from one adopted kid to another…it’s all about unity and not division

(former NFL player Colin Kaepernick)

As the unofficial family historian of this clan of mine, I have certainly enjoyed the
stories I’ve uncovered over the years—especially the lineage of my dad’s family.

My grandmother had done her fair share of work and what was uncovered is
quite the storyline—Mayflower fame and all.

Yet despite having taken over the helm, following my grandmother’s death, of
being the unofficial family history loving sleuth,
I must confess that there has always been a nagging concern buried deep in
the back of my thoughts.

As an adopted member of this clan, I have always known that this clan is truly not my own.
Their story is not my story.
Or so I kept telling myself.

And yes, I know I’ve written extensively about all of this not long ago, but a part of my
own story came to the forefront of thought today while I was braving the heat picking
blueberries.

When things like this pop into my head out of the blue, I know the Holy Spirit is stirring.

Those of you who know me, know how much I love college football.
I don’t care whose playing, I’ll watch.

So I actually remember quite a few years back watching a game featuring UNLV
along with some other team.
I remember it was UNLV because of one of the stories, that the sports announcers shared
during the game, touched my heart.

It seems there was a young quarterback leading the UNLV team by the name of Colin Kaepernick.

During the game, the sports announcers offered a little background regarding this
seemingly phenom QB.

It seems that Colin’s mom had shared the story that Colin,
while being an outstanding high school quarterback, had not been offered any scholarships
to play at the next level…except for an offer by UNLV.

Not one of the “big schools” by any means…but it was an opportunity.
And obviously wanting to play at the next level, the Kaepernick family agreed that this
was his chance.

They also shared that Colin had been an adopted kid.
He is obviously a mixed-race kid while his adopted parents are white.

Adopted kids have a soft place in my heart.
And so I have something I’d like to say to Colin…my fellow adoptee.

Adoption, my young friend, is about unity and not division.

Colin, however, seems to be a rather unhappy young man…
some might argue that my observation is unfair…but I’ve never met a happy person who
is hell-bent on creating divisiveness.

He has made no bones about detesting our flag, our national anthem, our national monuments,
Betsy Ross and now he seems to detest our celebration of independence.

In fact, Colin seems to prefer being all about division these days.

His is a Black world or a White world.
Either or, but not both.
His is a world of one divided by race.
His is a progressive left world battling a presumptive non-inclusive, racist world.

I’ve always known I was adopted.
And for better or worse, I physically favored my adopted family.
I realize that Colin did not physically favor his adopted family—
what with his being mixed and his parents being white.
But one thing I do know about both of us, our adopted parents loved us
unconditionally as their own.

You just need to read some of what his mom has had to say about him over the years
to understand the love they have for this son of theirs.

Yet I never had to have that battle within myself over not being the same race
as my family.
I imagine that might have kept the matter of adoption more at the forefront of
Colin’s thoughts more so than perhaps my own.
I don’t know that for certain but knowing that I would look into a mirror always
wondering who it is I truly looked like… I suspect that mirror looking might
have been more frequent in Colin’s life.

I don’t know his full story of adoption…the background etc.
Heck, I barely know my own.

Those of you who know me and read this blog already know my story’s journey so
I won’t belabor that story but I do want to make a point…
a point for our friend Colin.

I do believe that adopted kids are born with some prewired emotional baggage.
I know this without doubt.
I truly understand the whole emotional transference during pregnancy.
It is real.

I also know what’s it’s like wanting to know one’s own story and not what someone
else’s story is all about…
We simply want to know our own story…plain and simple.

I went on that quest.

After hemming and hawing…after being full of trepidation and anguish…after
waiting and waiting…some answers and even more questions arrived.

On my biological father’s side, there has been discovery, connections to a cousin, and a peace.
On my biological mother’s side, there has been a painful dose of double rejection…
a disaster in a nutshell…or so I thought at the time.

I learned that my biological father died several years ago…
but there are living relatives…some of whom have opened their hearts.

My mother, on the other hand, is in her 80’s and despite my now being 60, vehemently
denied any sort of acknowledgment or contact.

I will say that that whole situation not only stung my heart, it also left me
emotionally reeling.
The child still deep within this adult body rebroke.

Yet over the past several months, since my discovery, peace has filled my wounds.
And that peace came from one place and one place only…the healing and soothing balm
of Jesus Christ.

I couldn’t have experienced that on my own.
On my own, there was anger and resentment…but God had other plans.
That of His peace.

