By citizenship we earlier thought of a ship. On a ship everybody takes part and works where suddenly or gradually the importance of doing that work arises. There are those on the crew, who have preset duties and assignments, like a job, and there are those who are passengers. Yet, on a boat, which sails over open seas where the depths of what carries the boat is immense and incomprehensible, below a sky that stretches upwards and outwards forever, on a boat, everybody is a sailor.  To sail as sailors on a ship is to realize that nobody is to be left behind and everybody is vested in the safe journey. The roles and gigs come and sooner or later each individual realizes their own might and responsibility.

Citizenship is that way.  It is a nation within which one is a citizen.  Together, citizens realize the nation which travels through unknown and uncertain terrains.  Not always is the climate amiable, and the sea calm, yet it is of common realization that it is a company, a company of men and women and children too.  How should this nation, this ark, sail through these seas.  Sometimes, the sea is turbulent, and yet, the company must stay together, not by some single call that rings hollow, but by that each by each knows what they are, what they must do, and with whom the company is kept.

The moment to be and to act, but also to not throw, such is always the present moment.  The present moment is the moment in which the truth of who each is is realized. There is no other moment more important than that of the now.  Yet where there is a moment to look into the future, that temporal equivalent of the horizon at sea, one must.  Where there is a moment to look around to those fellows beside us, also striving for the safe passage, one must, for then fellowship is possible.  And where possible to look back and know in our hearts we have made it so far, we must as well, for how else to know what we have done, where we have erred, where we have triumphed, myself and ourselves, then.

The sovereignty of nation is a truth that principles our ordering of nations one alongside each other.  It is that idea that protects each people of each nation, that makes each nation a refuge and sanctuary, despite all the differences between peoples in different places.  It is in this principle in which is found the the possibility of the resolution of differences, in being together beside one another, nation and nation, across the world.

Today, we must learn to keep our company together and strong and healthy. Though problems seem to be various and multiple, each can be dealt with each by each, with the care and resolve to face them with the bravery and rationality which we all have. Matters which are beyond our knowledge should not face our confrontation whereby errors could be much, but we are so many, and we shall guess that our own will continue our works in accordance with what is right, what has been established, and what is known.

On the boat, we dare not make foolish attempts, but nevertheless, as learning we do, we will as a crew and as a company hold on to courage with the thought that our love for one another will let duty and service be realized as we believe in that such as citizenship.