America!


I just returned from driving 6,000 miles and crossing 15 States through America. Teresa and I left June 22 on a marathon driving adventure. We traveled from our home through Birmingham to Memphis and on to Hot Springs, Ark. From there we traveled I-70 through Kansas and the great plains to the majestic Rockies of Colorado. From Colorado we made our way to San Diego, Ca. (via Moab, Ut., a must see) where we spent our first 3 years of married life. We went there to celebrate 40 years of an ever deepening relationship! (Truth be told, over a month in a car together will either make it or break it! We survived!!!) From San Diego it was on to Redondo Beach (Los Angeles) to spend some time with my daugther, Tarah, son in law, Scott and yes, little Lucia!!! What a joy! Good news, they are moving from LA to Miami in about a month. Our prayers are answered to get them a days drive from us. After our visit we traveled home on I-40, making a stop at the National Memorial in Oklahoma City. As I wandered the grounds of the location of that horrible event, I was struck with emotion. I was moved by the response of America at the news of the bombing and the outpouring of love sent to that city. It's always unbelievable how such a crisis brings everyone together and the shared experience somehow lifts us out of our own little self-centered world and into a greater shared sphere. One of the search and rescue teams at the scene in 1995 painted on a wall of the wreckage these simple words that remain there:





"Team 5


4-19-95


We search for the truth


We seek justice


The Courts require it


The Victims cry for it


and God demands it!"





After having traveled America "from sea to shining sea" and driving through the "fields of amber waves of grain", it was so obvious to me that God has certainly, with all our struggles, "crowned us with brotherhood". I don't know of another country where life is so precious and where when crisis strikes, strangers become brothers.





Let me end today with the first words of America the Beautiful:





"Oh beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain,


For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain.


America! America!God shed His grace on thee,


And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea."