Welcome to the 1800s

I had three references to Gettysburg in my day today. So I figured I would go with the prompting and see where my brain took me.

It seems that Honest Abe makes two points; first about words and actions, and then about dedication to a cause.

Busted! I found the connection.

I was just speaking with a friend about how I try to hold myself to a higher standard when I find myself the most frustrated. And the thing is that it is easy for me to talk about how I want to be good, loving, wise, honest, truthful and free… but I want to raise that standard when it is most difficult.

But here is my real thing. So many people have gone before me in this world. People have dedicated their lives to a multitude of causes and we all know that there are those that matter and those that don’t.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

                                          --Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Here are my two questions for you…

What are you dedicating your life to?

How can you truly honor those who have fought the battle before you?