Of
all the places you call “God’s country, which is your favorite.
(Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1364).
America
at its best takes on the simplicity of the Quakers. That is,
informality and equality implement no less than kindness. And
kindness does not mean we never disagree, it means that we just
disagree honestly for we love each other enough to speak the truth.
And we don’t think this is remarkable, we think is the most
practical way, the most realistic way, and the way most filled with
common sense.
Many,
many things flow from our central belief in the sacredness of
individual conscience—a spirit of equality, humility and kindness
flow from it. Nevertheless, while we understand the importance of
conscience, we also understand its limitations. For our conscience
sometimes does not alert us to injustice, cruelty, and selfish pride.
Our conscience is formed from individual experience, selfish
ambition, and the divine light. But sometimes our experience leads
us the wrong way and sometimes God seems silent. We
characteristically aren’t aware of this at the time, only
afterwards when the damage is done.
We
ask the world to forgive us for our blindness, and to love us (yes,
we want to be loved) despite our imperfections. If you are honest
with yourself, you will realize that the “Ugly American Syndrome”
which sometimes seems so predominate in our national affairs is not
delimited by national borders but by the human frame.
We
want to move on. America can sometimes seem so wasteful; buildings
which seem rather new are torn down to make way for the future. In my
town a Publix supermarket will soon bite the dust for the
construction of a new one on the same site. The present building
looks rather nice, but Publix where “Shopping Is a Pleasure”
wants to make certain there is never any question about it.
The
pursuit of excellence is born of pay back in the end. Little acts of
kindness done reflexively have very long trajectories and reap
abundance. This is more than faith; we have experienced it, we have
seen it happen, we have seen the ascendency of kindness over
meanness—it started with the Constitution and the spirit is alive
today in a thousand ways—but the reality is that there are those
left behind—in the American family, in the Human family. God grant
us thankfulness but NEVER contentment—may the stern eye of the
American Eagle never flinch at simple facts, no matter how
unpleasant, no matter how convicting.
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