On May 6, 2015 I posted a notice that I would no longer be posting on this site – that was then and this is now.

Recently I have seen posts stating that “Black Lives Matter” – I completely agree with this statement, but I also believe that it is too limiting. Others have stated that “All Lives Matter” – again, I completely agree, but still believe that this statement is also too limiting. I prefer “ALL LIFE MATTERS!”

To that end the posts that follow will be dedicated to the loving memory of my grandparents – George Warren Wattenbarger and Edna LaVaughn Sargent Wattenbarger. In a following post I will explain the reason for this and why it is so important for me to dedicate my words to their memory.

I realized that I had to resume writing around the weekend that included July 4, 2015. As usual there were numerous posts that included the following familiar words from the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

NOTE: I have intentionally decided not to change the use of exclusive language utilized by the writers of the document.

These words follow the opening paragraphs of the document:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

This is followed by a list of twenty-eight “Facts” – the next to the last one reads as follows (highlighting is mine):

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In my reading, this can only mean that “the merciless Indian Savages” are not included among those that are human, those who are “created equal,” or those who have the “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” – and they are also not among those who are able to be part of “the consent of the governed.”

Have the lives of the Native American peoples ever mattered?

Are they human?

Are they part of creation?

239 years later these questions remain valid. If all lives matter, or if all life matters where is the outrage on behalf of the Native American peoples? Sadly the silence is palpable!!

God, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

The quotations from the Declaration of Independence were taken from the following website: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html