HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA

    "I'm tired and my head aches!"

Independence Day, July 4, 2016, will be dawning in a few hours and the hustle and bustle of celebrating will begin.  I’m awake in the wee hours of the morning contemplating the fact that I have survived another year.  To be honest, I’m reasonably healthy with only a few issues for an old lady of 82 years.  I do have to make adjustments in certain behavior patterns, I’m told, and I have to be willing to accept certain limits and responsibilities. It’s called being agreeable, peaceful, and mature about matters of concern. Sometimes the changes are like pills that are swallowed with difficulty.  I don’t always like what I must do, but as we grow older, issues arise that must be addressed, and not always as I would choose.

As I think about my country, with its 240^th birthday today, I contemplate the fact that it has survived another year. However, in honesty, I’m truly worried about its health. Just like me, America has to swallow some pills she may not like. My observations reveal that without considerable healing, my country’s future may be in dire circumstance. Lady Liberty holds her torch high on her 240th, but she has suffered wounds from without and within, some painful that struggle to heal, some with dreadful side effects that continue to seethe under the surface while she refuses to “search for and respond to” treatment.

In her weakened state threatened from every side, she trembles with the fever of discontentment, refuses to try adjustments in behavior and rejects the responsibility to take risks that have always been common to her existence. She cowers in fear and scuffs at the suggestion that she needs a good dose of history to remind her of where she has been and where she should be going.  She closes her eyes and recoils like an animal that has been beaten and abused instead of rising up as she did in her youth to reject the wickedness and flex her muscles with courage to defend what is right in the world.

She turns her head when healing ideas are placed on her plate, and refuses to consider older and wiser counsel from those who have made the journey before, survived the disease of war and wickedness, and have learned that love and tender care can be a solution, only when there is undivided attention and a dogged resolve to survive.  She buries her head in the sand of pleasure and the comfort of nanny state deep pockets without thought of consequences.  She refuses to recognize enemies (the disease of self-indulgence, hatred, ignorance, and humanistic culture) that has left her exposed without defense against the blight of warriors who have determined to take her life.

As we fire up our BBQ pits, ice down the cold drinks, spread the sumptuous tables with baked beans and potato salad, and enjoy the pleasures of a fruitful nation silently living in a guarded kind of despair, my hope is that my country will submit to self-examination, recognize the pain that comes with aging, and contemplate the changes that must be made to adjust to the illness that has overtaken her by swallowing those pills that she must to make life rewarding to all  citizens, to accept what cannot be changed, and to find contentment in whatever state she is found. 

As I view old glory today flying gracefully in the sun and enjoy the safety of the backyard BBQ, I pray for my country to return to the God who guided our forefathers.  I hope to live to see her 241^st birthday with a new resolve to reassure citizens that she is strong, brave, and willing to guard the freedom so many have died to preserve.  Like me, she is old, but she is strong, she is stubborn, and she may be a bit sick today, but she will not go silently without a fight. Resolve with me today, in that so much as it depends upon you, America will heal and thrive to greet many more birthdays. Happy Birthday, America.