God already knew my story but He also knew that I was hard-headed.
God will allow us to pursue what we think we want even when
He knows better.
He loves us that much that He will allow us to shoot ourselves
in the foot from time to time—always turning that self-inflicted wound
back around for His good purpose.

So certainly questions will always remain but the anger and the resentment are both gone.

I have come to see, feel, and claim that this adopted clan of mine is indeed mine.
I sit on a branch of their tree, adoption, or not.

So what I say to my fellow adoptee Mr. Kaepernick— is that the peace of heart,
the peace of spirit is of God and of God alone.

It is one of unity and not division.

It is not of anger or resentment.

It is neither black nor white.
Male nor female.

Black power, black lives, militancy…those are separators, not unifiers.

We are all children of God…despite how we come into this world.
We are all equally valued by God…despite physical differences from others.
There is not one single life that is greater than nor matters more than another’s.
The humility found in being created and not Creator is both freeing and soothing.

I would behoove Colin to seek a Savior and not a civil war of culture.

We are all of one America.
Black men and women, white men and women, Asian men and women, Native American men and women,
Hispanic men and women have each shed blood for the freedoms our now angry Nation enjoys.

No division is found in our freedom but rather unity.
No division is found in the children of God, but rather unity.

Unity and not division will bring one’s soul peace.
Until then…there will be only anguish and wasted energies at the expense of everyone.

But then again, one has to ask oneself: do you want peace in your being or do you
desire hate, resentment, and anger.

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,
nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

Ode to our nefarious founding….

Nowhere in the Constitution are we asked to let everyone in
world enter this country.
“The United States, allegedly steeped in the white supremacist ideology of the nefarious founding,
has been more welcoming to strangers than any nation in the world, and it’s not even close.”
David Harsanyi
Former Senior Editor at The Federalist.

(Snidely Whiplash from Dudley Do-Right and Rocky and Bullwinkle)

This morning, I took my husband for another epidural for his back.
The last one worked pretty well for a couple of months so we’re hoping for a longer
period of pain-free walking and movement….

Ode to the years of having spent playing football.

And speaking of ode…

As I sat waiting, I opted to use my time reading the day’s news feed from the Federalist.
The Federalist is an on-line news site whose tag line is
“Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.”

I love freedom and I’m up for any sort of good old fashioned fray…

I scrolled through the stories clicking to read an article about the growing
new left in Ireland’s political world…
that being the rising of an old, somewhat dubious IRA related ‘party,’
with a new trendy feel, Sinn Fein.

Ireland and her “troubles” have always troubled my soul.
I was in college when either Newsweek or Time Magazine did a story about the children
caught in the crosshairs of waring countries.
Countries such as Ireland who seemed to be living out an everlasting ‘civil’ war.

Civil wars trouble me.

There is noting civil about a nation ripped asunder.

Think of the surrealist artist Salvador Dali’s 1936 painting depicting Spain’s civil war…
a nation devouring herself.
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)

(Philadelphia’s Museum of Art)

Scrolling through the stories which followed, there was one in particular that caught my eye.
In part because I often watch the Tucker Carlson Show.

The story was titled:
‘Tucker Carlson Is Absolutely Right About Ilhan Omar / Even if he’s wrong about immigration’

The story is by David Harsanyi who happens to be the son of 1st generation immigrant parents.

And since I am not a fan of a certain dismissive immigrant congresswoman who sneers at the
roots and foundation of the very nation she now serves, I continued reading…

Here is a snippet from the article:

When my parents came to the United States as refugees in 1968, for instance,
they were asked to renounce communism—because collectivism, like Islamism or fascism
or any authoritarianism, is antithetical to American principles.
Any newcomers in 1968 who believed the United States was guilty of crimes against
the proletariat, and praised Pol Pot or Castro, would not have been a quality immigrant.

This is one reason we still give newcomers citizenship tests.
We want them not only to comprehend our foundational ideas, but to adopt them.
Whether or not this nation consistently lives up to those values (far from it) is irrelevant.
There’s no country in human history born without sin.
Yet only Americans are asked to engage in daily acts of contrition for their past.

Some people might have you believe their partisan hobbyhorses—like “economic patriotism,”
for example—are American ideals. They aren’t. Having the right to protect yourself,
your family, and your property without asking permission from the state is an American ideal.
Religious freedom is an America ideal. Being able to live life without being coerced to
participate in groupthink is an American ideal. Uninhibited free expression
is an American ideal.
The right of communities to live without being impelled by a majoritarian democracy
to adopt centralized policies is central tenet of American governance.

