Earlier this week, members of our County Council met to discuss amendments to an ordinance addressing county waterways. Since our county has hundreds of miles of rivers and creeks, along with multiple public boat landings, it certainly makes sense that how the public utilizes these unique and beneficial assets would be something that the county officials want to ensure are clearly spelled out in our ordinances. Therefore, based upon direction from the County Council, as well as input from various stakeholders, the county staff revised existing language and crafted new language to accomplish what they thought would be the will of the councilmembers and the public at large.
Unfortunately, what is so often overlooked when our county is considering governance issues is the fact that our community is on a true island, lacking any fixed connection to the mainland. Unlike the other developed portions of the county, the local waterways are the streets and highways that we depend on for everything that we need to live. Whereas the residents of the rest of the county can live their entire lives without ever once using a boat landing, our lives depend on them, and that is reflected by the heavy and varied use that our only public landing endures. We are not like the rest of the county, and trying to craft new language in an ordinance that is meant to cover the entire county essentially ignores that critical point. While there are aspects of using our waterways that reasonably apply everywhere, such as a prohibition against drinking while boating, other issues must consider local needs. Fortunately, some of our residents delivered very compelling messages to County Council, and the changes were not implemented.
We are in a nation where our individuality is often overlooked for the sake of implementing plans or rules that would seemingly benefit the majority. We create demographic categories for the sake of working with groups, looking for economies of scale that are difficult to attain when each person is looked at as an individual, with unique needs and perspectives. In the process, our individuality gets pushed aside, and for some, they will experience harm. Certain laws apply everywhere, which was the purpose of an explicitly enumerated Bill of Rights, but the urge to extend beyond that creates the likelihood that some will experience disparate impacts.
The one thing that quickly becomes obvious to parents is that every child is unique. Our lives are like combination locks, where our circumstances represent one range of numbers, our preferences represent another, and so on for categories such as talents, experiences and opportunities. When you put them all together, you get a truly unique human being who may share some or many similarities with others but ultimately remains unlike any other. Unfortunately, the further removed that you are from a particular individual, it typically becomes more difficult to see the things that make that individual unique. What is obvious to the people raising a child is invisible to those who stand at a distance.
We must have some rules to guide us. After all, a kite without a string will crash to the ground and just tumble until it breaks apart or gets caught on something. Therefore, some rules to live by can create a framework within which we are free to fully express our individuality and flourish. What we need to avoid is putting in place overburdensome regulations or restrictions in place that ignore our individuality, like these proposed ordinance amendments, or like various denominations and churches have done over the years when banning dance, or types of music, or any other behaviors that are viewed as precursors to sinful actions.
Sometimes protecting our individuality requires someone standing up and saying something. Today, I’m grateful that a few folks were willing to travel off our island to tell those on the mainland just how unique we are.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron