Frightful Times in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave!

Yesterday we had a wonderful celebration with very special friends in our home!

Part of our discussion as we were eating had to do with Obamacare. As I looked around the table with people from 20-somethings to 60-somethings and somethings all in between, I realized that every single one of us is impacted by Obamacare in a unique way. Every single one of us deals with a "hidden disability"!

Some friends sitting there discovered for the first time that Obamacare - to their great surprise - has provisions in the Obamacare bill that might well prohibit necessary medical care for some of us due to age or need or past medical history. The thought came to me that more than one of us might not be around to celebrate another Independence Day simply because the greatest medical care system in the world may be in for radical changes even in the next year!

It was a great discussion with no one getting unduly exercised and all giving respectful attention to all the views expressed!

It was a microcoism - what exists in a large sense in society represented in a much smaller sample - of our America and how we the free and the brave should celebrate this Independence Day 2012. It was a demonstration of how change to our world comes on a personal relational level emanating from the heart!

And a great time was had by each of us in spite of 95 degree plus weather outside!

We ended the evening with a rousing game of "Take Two" - judged unanimously more fun than fireworks downtown or even more nearby!

Memorial Day

The urban legend - which Snopes confirms is not true - about the bicycle tree is that a young soldier left his bicycle parked beside this tree in 1914, went off to fight in WWI and never returned. The story goes that the bicycle remained where he left it and the tree "ate" the bicycle as it grew. Not true!

However, the picture serves as a metaphor of the truth. We send our young men and women into harm's way over and over and over again!

Some return and pick up their lives and move on with the shadows of war hidden deeply in their memories. These we honor with deep gratitude today, Memorial Day.

Some return maimed in body and soul - wounded warriors - who carry the scars of war for the rest of their time on earth. These we honor and thank and marvel at the HUGE sacrifice they have made for the freedoms we enjoy in the land of the free and home of the brave!

Others - like the fictional boy of the picture - never return because they gave the ultimate sacrifice to enable us to live free! These are they who we remember with special honor today, Memorial Day! We live free because these were willing to lay down their lives to secure freedom for people they didn't know like you and me!

As you contemplate the sacrifices of so many warriors AND their families who have also given their own HUGE gift to the cause of freedom, celebrate them today!

The Land of the Free and Brave Heart

9/11/2001 - To quote a famous president, "A day that will live in infamy"

The image of the plane flying straight into the towers on Good Morning America that Tuesday morning is seared into my brain! And then the images rolled past - each one more horrible than the last! American mourned! The flags flew proudly! We were a nation united in a common cause - defeat evil - that evil that the "average" man or woman had little clue about until suddenly planes were crashing out of the sky: one, two, three, four... and were there more??!!

This morning on my way to pick up a friend for church I passed a well-known fast food place and noticed the American and their chain flag both flying at half mast! At first I thought, "O, 9/11 - honor the dead!" And as I continued to drive and reflect suddenly I was slammed with the thought, "NO! While we do mourn the dead killed in terror by Islamic radical terrorists, we should be flying our flag high! This is the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

The terrorists want us to cower. They want us to lower our stars and bars! They want to destroy us forever!

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
--Francis Scott Key, 1814

Our star-spangled banner will yet wave as long as our God is the One in Whom we trust! We are the land of the free and home of brave hearts at His discretion! To God be the glory!