Social mores change. Not our core governing principles.
Now, you may find all this eye-rolling earnestness both antiquated and puerile,
which seems to be the case with Omar and most of her progressive allies.
But then you have a new set of principles you want to enact,
not the traditional ones some of us want to preserve.

When Carlson argues that the very fact Omar —
a refugee from one of the most violent places on Earth, Somalia —
can rise to become, at only 36,
one of the most famous members of Congress is the best argument against her critique of America,
he has good point. Omar has more influence than 99 percent of her co-citizens.
She is a testament to an open and free society.
Her words are not.

Believing that the United States is defined by racism and economic injustice
doesn’t make Omar a bad immigrant, only a silly human being.
Importing anti-Semitic beliefs from the broader Islamic world,
on the other hand, makes her an unassimilated American.

Being critical of foreign intervention doesn’t make Omar un-American,
but talking about servicemen who sacrificed their lives fighting Somalian warlords
at Battle of Mogadishu as if they were terrorists does.
In the same way, dismissing the Islamic extremists who murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11 as
“some people who did something”—because it’s “Islamophobic”
to point out facts—makes her ungrateful.

With so many people coming here, it is within the purview of the citizenry
to make decisions about who enters and who doesn’t.
And it is perfectly legitimate—although probably not very practical—for us to
try and discern what ideological baggage is brought with them.

Certainly there is nothing “nauseatingly racist” about bring critical of Omar,
or pondering the potential downsides of mass immigration.
This lazy smear so overused it’s become virtually meaningless.
(Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez recently insinuated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
was a racist for criticizing her.)
And not just by politicians, but pundits, as well.

At The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf claims that Carlson suggested
“that because Omar came here as a child, she doesn’t have the right to voice critical
opinions about America.”
You can read the Fox News host’s comments yourself,
but nowhere does he propose anything of the sort.
What does seem to be happening, though, is that some people are given special dispensation
from criticism and debate. And that is a genuinely un-American idea.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/11/tucker-carlson-absolutely-right-rep-ilhan-omar/

While reading the opening of the article about 1968 era immigrants being asked to denounce various
ideologies such as Communism and as to why we continue to give newcomers a citizenship test
before “making” them new citizens, I was struck by the similarities between those who opt
to choose Christianity, being asked to renounce a sinful self before taking on the
new birth through Christ.

We are told that we cannot serve two masters.

It’s an either or sort of situation.

We have many up and coming politicians who think they can serve opposing ideologies while
claiming to be for all things democratic—an ideology that does not, cannot, co-exist
with opposing thinking.

It won’t work.

Abortions will not work.
More government will not work.
Socialism will not work.
Militant feminism will not work.
Progressive liberalism will not work.
Anarchy will not work.

Come November, Americans will choose either or…
but for those of us of Fatih…the ‘either or’ is more lasting than simply another four more years.

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9 ESV

“But thanks be to God…”

But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:57

(Lynch Creek Farms)

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the land
Democrats, and even some Republicans, seemed mad at the man…

Articles of impeachment were hung in the chamber with glee
in hopes that all votes would pass as quickly as could be

The nation tried to carry on with its holiday of cheer
while Democrats greeted the President’s supporters with half-hearted sneers

With Madame Speaker dressed in her mock funeral black
I wanted nothing to do with this presidential attack.

Despite a time that was to be merry and bright…
I avoided all news keeping this debacle from sight…

…..

And thus this entire governmental spectacle has taken hold…

It’s taken on the heaviness of a thick black cloud hanging wearily
over an otherwise merry and joyful time.

All except for those who had “merry impeachment” parties and
dinners last night…and those who clapped in the house upon the resulting vote.
Shameful and boorish behavior by folks who just don’t grasp the magnitude.

This brouhaha that kicked off on election night 2016, has consumed our news outlets,
it has divided this nation deeper and further, it has overshadowed much more important
issues affecting the entire nation and it is doing its darndest to steal
our Christmas joy…

I oddly think that that is indeed Speaker Pelosi’s mindset…
to steal the joy, hence the black and now they’ve all left town…
heading home for parties and fun while leaving the nation and
their unfinished business, hanging in a lurch.

However, could this not have waited until say January…when we’re all already
depressed from dealing with our post-Christmas letdown and seasonal affective
disorders stemming from the lack of light, the gray days and cold winds???

