The Question
An American woman stands with her hand over her heart, singing and weeping with joy, as our national anthem is played to honor her for winning her Olympic race. Her competition was against sports teams from other countries. She is being honored for representing our country. Perhaps in the back of her mind is a realization that some time in the past, one of her ancestors came to this country, settled, worked hard, raised a family, and that she inherited the work ethic that made her victory possible.
My Irish great-great grandparents also came to America. Here, they found refuge when they were starving in Ireland. They, too, settled, worked hard, and raised a family. Like the woman, my father, their grandson, was decorated by his country. Unlike the woman, the victory of which he was a part was much more serious. The competition was between the armies of freedom and the armies who sought to abolish those freedoms.
Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty is a stanza from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.
“Send me your tired your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden shore.”
Those two families probably arrived before Emma Lazarus wrote those words, but they came, believing the promise that she finally put into words.
And our anthem asks us:
“O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o’er the land of the free
and the home of the brave?”
The words on the Statue of Liberty, like those of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, were set to music. I can sing both of them with all my heart. Am I naive to believe that those two songs still state truths about the United States of America? Can “Yes!” still be the answer to the question at the end of the anthem?
Helen Hill
Kendall's Story
My Mother had a car tag, which read, "Let me tell you about my grandkids." I suppose that is what I will do today for at least one of them. Kendall lives down the road from our house and visits when the Spirit moves him.
One day he stopped by to chat a bit before going deer hunting behind our house. I did not have much advice for him since I quit any type of hunting several years ago after the hills had gotten too steep and the woods too thick. Nevertheless, we had a good conversation during which he asked me if I had heard about the deer that he killed last week. Naturally, I had not so here goes the story.
Kendall went with two of his friends, Paxton and Peyton, to help do some cleanup work around their grandfather's house in Philadelphia. Papa had been ill and needed some help. Like many young men, they can get a lot done when they work together in unison and let the synergistic effect take place. They finished quickly with a good bit of daylight left, and they realized there was plenty of time to go hunting. Mr. B. offered to let them use his guns, and they gladly accepted. Slowly they eased across an open space not far from a line of trees where deer often grazed. Initially there was no movement, and time started to slip away but then a rather large doe ventured out. Kendall could not believe his eyes but instinctively he raised his gun, aimed, and fired.
The deer bolted away rapidly disappearing. All three of them thought that Kendall missed, but when he went to the spot where the deer had been, there was blood and a little fur. It surprised him since the guns had not been sighted in a long-time making accuracy difficult. They started trying to trail the deer, but then a dog came along barking, and the deer jumped up from a hiding place. It did not go far and fell again. When Kendall reached for another bullet, it was gone probably falling out of his pocket. This was not good since he only left with two shells.
Paxton volunteered to go back to the truck for a gun, but then Kendall had an adrenalin rush and dove in on the deer holding it in a headlock. Paxton hurriedly returned, but it seemed like an eternity to Kendall. Paxton told Kendall to turn the deer loose and get away so that he could get off a shot. Kendall did as instructed, but when he let loose of the poor deer, it fell over dead. We got a good chuckle out of this, and the boys had some meat, which they enjoy.
I told Kendall that this was dangerous, and he could have been hurt. He agreed and said that he would not have tried it if it had been a buck. It does not surprise me that he was able to hold the deer since he used to help me trim the hooves of my goats, and they were a handful.
One of my greatest joys in this stage of life is to reflect back upon good memories and enjoy them. This brought back memories of when my daddy killed his first two deer and how happy that made him. Often when your grandchildren are grown, then you are gone, but for some reason, God has allowed me to hang around longer for which I am grateful. My mind went back to when I helped teach Kendall, Paxton, and Peyton in Children's Bible Drill, and a memory verse hopped out at me, Proverbs 22.1 KJV, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches and loving favour rather than silver and gold." This was a good day as it entered into my memory bank, and I wanted to share it.
Jimmy Williamson
