One Thing Remained

"For the land of the free and home of the brave lives on in the minds of the people."

Blindly whipped by hate, they tore the flag to pieces, RED, WHITE, AND BLUE scattered on the ground. They’d erected their own god, shaped like men, fed by fires they’d lit in the name of blood and meant to avenge him of what he hadn’t gained. The throne they couldn’t see looked down from lofty mountains grandeur, their purple majesty settled beneath His feet and shifted not one inch. This was His land, this was their land, the land of the children of Abraham, God’s country. He claimed it from sea to shining sea, every river, every dell, its native peoples, its self-inflated conquerors. Carved into its hillside, their faces shined back at Him, reflected in the sun, in the rain, in the whipping wind, and nothing moved. Only the shards of the flag they thought they’d destroyed.

But from deep within where no man could alter it, it lingered still in the midst of the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, and though the generations shifted, grown and faded, though the times changed from this to that, the revolution continued, the winning side certain. For He had proclaimed it, ere any had set foot here, ere any had found it. He who holds the future knew life was worth the living on these hallowed grounds. Though men would doubt it, though they would foam and gnash against it, though they would burn the flag in the name of false doctrine and demonic zeal, and resew the flag to further their own agenda, though they would divide and reconnect, again and again without any vision of their own destitution, one thing remained.

Those who live and work here must be dedicated to those who died here, whose blood consecrates who we are here, to those who sacrificed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to raise these colors that today, we defend. And though we can do little or much, to add or detract from their efforts, in this land on this day in this year, we unite because of how great they are, how great they remain. Because of the flag that the God of heaven and earth hallowed and dedicated so that no one, man or beast, can truly destroy it. For the land of the free and home of the brave lives on in the minds of the people, young and old, those born on these hallowed grounds and those who chose it by adoption. Whether Jew or Greek or barbarian or Scythian, slave or free, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses stand today beneath the colors that run beneath us, and we look to the north where streams the banner whose stars reach up to heaven.

Flag Images from Wikimedia Commons.
Woman making American Flag, circa 1910
Sewing stripes on the American flag at the Annin Flag Company, March 1943
Sewing the edge of an American flag at the Annin Flag Company, March 1943
Patriotic Old Women, circa 1918


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com