Recently, as I was driving down the street, I noticed a very tattered American flag flying above a well-known donut establishment. I couldn’t help thinking that it symbolized the tattered condition of our nation right now. In my youth I was so proud of and grateful for our country that I felt a lump in my throat and tears threatening to form in my eyes when I held my hand over my heart and sang the national anthem. But these days I feel an uncertainty about our future when the national anthem reaches my ears.

I remember the days when the streets seemed so safe that my mother thought nothing of letting me walk to the little store several blocks away, where I might buy Necco candies, wax “lips” with a sweet red liquid in them, or maybe some white peppermint sticks in a package that looked like Camel cigarettes. Oh, yes . . . I was a heavy “smoker” in those days, though I never developed a hankering for the real thing. Mom didn’t worry when I walked alone to my school a half mile away. Her only worry was that I might get drenched while dodging the rotating sprinklers in the park adjacent to the school on my way home and once again arrive at home in wet clothing. With today’s widespread news coverage of tragic incidents, today’s parents often feel a need to make some kind of special arrangement, such as walking with a buddy, when sending their child off to school.

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We began the day at public school with the pledge of allegiance. Then we began the work of learning language skills, math, geography, and science. No one distracted us from the work at hand by telling us we should feel guilty if we were white or asking us what sex we would like to be. The rest rooms were either for boys or for girls—nothing in between. None of the kids chattered openly while the teacher was talking. None had a tantrum or threw a chair at the teacher. We didn’t worry about someone opening fire on the students in our school. Life in the American public schools seemed quite care-free. America was well past World War II, but we did have some “duck and cover” drills due to nuclear threats. Fortunately, I was apparently trusting enough to believe they might keep me safe. I was too young to know much about the investigations of Communist infiltration in the government.

My life in America began to seem less care-free during my adolescent years, beginning with President Kennedy being shot in 1963.  I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news.

It was the end of lunch break, and I had gone to the restroom before returning to the classroom. Another girl told me that the President had been shot. I didn’t think it could be true, but I soon found out that it was. I believed the initial reports that 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, an admirer of Cuban leader Fidel Castro who once defected to Russia for about 2-1/2 years, was the sole shooter from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. He had been arrested for shooting a police officer, and then was also charged with shooting JFK. In 1978 a long U.S. House investigation finally concluded that JFK’s assassination was probably the result of a conspiracy. It was believed that there was another shooter on a grassy knoll. Only two days after JFK’s death, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by a 52-year-old man who managed nightclubs and strip clubs in Dallas, Jack Ruby. After sentencing, it was discovered he was a dying man. Conspiracy theories galore have sprung up about this whole scenario. The term “conspiracy theory” has developed a negative connotation in recent years, but not all conspiracy theories should be discounted.

In 1964 racial protests broke out in some parts of the country. There were investigations into possible Communist involvement by some of the civil rights leaders. In 1965 the U.S. sent ground troops to the war against Communism in Vietnam that had begun brewing in the 1950s. That same year saw the beginning of protests against the war. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. Just a couple of months later, U. S. Attorney General and candidate for the Democratic nomination Robert Kennedy (President Kennedy’s brother) was also assassinated. News reports stated that he was shot by 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan, a Jordanian. According to Wikipedia, in 1989 he told interviewer David Frost: “My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 fighter jets to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians.” RFK, Jr., has discounted the original reports of the way his father was shot. The military draft took some of my fellow high school graduates to fight in Vietnam. My once-delightfully-care-free life in America was indeed becoming less and less care-free.

We managed to get past the racial protests of the 60s. Thankfully, the Black population gradually began to be treated more fairly and equitably. Controversial school busing was used to desegregate schools. The U.S finally withdrew from Vietnam in 1975.  Other than some fairly short military engagements and some scandals and local disasters, things seemed relatively calm for a pretty long period after 1975.

More Trouble on the Horizon

Fast forward to 1999 to the first school shooting, which occurred at Columbine High School, located in Columbine, Colorado. I remember travelling through Colorado not long after. Seeing the turn-off for Columbine made it seem all too real. Since then our nation has been plagued with mass shootings. The solution to these tragedies that is proposed by many is to do away with guns. However, our right to bear arms is one of our most important basic rights, to protect ourselves from intruders and invaders. This problem of mass shootings seems to be a problem of mental health. There have been recent deadly attacks using knives. Will we have to register those, too? There is a website exploring the possibility of whether psychotropic drugs could be responsible for some of the mass shootings.

