i am walking through a crowd and there are beautiful people. i notice them and so do the others. noone notices me. i am running in a marathon and i am not winning, neither are the others. some do not finish. only one wins, the fastest. the rest lose, the slower. i am at a concert. the band is very good. the singer's voice is pure passion, smooth as glass. we sing along, badly, off key, voices cracking, words all wrong.

all men are not created equal.

i can not have a child, i am a man. i cannot cook, people vomit when i do. i cannot slam a basket ball from the free throw line, mj can. i am limited by my body, the only one i've got. i can push it to it's limits, but that is not very far. there are many concepts i cannot wrap my mind around. my world is flat. i will never ride a rocket into space. my eyesight is very poor. i have an overbite and some cavities. i get nervous sometimes. i am often lazy. i was born to my parents in their country on that day, not to your parents, in another country, some other time.

all men are not created equal.

the declaration of independence says:

"we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." seven years earlier the massachusettes constitution had said "all men were born free and equal". wrong and wrong.

all men are not created equal nor are all men born free. but we should all be free and we should all be treated as equal under the law. but what our Creator has given us, in addition to our rights, is individuality. distinction from all others in differing degrees. to believe i am equal to others, and then to fail where they prosper, breeds contempt and disappointment. then the social alarmists cry unfair. they fan the flames of class struggles. they demonize the accomplished and then legislate to level the playing fields. but it is the rugged individualism, the aspiring to greatness that has always bettered society. especially when it is done in the humility of those who know from where their giftings come. but when you take God out of the equation. when men are merely the sum of their biology, then there is no humility. there is only men creating men in their own image. but men are created in God's image, the multiple facets of one perfect gem. illuminated from it's own internal light. revealing to all creation the splintering infinite wonder of a Creator who adores his creation. A father so very fond of all his children. the beautiful and the the plain. the fast and slow. those with angel voices. those who croak out melodies like frogs. He loves us all, for who we are, independent of what we can do. in spite of what we can't do.

all men are not created equal. they are more than equal. they are different, and loved.

and the Truth will make you free.