Yet the stealing of joy is exactly what Satan would like.

I am, however, still left feeling very sad as well as mad…
or is that more angry than mad?

I am mad at our governmental leadership.

They have forsaken their duties to govern, write legislations,
vote to pass or pass on various laws…
all because of an obsession that began three years ago along with
a fast leaning slant toward socialism.

Everything about governing has been put on hold all in order
that ‘they’ may “impeach” a president who has committed no crimes.

Now I must confess, I missed Andrew Johnson’s impeachment
as it was slightly before my time…
but the near impeachment and ensuing ‘abdication’ of office by Richard Nixon
made a deep and lasting impression on me.

It made me sad seeing the uglier and smugger side of our politicians
at an age when I could understand what divisiveness was all about.

It was not so much from President Nixon, who I was deeply disappointed in,
but it came from the ensuing three-ring circus that followed the discovery of the
Watergate break-in, clandestine figures like “deep throat” and
the infamous Watergate tapes.

I had never felt so remorseful for our Nation as a whole as I did then—
only to have been surpassed had I been living during the Civil War,
which undoubtedly would have left me feeling fractured just like our country.

For you see, I don’t get mad at the Democrats as a whole nor do I get mad
at the Republicans as a whole…instead, I get sad for our Nation as a whole.

This is so much more than a them vs them…it is rather an us vs us.

I did not care for Bill Clinton.
He looked directly into a camera lens and lied to a nation.
I had to keep our young son from the room during the news lest he
wonder about the constant talk of blue dresses and oral sex…
How would you have explained all of that to a young child who hadn’t a clue about sex
and then have to also explain that was all about our President?

You can’t and you don’t.

I also hate the fact that I feel as if I have to defend the fact that I am a woman
who is conservative.
Yes, I am college-educated.
Yes, I am well-read.
Yes, I have a deep understanding of history.
No, my husband does not tell me how to vote.
Yes, I am a Christian.
No, I do not like how often immature and childish our President acts.
Nor do I not like his tweets or lashing out…

But I see his childishness as the direct reaction to equally childish behavior…
for our government has become a place for children’s tantrums and their tit for tat.

I do, however, like the fact that this President has made good on his promises…
promises that other politicians seem to forget once they come to power.

Think Jerusalem.

And the issue is perhaps not in ‘coming to office’, but rather the ‘coming to power’…
because so much of our troubles stem from not office but power.

I also like the fact that we have a strong economy, a strong stock market, the lowest
unemployment rate in ages and a President who fights for the little guy.

We elected a businessman, not a politician…
and in that lies much of the angst.

We know and understand the leadership, or perhaps that is the lack of leadership, from our
politicians…many of whom are lawyers…we don’t necessarily understand
governmental leadership from a business mogul.

For the record, I am not a deplorable nor am I ignorant.
And as a Christian, I would like a Christian leader…but I’ve yet to find one.

David was at times a most wretched king who made very evil and selfish decisions…
but God still used him to lead a people.

Am I suggesting Trump is a David?
No.
But it shows us how God can use bad for good.

Oh and by the way, this is not Nazi Germany and Trump is no Hitler…
I do not want to hear that comparison ever again because there is no such comparison.
That demeans the 6 million people killed in the Death Camps.
As well as the approximate total of 75 to 85 million killed simply due to the war…
add to that the millions killed or sent to gulags following the end of the war by Stalin.

No, that is not Trump.
That is not our country.

I am a Reaganite…plain and simple.

But I will never be made to apologize for who I opt to vote for or not vote for.

So don’t scratch your heads as to why this latest impeachment has some folks
sad and not gleeful.
Do not demean those who do not share your excitement.
Do not shame others for their right to vote and right of choice.
Some elected officials leave me wondering but the vote was not mine to make.

And no Speaker Pelosi, you are a lifelong politician, I do not buy
your theatrics of solemness or sadness.

This is not a happy time in our Nation…

Yet I was reminded last night that I am to give thanks unto God.
He has already overcome the world…

“And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck,
but everything by God’s wise providence …
for matters that have been in God’s foreseeing wisdom, since before time began,
befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so in our blindness and ignorance
we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so.”
St. Julian of Norwich

courage, courageous or more of the same ol’ lies…

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point,
which means at the point of highest reality. ”
C.S. Lewis

(image from the movie of Hacksaw Ridge)

Okay, so lately we’ve been reading, hearing and seeing a lot being made mention
concerning the notion of courage.

