Yesterday, Nov 22, 2016, e pluribus unum started whispering in my head…This morning, the words were clamoring for attention so of course I googled! Sure enough, e pluribus unum used to be our country’s traditional – though unofficial – motto from 1776 until 1956 when Congress passed an act adopting “In God We Trust” as the official motto.

Latin for “Out of many, one”, e pluribus unum once suggested that a single nation was emerging out of many states or colonies. “In recent years its meaning has come to suggest that out of many peoples, races, religions, languages, and ancestries has emerged a single people and nation – illustrating the concept of the melting pot.”  ( Wikipedia )

The promise of our country and the possibilities of our pluralistic culture represent the new world order in ways unimagined when the “new world” was first discovered.

As Americans, our subconscious knows that e pluribus unum is at the bedrock of our founding. But our history as migrants seeking freedom by killing off the population of people already living here for thousands of years, that terrorism tortures our souls, whether we’re aware of that shadow in our psyches, or not.

Those 13 letters still appear on our Great Seal – you know the one with the bald eagle holding an olive branch and arrows in his/her claws. The same general motif and e pluribus unum are still pressed onto the back side of our new shiny dimes. We touch that idea – one out of many – every day of our lives!

E pluribus unum leads me to see the statue of liberty in my mind’s eye…that iconic symbol of an American sanctuary  for all who are tired and poor and broken. Our culture is founded on deception and we are unconscious of living that duplicity. Saddled as a culture by a form of schizophrenia, we find solace in addictions, including violence to each other.

It hurts.

Image above: We All Feel It by E. Van Duine

We are a country founded by invading European peoples. Founded in our search for religious freedom, we promptly destroyed the “religion” already extant on this continent, killing off whole nations of people, doing to them what had been done to us earlier when we still lived as if the God in all life mattered, when we experienced reverence for the forest, the rivers and seas, for the sun and stars.

Our nation’s newer motto states that we trust in God.  God made ALL of us and in his/her image too! God made humans in many shapes/sizes/colors, made an incredible array of creatures, gorgeous rivers, waves of grasses, blue skies – the things we sing about in our anthems – and yet the dominant corporate culture rapes and pillages those very same beauties in pursuit of profit and commits violence to the humans who courageously stand for the sacredness of the Godmade elements on which our lives depend.

We TRUST in GOD. Really??

The “dominant” American culture lives with a split at the heart of our Selves, a rent in our hearts. Is it not time to begin healing the wounds?

E pluribus unum/In God we Trust.

Let’s bring the true meaning of our OWN words to how we live our lives.