The planes that crashed into the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001, comprised the first major attack on U.S. soil, other than the World War II attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii—then a territory rather than a state. This was another instance where the news was so shocking that I remember clearly the circumstances of hearing the news. Our TV was on that morning. When I walked into the room and saw the planes crashing into the towers, I thought it was a disaster movie. I soon heard the description of the catastrophic event. I called the teacher in the Head Start classroom where I was soon to arrive to assist with the children. I told her the shocking news and offered to bring the small TV on my kitchen counter, for which she was grateful. (Those were the days before smart phones.) We didn’t know what other attacks they might have planned. Although the Pentagon was also damaged, a heroic planeload of Americans crashed in Pennsylvania, after voting to wrestle control from hijackers intending to crash into the Capitol. American security was forever changed after 9/11. No one would have imagined having to take off their shoes and go through a scanner just to fly to Aunt Mabel’s for Thanksgiving.

Who could forget the contentious 2016 presidential election, in which the FBI (instigated by Donald Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton) attempted to prove that Trump had colluded with Russia? The release of the Durham Report on May 15, 2023, finally exonerated him. In 2018 Democrats had warned of the dangers of voting machines. Although research will reveal an abundance of evidence of election fraud in the 2020 election, the mainstream media continues to insist over and over that the claims of fraud are “baseless,” which seems to have become one of their favorite words. I do know one thing: If we do not have reliable elections, we may no longer have a democratic republic. Our leaders may be “selected” instead of “elected.” We must get rid of voting machines and have in-person voting with voter ID verification. In days gone by we had no trouble counting ballots by hand in a short timeframe.

After the election came the famous event of January 6^th , 2021, wherein citizens who believed our 2020 election may not have been valid rallied at the Capitol. There is still great confusion about the violence that erupted. A mysterious figure named Ray Epps, who appeared encouraging the crowd to advance over and over, was much later revealed to be president of Oath Keepers and claimed to be just a “peaceful protestor.” So why did he get nothing but probation, while the leader of the Proud Boys and others were sentenced to serious jail time? A video-enabled timeline of the event of January 6^th is very enlightening.

Troubles Multiplied

As you know, in 2020 and 2021 another great challenge was presented to America— and to the whole world. Many suffered the death of a loved one from the Covid-19 pandemic and were not even allowed to visit them while they were dying. Other lasting consequences were the economic harm and the damage done to our children’s education and emotional well-being caused by lockdowns. People who wanted the freedom to choose whether to wear masks or get vaccinated were ostracized. One very great loss was the loss of trust in our medical system. Perhaps many lives would have been saved, had they been treated early with forbidden medications, such as ivermectin. If something had been deemed an effective treatment, the CDC could not have granted emergency use of the vaccines. Millions of people around the world have been successfully treated for parasites with ivermectin. Nevertheless, during the pandemic there was a campaign to restrict the use of it and ridicule people who used it, as though it were only for horses.  The face masks touted by the experts as being important prevention were later thought to have been ineffective, and the vaccines had proven to be a source of harm rather than help for many. The very origin of the Covid-19 virus is a very long, shady story.

We all remember that during the pandemic an additional source of trouble was piled on top of all the complex problems of Covid-19 and the political drama. The death of an arrested Black man named George Floyd on May 25, 2020, caused Black Lives Matter protests to soar. Though it’s very important to give equal treatment to everyone, the original website for Black Lives Matter revealed that the founders had goals of  disrupting the “nuclear” (traditional) family and dismantling Capitalism. One of the co-founders was a trained Marxist. Not only that, but it was discovered that its co-founders used funds collected to live a lavish lifestyle. Some Antifa members helped to cause fires and other damage and injuries. Police often had to wear riot gear.

