Finding True North

   Finding True North

If you have ever experienced the feelings that come with being lost you know just how strange being lost makes you feel. A whole gamut of emotions swirl around you, fear, doubt, apprehension, as you try to find your way, and nothing feels better than the moment you recognize a familiar place or landmark. It is at the point when you no longer feel lost that you can begin the process of finding your way back home.

We have become lost as a nation. We have lost our way and many Americans right now are feeling the same emotions that come with being lost in the forest and they are looking for a way to get back home. Finding our way back home is not difficult if we follow some of the simple principles of land navigation. A principle of land navigation is that you must have at least one known point in order to find a destination. The known point can be either where you are, where you are going or direction. In land navigation there is one certainty that never changes and that is direction. Finding direction on the ground requires finding True North. True North is north as it actually exists on earth. It never changes and knowing it guarantees we will find our way home. Once you find True North you then need to have a map so you can orient it to True North. We used to do this all the time when maps were used instead of GPS Systems to find our way. I can still remember when drivers would unfold their maps and turn it every which way until it was properly oriented then they could followed the map to get to their destination.

So the first step in finding our way as a nation is to recapture our True North. True North for the American is the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is the True North our founders charted for our country, it doesn’t change. Once they chose our nations direction they then created the map called the US Constitution, so we could never get lost as so many other civilizations have done over the course of history. If we are ever to find our way again as a nation we must first find and follow our True North.