You know what I think of when I hear or see the word courage?

Hacksaw Ridge.

If you have not seen the movie Hacksaw Ridge…well you need to watch it in order
to understand the notion of courage.

It’s the courage of being both verbally and physically abused…not by some twisted
martyristic desire but rather as a result of one’s convictions.
To be beaten to a pulp because you’ve opted to stand up for your Christian faith of
pacifism because you feel deeply called to do your part against the onslaught and scourge
of fascism during a world war.

A subjugation of abuse simply because of your belief and faith.
Ridiculed and maligned because you know deep down, God has called you to serve and you
believe that serving means to do so without a gun.

And as a faithful servant, you know you must answer God’s call…
it is simply what you must endure.

And yet there are a myriad of examples of courage…
it’s just that that one example first came to mind.

Of course, you can walk down any children’s hospital across this Nation and you will
readily see courage on a day to day basis on each and every face of each and every child
in each one of those hospitals…
but that is a different tale for a different day.

However, the courage we keep hearing about these days is a different type of courage.
It is a man-made notion of courage that has been molded to fit neatly into a post-Chrisitan era.

Courage as in it is courageous to come out of “one’s closet”
Courage as in it is courageous to admit to being gay.
Courage as in it is courageous to be born, say, a man, and decide to be a woman…
or visa-versa…only to decide differently agian…and on and on…
Courage as in it is courageous to stand up for beliefs that are for all things progressive
as in contrary to anything conservative or even orthodox…

Yet it seems that this modern-day courageous business hits a speed bump when
one thinks that being courageous simply means to speak out and against middle American
conservative values…

Values such as the concept of a traditional family, sexual morality,
life versus abortion, to possess a strong work ethic versus a governmental handout,
opposition to illegal immigration, patriotism etc…

Today’s society believes it is courage to scorn traditional beliefs.

That is not courage…that is egotistical arrogance pretending to be courageous.

And so when reading our friend the Wee Flea’s latest post,
I am reminded of the importance of courage.

Well actually…it’s from reading his last two posts…
as one is a book review and the other is a piggyback from both the book and
its review as well as a rebuttal to the author.

His is a post that was written to refute the latest adulations over a former Chrisitan singer
(Vicky Breeching / Undivided)
who has let herself out of the proverbial closet and who has written a book describing her
now liberating ordeal as brave because she has been a lifelong victim of
conservative Christianity…

So that’s it now???

As a sinner, one is now simply a victim??

A victim of sin…but what of repentance?
Sin, it seems is now without a cross, without a Savior and without saving Grace…

Well, that certainly lets us all off the hook now doesn’t it…

This woman is currently making the US and UK book tour circuit and has been met with a
resounding level of applause from the liberal press, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and those of the LGBT sector.

David reminds those of us who remain opposed to any sort of notion of a Biblical
condoning of a homosexual relationship as being perfectly fine that we are not,
in the eyes of God, wrong…
no matter how much our progressive society tries to paint us as wrongheaded
and backward in our thinking.

This new trend that seems to be known as “Gay Christianity” is actually a most
dangerous trend that is working fast and furious to drive a wedge straight into the heart
of the Chruch.

And so David, in his recent post, list points for Christians to hold to and to be
accountable to in this latest fight…
with one such point being that of courage and courageousness.
And it is with courage that we stand united against the growing assault by a
progressive post-Christan culture.

8) We must not be cowards – we respond with courage.

One person wrote and told me that after they posted a ‘like’ to my review on
‘Undivided’, they were reported to a British Government institution for being homophobic!
This is the kind of intimidation that causes many to be silent.
Vicky talks about British evangelical churches putting their heads in the sand and being silent.
She is right. We need to speak out against the intimidation and the lies…
even, or especially, when it comes from those who are pleasant and plausible.
Are you prepared to speak out with grace and truth?
And we need the courage to rebuke those who would take the same view as us but are abusive
and full of hatred.

David concludes his post with a lesson…

One final lesson I have gleaned from Vicky’s book and interviews.
In her woundedness and hurt, she has become a very intolerant and demanding person.
She won’t attend churches that hold non-affirming theology, like HTB.
She demands that churches she goes to should never have someone in the pulpit who says
that marriage should be between a man and a woman –
because otherwise she might be triggered.
(I note in passing that there is not a great deal of humility or tolerance in her approach…’
do what I want or I will condemn you’ is the mantra.
She has also ‘unfollowed’ me on Twitter…which kind of gives the lie to
‘lets have respectful discussion’ –
I find that most liberals are like that –
we have to agree with them, or we are beyond the pale).
She wants the warmth and friendliness of the evangelical church –
just without the evangel.
My fear is that there are far too many of us evangelicals who are dangerously
close to a similar position – in private if not in public.

