I recently was asked to write an historic play to teach American history and to be used in the public school system. I questioned how it should be written, since so many of the stories referenced God and since our country was largely begun as a place where everyone had freedom to worship as they pleased. I was told to write it as my heart led me. Since I am a Christian, it naturally led me to tell it as it happened. These stories can't be improved upon. They are fantastic!
Our founding fathers prayed for guidance when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Our Nation's capital is filled with references to this belief, on buildings, in documents, and in historical accounts. A reliance on Divine Providence is what made America into a great nation. How else could they have written a Constitution that could see so far into the future and still be relevant 235 years later? How else could miraculous events have happened? The hand of God is evident in the majority of the stories of America's early years. Many of these stories were included in the history books years ago, but now are being forgotten. Unless we tell them, our children won't know what a great Nation we come from.
Now, things are changing at so great a pace, it's alarming. And these changes threaten to eliminate all that America stands for. I was rather proud of my first play. I learned a lot about our Country. As I discussed with a friend, we both remember having to memorize dates to pass the history test and missed the wonderful stories, so going back to read the stories and not having to think about the dates was amazing.
If you have read 1776 by David McCullough, you know some of these stories, though there are many before and after this time.
When I presented the play, they liked it. But they cautioned me that with so many references to God, it would never make it into the school system. I was disheartened, but I'm praying that God will show me the way to get the point across. Even without the mention of God's name, the events are downright miraculous and can't be explained any other way. God was with Godly men and women who were willing to risk it all, even their lives, to make a better place to live.
Our laws dictate that we dilute our history down to something boring and unrecognizeable. The greatness of our founding fathers is being left behind in the telling of our history. I can't help but think that children would be so excited by the real events and fall asleep in class to the watered down ones.
