Well, here we are again. The celebration of our nation's independence is upon us again. I have been reading in different news outlets about activities of government and citizenry that have caused me to wonder about how I feel about this country.
As far back as I can remember I have always loved this country. I have loved being a citizen of the United States of America. I have always cherished the beautiful Red, White and Blue of our flag and always been angered and saddened when seeing it desecrated or mishandled. The America I fell in love with from childhood was an America were things were not always fair. If you wanted to be a success then you had to work for it (assuming you had any sense of honor) and work hard. If you didn't like something, you could voice you mind over it. This didn't mean that the thing you didn't like would change but you could voice your opinion about it anyway. In the USA that I grew up in, people generally treated each other with honesty and they understood that the family was the core of how things worked. The family had to be strong, with Dad and Mom there raising the children, teaching them right from wrong, helping to keep the unity of the home. The country that I grew up had most folks going to church to worship the Almighty God in some way, remembering His commandments on how to be better people and giving a small restoration of a sense of order and balance in the universe.
The world I live in now...that my children will grow up in...saddens me because it has lost it's gleam and sparkle. The shine has become tarnished and too much wear is showing through the cracks. The unity that I once was felt in this nation is strained to the point of breaking and has begun to crumble. Many of the old touchstones have become reviled and ridiculed as being irrelevant and out of date. Honesty in the government is a joke. Faith in God above has dwindled and become ridiculed by those who are using their powerful access in the media to shame those who are firm believers. The family has been rendered impotent by those who are not willing to shoulder the responsibilities of parenthood that they took upon themselves and instead have demanded that the government and society at large be held accountable for the raising of their children. Those who wish to control every aspect of my life have even worked hard at trying to redefine basic rights that the men who founded this nation felt were beyond contestation, thus taking away those basic rights or altering them to suit their purposes only.
In some small ways I have lately found myself a little envious of persons living in other nations. Please do not misunderstand me and think that I love my country any less. It is more that in living in those countries, they have never had some of the rights and freedoms that I have had here. In so doing, they also have never had to watch those same rights and freedoms get slowly eroded and destroyed by the very same people that are protected by those very same freedoms.
In my family there is a strong heritage of defending this country and it's freedoms. I know that Freedom is never free and that the cost is always one paid in blood. The cost of bondage is cheap and is paid in gold and coins. I pray for my children, that they will not have to learn first hand the cost of Freedom. I pray for my family, those in service now and those who have served, that God will watch over them and bless them for their service. I pray for my community, that the good men among them will take up the public service call and act as leaders for a short period before laying down that mantle and try to restore the honor and integrity of our land. I pray for my Nation, that we might find a remembrance of the things which matter most before they are taken away and destroyed.
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