A View of the Current Landscape

Looking back, our flag has had to weather many storms, but today we are faced with a variety of serious problems all at the same time. The Critical Race Theory that originated in colleges began popping up in lower levels of learning, and children have been encouraged to question their sexual identity. Unidentified foreigners flock over our borders. They bring deadly drugs, sex trafficking, crime, and an unsustainable drain on our economy. Many military-aged men from unfriendly governments have vanished into our population. We know that information and opinions disagreeing with certain political agendas are being censored. “Lady Justice” recently lost her blindfold. According to thehill.com, while people who fire-bombed pregnancy crisis centers were never investigated, some anti-abortion protestors in Nashville who prayed and sang at the entrance of an abortion clinic found themselves facing 11 years in prison. Our only Republican presidential candidate–Donald Trump– is being bombarded with lawsuits, in which it seems pretty hard not to see political motives. Many Americans believe that the only Democrat presidential candidate—Joe Biden— has questionable financial ties to foreign countries, as well as being in serious mental decline. Many, many citizens have been arrested for being involved in the January 6^th  protest of 2021, some of whom didn’t even enter the Capitol. Some languish unconstitutionally in prisons without even having been tried after three years. Our Constitution guarantees citizens the right to a speedy trial. In addition to all that, inflation is dogging the American people, and the national debt is way out of hand.

The world seems to be teetering on the brink of World War III, and America’s influence could seemingly tip the scales one way or the other. We are pouring billions of dollars into assistance with military weapons. Meanwhile, there seems to be a lack of accountability in where the funds sent to Ukraine have actually been used. I found a very thought-provoking interview about the Ukraine situation. The U.S. stance with Israel has been severely criticized on college campuses across the country. Civilian injuries and deaths always happen in war and are always tragic—especially the injuries and deaths of children. However, I have heard several sources, including President Biden, say that the death figures provided by Hamas cannot be trusted. I even heard one source say that video footage from events in other areas had been used. It doesn’t seem impossible to believe, since I recall that during the pandemic a mainstream media source was caught using footage from another hospital while speaking of a certain hospital.

From my viewpoint, it appears that the pro-Palestinian protestors in our colleges are not well educated on the realities of the situation. Do they know of the unspeakable surprise atrocities that Hamas committed against Israeli civilians and other civilians visiting from other countries, which were responsible for starting the war? Do they know that Israel dropped messages from the air to warn civilians in Gaza that they were going to attack? Do they realize that Hamas soldiers don’t wear uniforms, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention? Do they understand that Hamas was using a hospital to shield themselves from retaliation? Are they aware of the attempts by Israel and other nations to distribute humanitarian aid to Gaza? These pro-Palestinian college protestors would do well to be sure they understand the history of the land of Israel. Someone is apparently promoting these protests by financing tents and barriers and food, etc.

In my own city of Portland, pro-Palestinian protestors took over the library at Portland State University and did extensive damage to it. According to The Oregonian article of May 5^th, there were floors spattered with paint, messages on the walls, furniture turned over, and glass displays broken. All this damage has kept tuition-paying students from using the library, and it will cost the taxpayers to make needed repairs. Damages have been estimated at $750,000. Jewish students have been in fear.

The Bible predicts that the world will become more and more evil and lawless before Christ returns. When Jesus spoke of the end times recorded in Matthew 24:4-8, He said that the wars, famines, and earthquakes will be the beginning of “birth pains.” Birth pains become more frequent and more intense. It seems possible that World Wars I & II were “birth pains” indicating that the birth of Christ is getting closer. There is an article dated January 25, 2024, on the vox.com website that’s entitled “It’s not your imagination. There has been more war lately.” A graph of war deaths in the article shows that the number of war deaths between about 1989 and 2011 remained pretty low. However, a graph of the number of wars shows that the number of wars began skyrocketing in 2011. They could find no clear consensus for the reason.

Looking Through the Eyes of Hope

I’m reminded of the open Bible we had placed in my father’s hands as he lay in a casket after his death. He always loved America and was troubled by the besetting problems he saw in our land. Nevertheless, I’m certain he realized that his citizenship in this country was temporary. We opened the Bible in his hands to Hebrews 11, which contains these words in verses 13 & 16:  “All these people were still living by faith when they died . . . they were looking for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” [NIV] All of us who have placed our faith in Christ’s sacrifice to pay for our sins and are following Him can one day claim our citizenship in a land far more wonderful than any on the earth today.

As I once again drove past that well-known donut business that had flown a tattered American flag a couple of weeks earlier, I observed that the old flag had been replaced by a fresh, vibrantly-colored flag that was floating in the breeze.  I pray that, like that flag, our tattered country might be replaced by a fresh, vibrant country floating gently in the freedoms our forefathers envisioned when they fought British control with their lives and fortunes. I pray that the moral values our forefathers desired when they wrote the Constitution will be revived. In a letter to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798, John Adams wrote: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” If God allows our nation to continue to stand, I pray it will return to being the “sweet land of liberty” sung about in the anthem below.

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