Awaken

One man awake,
Awakens another.
The second awakens
His next door brother.
The three awake can rouse a town
By turning
the whole place
Upside down

The many awake
Can cause such a fuss
It finally awakens the rest of us.
One man up,
With dawn in his eyes
Surely then
Multiplies

by Lawrence Tribble in the latter 1700s.

We are in America's third great awakening. The first begun by the Declaration of Independence led to the Revolutionary War. The second begun by the seceding Confederate States led to the freeing of the slaves and the securing of our union once again. The third begun by Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, is leading us to realize that we need to secure our identify as a nation of free men. This awakening is the shift from the collective to the individual as the ultimate source of moral authority and good in the world.