Liberal evangelicals want a God without judgement, a Cross without atonement,
a Bible without hard things and a church without the Jesus of the Bible.

Those of us who believe in that Jesus must hold fast and not be intimidated or deceived
into giving up on him.
I leave you with these apposite words from that Jesus to the church in Thyatira –
Words that today would see him accused of ‘hate speech’ and condemned by the liberal
evangelicals of being ‘unChristlike’!

“To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet
are like burnished bronze.
I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance,
and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you:
You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet.
By her teaching, she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of
food sacrificed to idols.
I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.
So I will cast her on a bed of suffering,
and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely,
unless they repent of her ways.
I will strike her children dead.
Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds,
and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.”

An Open Letter to the Evangelical Church about Vicky Beeching and ‘Gay Christianity’

remembrances

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time,
and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain

(the flag I fly at home / Julie Cook / 2015)

Today Americans will pause in order to celebrate Memorial Day.

A day many assume was put on the calendar in order to mark the unofficial start of summer.

It’s a day for day’s off…
for family gatherings,
for picnics,
for cookouts,
for ballgames…
and basic idyllic enjoyment.

However it would behoove us, on this unofficial day of all things festive,
to recall the original intent of Memorial Day…

Originally it was not a day set aside to commemorate the opening of the seasonal door to summer…
rather it was a day set aside for Americans to remember the thousands of lives lost,
as well as the thousands of bodies forever broken, during America’s darkest days of the Civil War.

It was originally referred to as Decoration Day.

Over the years, Memorial Day has taken on a life of its own.
It has become a day of celebration, an excuse for a party, a shift in the seasons, …

Yet as we celebrate, we must also remember…

We remember the countless numbers of men and woman who have served
and continue to serve in our armed forces.

We remember the lives taken.
The sacrifices made.
The limbs lost.
The souls shattered
The minds altered.
The hearts broken
And the children who have grown up and continue growing up never
knowing the parent who was called to offer the ultimate gift
to their fellow man.

So as you work in the yard,
fire up that grill,
play in the surf,
build that sand castle,
watch that ball game,
sip that lemonade,
eat that hot dog,
and just enjoy a special moment to be lazy…
Offer up a thank you…
to those men and woman who have given, and continue giving, their all…
allowing you to say “hello summertime”

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
Luke 9:24

oh it ain’t no thing…

“The Americans have found the healing of God in a variety of things,
the most pleasant of which is probably automobile drives.”
William Saroyan

(my uncle Paul and my dad, the kid working the last drop of Coke, circa 1936 / on the steps of the state capital of Baton Rouge, Louisiana—road trip via Hwy 78 out of Atlanta)

Sitting for over two hours this morning on the interstate, not moving more than an inch every 15 minutes, I felt almost compelled to roll down my car window and personally shout an apology to all those license plates around me.
“On behalf of the Governor of the state of Georgia and the Mayor of Atlanta, I want to personally apologize to you Texas, to you South Carolina, to you Tennessee, to you Alabama, to you Mississippi, to you North Carolina and especially to you Connecticut…that your journey to your destination, wherever that may be, has found you sitting tangled in this jumbled mess of woven concrete known as the interstates that weave in and out of Atlanta….
I AM SORRY”

This country’s interstate system, which is mostly known as the Eisenhower Interstate System, is celebrating its 50th year of existence. Sitting as I was this morning, debating whether I should simply get out of the car and walk, I was not in any mood to put on a party hat and eat cake.

According to Norman Mineta, the US Transportation Secretary….
“The Interstate highway system is essential to America’s prosperity and way of life. Since its beginning 50 years ago, the Interstate network has provided a vital link for connecting goods to markets here and around the world and bringing together people from our nation’s cities, towns and rural communities.”

The Federal Highway Administration states on its website that…“From the day President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the Interstate System has been a part of our culture as construction projects, as transportation in our daily lives, and as an integral part of the American way of life. Every citizen has been touched by it, if not directly as motorists, then indirectly because every item we buy has been on the Interstate System at some point. President Eisenhower considered it one of the most important achievements of his two terms in office, and historians agree.”

