Sunday In West Texas

Today may be a day of rest for you, or it may be just another day at the office.  For me, Sunday is a day to relax with family.  Today, we are enjoying a "barbecue" after spending the earlier portion of the day attending a worship service, followed by a traumatic trip to the grocery store, then a relaxing day at home prior to traveling to my loved-ones' abode for the said "barbecue."

It struck me, just now, in the midst of this planning of a relatively peaceful day, that there are so many things going on around the nation and around the world that are not "peaceful" even though this is Sunday, a day of rest.  Or maybe Saturday was your day of rest...either way the principle is the same.  I realized that I was free (and as much as possible, secure) to go about these mundane things on a Sunday, or do anything I chose to do, because 1) the armed forces of the United States keep external enemies at bay, 1-a) many men and women gave their lives over the years to secure our freedoms and the sovereignty of our great nation, and 2) no great natural disasters (look at Japan!) have occurred here recently and no great civil anarchy (look at Mexico) is occurring here at the moment.

There are so many things going "wrong" across the nation and around the world, yet there are so many things going right.  For instance, my family can enjoy the "barbecue" in relative safety.  The drug cartels are probably not going to raid the party, nor is the Taliban likely to toss a bomb into the barbecue grill.  And, this is just a guess on my part, but no tidal wave is likely to strike the Permian Basin any time soon, at least before 12/21/12, but that is another blog.  Earthquakes...I will not comment on that possibility, but it is not a major show-stopper at the moment.  On a more local scale, I suppose there is always the possibility that some criminal could happen onto the party and cause some danger, but even that scenario is only a remote thought in the back of my mind.  There is adequate police protection in Midland County, and on the whole, we can trust on our police officers to follow the law and the Constitution, so that they are viewed as our protectors, not some agency to be feared (again, look at Mexico).

I only mention all of this to raise the point that with so many things going WRONG, it would be easy to dwell on the negatives, blame the politicians or the President, and sit around waiting for some negative self-fulfilling prophecy to come to fruition.  Or we, as Americans, can choose to acknowledge our blessed position in this world, and we can enjoy, just for a little while, all these blessings in the relative peace and security that we have found in this great nation.  So I spent the day and the evening engaged in a simple family get-together.  But as I think about it, this simple pleasure was so much more.  It was an exercise of freedom, the enjoyment of our liberty that so many have fought and died for to secure me and for all of us.  It was affirmation that there is so much that is GOOD and RIGHT with our nation.  God bless America!