This November as we consider our future let us remember
America - America the beautiful.
This great American lanscape - metaphor of endless
possibility, refuge to the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised
in all its geological wonder and diversity, in all
its regional uniqueness, yet constitutes a single
continent. Set apart by two great oceans, distinct
in its dreams and original intentions, as manifest
by the faith of our fathers.
This America, received and proclaimed its uniqueness,
its inalienable rights as a manifest gift of God.
We were given a republic - "If you can keep it"
as Jefferson noted. If, as George Washington warned,
you can preserve and pass on the faith, the 'Christian
principles and practices,' "without which it
is impossible to govern."
But endless possibilities may fester into endless
exploration and exploitation, endless pursuits of
pleasure and thrills - 'pushing the envelope;' deep
into the bizarre, the deviant, and immoral. We are
a deeply fractured culture. Sedimented into bruised
pools of over sensitized, special interest groups.
There rised from so many sources the fetid stench
of decay and filth.
One nation, one great continent "Under God?"
"In God trusting?" Or as Lincoln so aptly
warned "a nation divided against itself,"
which "cannot stand," Schizophrenic, unanchored
and adrift in the storm. We would do well to remember
"Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a disgrace
to any people." Proverbs 14:34.