Please excuse my eyes rolling in my head, but I’ve just spent almost 6 hours in my car today traversing said networks of prosperity intended to link my rural world to my dad’s urban world—something that should have consumed all of 2 hours max of some of this time of mine remaining on this earth verses the 6 that I graciously offered up to Father Time with no chance of getting even a millisecond of it back.

I wonder how Ike would have felt sitting for 6 hours on one of these roadways of his when he could have been out playing a round or two of his beloved golf instead?!

Yeah, yeah, I know….the interstate system was touted as being the bees knees for linking our country together…on saving time, money and gas as now point A and point B would be seamlessly connected… smooth and easy sailing…
Those roadway founding fathers had no idea that the commuting public would multiply like rabbits and that the number of cars which would fill up those roadways would eventually become so numerous that the interstates would become obsolete faster than anyone would have cared to guess.

I was having to meet the installers at dad’s today as I had had to get Dad a new dishwasher. The dishwasher is a tale unto itself but today we must focus on one thing and that one thing is the interstate system…at my age, I can only handle one comedy of errors at a time.

The installers were lamenting their commute home from Dad’s this afternoon as there is just no easy way in or out of Atlanta….and I had to concur.

As luck would have it, the dishwasher was up and running just in time for me to hit rush hour traffic. Praying I would make it home before it was time for me to go to bed, plus praying I would make it out alive, I exhaled greatly as I merged into the standing still sea of cars and trucks.
As I precariously snaked my way along the serpentine interweaving of cars, I opted to exit while the getting was good, taking an “old” way home—

This “old way” was in use long before there was a President Eisenhower or a highway system named for him. It was my road home that, as a young man, my grandfather traversed during the early days of his up and coming company—P. H. Nichols and Company.
The road linked him with his clients and customers westward.

This old way, was indeed old.
It was tired and used up like a cheap bottle of wine which had turned to vinegar.
The luster having long faded with bitter notes around each bend in the road.

My aunt called me on my cell phone to check in on how things had been with dad and started the conversation by asking me where I was.
“I’ve just passed Hub Cap City” I unceremoniously replied.
“You got off the interstate?!!” She exclaimed more than asked.
“Why not???…I could either sit on the concrete and pray I wasn’t killed merging onto the next interstate, or I could go a little slower down memory lane….”
Memory lane was calling my name…

This “old highway” was / is very old.
The battered and bruised businesses of days of yore now stand as empty broken shells….
the cheap and tawdry strip malls whispering of grander days all gave new meaning to the word “seedy”.
It was a stretch of road that my mother would have reminded me to lock my doors as my husband would certainly have had a fit that I was even there in the first place.

But this old forgotten “highway” was the same road my dad had taken with his father on his very first grand American road trip.
The same road anyone would have taken prior to 1965 westward out of Atlanta.
It was the time my grandfather, in 1936, had taken his two sons on a grand road trip to Texas and back.
A working trip we would call it today.

As I drove over the great Chattahoochee river, twice, and past roads that whispered of that fateful war between both North and South, reminders of the crossings by those various brave generals and their rebel bands, the signs outside of the used up little cafes and diners boasting of such delectables as “ain’t no thang like a chicken wang”, I couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of things that once had been and those things that are trying, in vain, to remain.

Somewhere between the chop shops, the wrecker services, the long closed filling stations and the questionable BBQ joints, of which I make a mental note, I saw the shadows of dusty country roads that had once seen far more cattle crossings than cars.
Kudzu now engulfs and devours the once proud family owned motels offering many a tired traveler a welcoming respite while on the road. Ghosts and specters of the once proud and booming age of Americans and their automobiles.

The old way was no quick way as I ambled behind school buses, dump trucks and those who thought the “back way home” to be quicker than the interstate.
We all thought wrong.
Red lights, stop signs and those “Sunday drivers” on this Monday in no hurry clogged the road coming and going.
Yet I was met around each curve and each dip in the road by the thoughts of a grandfather I had hardly known.
There was something oddly comforting and familiar in this rotting, decaying and dying American artery.

Hours later after having left dad’s, I called letting him know that I had finally made it home in one piece—Dad thanks me for having come to oversee the installation of the dishwasher and worried over how long it took me to get home…
After recalling the cheeky sign for chicken wings, I offer a wearisome yet contented response…
“oh it ain’t no thing…