Yesterday was Veterans Day, a national celebration in which we salute those men and women who have defended our country to keep the peace. In many ways, the Armed Services are our national border, for they protect us from harm, protect our homes, our communities, our nation. They salute the flag with their lives, and thus embody freedom. They risk all so that we may be free.
My last novel, Angel Mountain, is set in the days between Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, 2018. Those days in California were days of fires and earthquakes, shooters and riots, but we had not yet experienced lockdowns and deadly viruses. Even so, the times called for reflection on the big questions, including, is the world coming to an end? Since then, with the compounding horrors at home and abroad, we continue to ask this, along with life’s meaning, death’s meaning, and so we look to Christ and his coming among us.
God reached down and touched us with Love Incarnate, his Son. What did the Resurrection mean? Surely it was an event that broke the physical rules of life and death and would portend salvation for mankind. It was larger than earthquake and fire, so large it would become tiny and enter our hearts to live, take up residence, infuse our flesh with Eternity.
And so America was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs about the nature of mankind – the sanctity of life, the dignity of the individual, the importance of the family, of begetting children, of love expressed by spirit and flesh within the sacred protective space of marriage. And yet since the beginnings, there have been divisions, for we are fallen and must be healed, lifted up by Christ.
All this our veterans fight for – the right to believe, to speak, to raise our children with the lessons of history and faith. We are thankful.
Without America, without the shining light on the hill, the world will grow dark. It is time to salute the flag, to renew our vows as citizens, as responsible adults who can dispel tyranny abroad and value democracy at home. For many still yearn to breathe free, these teeming masses that see our Lady Liberty in the New York harbor. They look with hope to America, those who cross our borders. As Emma Lazarus wrote, the words engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty,
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
As we were taught by Judaism and Christianity, we befriend the lost, the poor, the defenseless. Not many other nations do, and those who do so are modeling America. We must continue to be that door in the harbor, that light on the hill. We must not allow the world to go dark.
And so we are thankful to our veterans and all those who have served in these wars for freedom. It seems appropriate that Thanksgiving follows, and in this time we will consider the gifts we have been given, living in the most blessed nation on earth, America. For she has given us the gift of freedom, of faith, and of family. We must not squander these gifts. We must share them.
And most of all, we honor those who risk their lives to protect ours, so that we can continue to salute the dignity of all persons, each one made in the image of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who loves us so, the God who died and rose again, the God that sets us free.
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 