The Freedom to Assemble: We Must Gather. Yes, Meet With Others, Plan, Party, and Pray. Go To The Sporting Event. Go To Church. Get Out of Your “Safe Space”, and Meet With Others.  We must gather together to protect and uphold our very civilization, and all that it means to be human. These last almost 3 years since our horrible governments reaction to covid, since March of 2020 when the governor of WA state forced the closure of the bars and restaurants, but left pot shops, liquor stores, and strip clubs open, we have lost the simple yet profound practice of getting together, at sporting events, restaurants, homes, churches and working with our colleagues in person. There is something lost when we are not together, and something profound happens when we are.  We must overcome the fear, habit, or maybe it’s just laziness of not getting together.  We need to gather together because this is one of the hallmarks of freedom. This year is the first year in 3 years that the WA state legislature is meeting in person. They shut down in 2020, closed the doors of the capital building, and took the lockdown experiment to extreme levels, even going so far as to building a fence around the capital. I know they did this at the federal level also, building a fence around the peoples house.  And what was lost at the state level for doing this? Personal contact, private conversations, who knows what “zoom” knows when we have these on line meetings? Our privacy was robbed from us, as we were "required" to lockdown and hibernate from one another.  On line interaction takes away empathy, feeling, the ability to communicate more effectively with the non-verbal cues, and reduces the humanity from the interaction. It gives those in authority who do not want to listen to an opinion the ability to drop the line, cut off the connection, or make the Internet reception run a foul. Talking in person with someone is so much more that the verbal words that are spoken, it’s the facial expressions, tone of voice, and just observing the essence and the humanity of the person that we are interacting with.  Electronic communication, social media, and on line communication take away our humanity and reduce us to robotic machines, and it’s much harder to insult someone face to face than to post a mean or rude comment on a social media platform.  Meeting in person soothes the interactions, and removes some of the potential for misunderstandings and the temptation to be rude, mean, or hateful.  Gathering to gather is a sign of freedom, liberty, free thinking, and mental health. Isolated people get weird and odd ideas that are not based in reality. Gathering to gather gives life meaning clarity, and joy.  Community and living life with others in person are what holds us together, keeps us sane, and helps us to lighten up and find some joy and laughter in the midst of life.  Joy, embracing, holding each other up, laughing together, eating together, praying together, fellowshipping with those who have common interests with us are what makes us so free in our Western culture.  These things on the surface seem so simple and so basic, but that is exactly why they are so powerful.  This is where the power of people comes from, the ability to gather, to peaceably assemble.  We must not forsake the gathering together, as some have made a habit of doing.  The freedom of assembly is literally what holds us together. Instagram: @janiskrist  Twitter: @janiskrist  Email: [email protected]