52 Thoughts: Good Medicine

America is beautiful. America is not the extremes of the left or right. America is the people you see on a daily basis. The people you wake up too in the morning. The people you vacation with during the summers and weep with in the cold winters.

America is beautiful because she forces me not to worship against my conscience. America understands the deep human experiences to find our way in understanding the transcendent. Beautiful because love is not found in compulsion and coercion, but in compassion. 

America is beautiful because my daughters can run for office and my son can choose a vocation other than the military. America is beautiful because our families even at the lowest point can find compassion somewhere in their city, state, and in this nation. 

America is beautiful because like myself, I will not be defined by my faults. I will be defined by how I have overcome those faults depending on the grace for the faults I still possess.

America is beautiful because from one end of this land to the other we can travel her roads if we choose. We can start our day seeing the break of day over Lady Liberty. We can enjoy a trip to the Ozarks with no threat of IEDS. We can ski the Rockies and not worry about the rocket on the side of the snow capped mountain. We can stand and enjoy the same setting sun on a beautiful Venice Beach.

America is beautiful to me because I’ve seen the devastating parts of the world. A world filled with violence, despair, and death. A world where women are property, voices are kept silent, and factions are still at war for centuries. A world where sickness can originate in a small town and remind us of our mortality. 

America is more than an ineffective minority. America is the people willing to stand and work together. 

Is America perfect? Of course not. That's why the Constitution says "a more perfect union." But it's the imperfections of her people who strive to be better that make her beautiful. 

This is why I believe in the American people not this government. These governments are all the same. Overall, we the American people have the capacity to do the right thing. I have seen it too many times in the past twenty years. I’ve read it too many times in history books. 

We. Pull. Together.

We will look out for one another. We are more than generous and willing to help one other in difficult times. My faith is in you. It for that reason and the goodness of a loving God this light and momentary affliction will pass.

I hope you remember this fifty years from now.