Something else this book did for me, in addition to wearing me out, was to make me thankful that I live in the United States. I often hear people say, “We’re the best country in the world.” Personally, I can’t speak to that as I have never been to any other country, let alone to every other country in the world to be able to determine if we’re the best, but I do feel I am very fortunate to live in this nation. The other day, as I was close to finishing the book I felt the compulsion to go by an American flag for the manse, which I did. For one, that big porch just calls out for a flag waving in the wind, and secondly I felt in that moment very thankful for where I live. Don’t get me wrong, I am not naïve, nor am I patriot with blinders on. I might not feel all that great if I had just finished a book like Roots (about slavery), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (the history of the West from a Native American perspective), Nickel and Dimed (about the trials and travails of the American working poor) or even The Help (a novel dealing with the Jim Crow laws). But when I finished God is Red I felt pretty good, so I mounted the flag and decided to take the dog for a walk.
It was about 7:30 pm, the sun was descending slowly in the west, and there was a stiff cold wind, too cold for late April in my opinion. As we often do when we have a chance to go for a walk while the sun is still out, my dog, Eli, who is a yellow Labrador Retriever, and I headed down to the paved trails that weave through Eyman and Washington Parks. I plugged my earphones into my iphone and turned on some Garth Brooks. Like I said, I was in an American mood, and what says American more than some good ol’ Garth Brooks, right? As we walked, we passed ball fields filled with girls and boys practicing softball and baseball. Coaches hit grounders to waiting fielders as the next kids in line blew on their non-glove hand to keep it warm so they’d be ready to make the throw to first base.
Memories of twelve seasons of baseball flooded my memory and my body tensed each time I heard the ping of the ball popping off the bat. I was ready to field a grounder, to make that throw, to hear the pop of the ball hitting the glove. We continued walking alongside Paint Creek where geese and goslings floated in the water. After a long walk we finally returned home, climbing up onto the porch on our scarlet and gray stairs beneath the stars and stripes flowing in the cold wind. The best word that can describe how I felt in that moment is grateful.
Our nation is not perfect. We have many skeletons in our closet and we have a lot of problems right now like unemployment, national debt, 1 in 5 children being in danger of going to bed hungry each night which is ironically coupled with an obesity epidemic, and a tragically high incarceration rate,
This Thursday is the National Day of Prayer. On that day, at noon, let each of us say a prayer that we too often save up for the 4th of July, a prayer of thanks to God for the lives we enjoy, and a prayer that our nation would have a common life together that is based upon the dignity of all persons (there is a community gathering at the court house Gazebo Thursday at noon as well). And let us pray for our Christian brothers and sisters who experience persecution wherever that occurs. Let us educate ourselves about their plight and ask God to deliver them and to give them strength to endure until that freedom comes. We owe it to them to be grateful for
our experience of what they long for, and we owe it to them to pray for them. We also owe it to them to do everything within our power to work toward religious freedom throughout the world. I am usually very hesitant to mix my Christian faith with my patriotism as I think that too often Christians get Uncle Sam and Jesus mixed up, but that book helped me to realize just how good I have it here. If you don’t feel fortunate to live here then come by my office sometime and I’ll loan you my copy of God is Red, and that might help you have a moment of gratitude like I did.
