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Monday, December 1, 2014

Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?

   Any time someone wants to point out the "obvious" they sometimes make a reference to an old riddle that says, "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb" ?   The answer is obvious!  Grant of course!   Some times in life things you take for granted for so long all of a sudden changes and you see something you should have seen a long time ago.  The reason you didn't see it before was because it was too obvious.  It was hidden in plain sight.

    Take for example, the Statue of Liberty. 

    We have all seen the iconic pictures of her standing in the
New York harbor beckoning newcomers to her.  I, like many, always saw her as a symbol of America and her famous poem engraved on her base was a call of immigrants to our shores.  Then last week as I was contemplating this poem (in regards to the Presidents immigration executive order to ignore congressional law) I suddenly realized how wrong I was was.  Like the iconic "Grant's Tomb" riddle the Statue of Liberty is NOT the Statue of America.  She does not represent the United States, but instead she embodies an ideal. A concept if you may.   Her poem is not meant to be a dinner bell to all the world's poor to come to THIS land.  In fact, it would be physically impossible for the United States to assimilate the entire world's poor here in this one small country.  Instead, her call is a CHALLENGE to all the other countries in the world to release their tired poor and their huddled masses to her, LIBERTY.  Her words echo the demands of Moses to Pharaoh some 4000 years ago when he said : "Let my people go!".   She tells them to forget their "storied pomp" as it has not worked and to leave it all behind.   She tells them to try freedom instead.  Her resources and borders are boundless and she will accept any all who come to her shores "yearning to be free"

Given then this insight, now read the famous poem attributed to her with liberty replaced for the statues pronouns (original words in parenthesis)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and liberty is its (her) name
Mother of Exiles. From liberty's (her) beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; Liberty's (her) mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries liberty (she)
With silent lips. "Give liberty to (me) your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to liberty (me),
Liberty (I) lift its (my) lamp beside the golden door!"

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