An American In a Strange Land

Sometimes, as I stand quietly staring into a crowd, I see so many unfamiliar faces.  At one time, when I was much younger, I did not feel so apart from others.

In today’s culture, we forget the many who sacrificed their lives to make this country a united one.  Don’t get me wrong, diversity is a wonderful thing otherwise Jesus would not have separated us by language.  He wanted us to appreciate the excitement of learning from one another and for us to become closer as a result.

But lately, in such an ever open society, it has become virtually impossible to distinguish foreigner from citizen.  Such is the path we have chosen as a nation.  We feel our way through life and let our emotions dictate our actions.  We strive to become something special, something apart from everyone else.  I recall what Saint John Paul II once said, “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought”.

Not so long ago, we let our knowledge speak for us.  We used our wisdom to guide our decisions and strived to be as one.  In my father’s day, it was a necessity to share your food, your time and your lives for the greater good because, in that age, we needed each other as we needed the air to breathe. 

I look around and reflect on all that we have accomplished and what we are not yet willing to do.  We are young, impulsive, brash and egotistical.  As Jesus taught us time and time again, we need to quiet our thoughts, settle and steel our minds for what is and will be. 

We so desperately need to return to a place when we were neither Jew nor Christian, nor slave or free and be proud and together as a nation.

It is with a particular sense of both separatism and supplication that I find myself so melancholy living in this land – so rich with the history and the extraordinary everyday people that made being here so wonderful.  I am an American in a strange land, but by God’s grace and mercy, I am also proud, so very proud to be a part of something so wonderful and to be my father’s and most certainly, my country’s son.

And I'm proud to be and American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won’t forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA (Lee Greenwood, Lyrics, 1996, Curb Records).

May the wind be forever at your backs, may the Holy Spirit bring your love into this world and may His peace be with you, always.