the "largest in the history of the universe." He blurts, "We give money to Latin American governments that murder nuns, and then we lie about it." He channels Winthrop and defines a proper government as "the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings." (pg. 62). Wow, that was a long quote, but I believe that it is all relevant. What Cuomo describes America of doing was what the Puritans didn't want happening. He then went on to say excatly what Winthrop said with his speech. He talks about the "body" when he mentions the whole. The begining half was when all the body parts weren't working together, instead of the ending half. Which would you want? If we kept our body parts from working together, where would we end up? We should try instead to bond together, and work as a whole. This way we can be less guilty about our actions.

Tune in next time for, What could The Wordy Shipmates have to do with America today: Part 3,

The conclusion to a three part blog