Restoring Honor 6 Years Later

Written and shared with a handful of subscribers in September 2010.


American Train Ride


          There was this little rush of anticipation I was experiencing as my wife Becky was driving me to the Amtrak Station in Midtown Atlanta.  Part of the excitement was childish residue from memories of riding the train as a young boy. Part was from the uncertainty of what was to unfold around the big rally planned in Washington DC on 8/28/2010.  My imagination was trying to run in varied directions - one which was of a full train of the event participants who would most certainly contribute to a gathering of magnitude the likes our capital has never seen. Another thought path considered the opposite. That left leaning travelers on their way to pose a counterbalance would dampen the spirit of the moment.  When I entered the station I noticed what I never considered.  The bulk of the riders were the - business as usual - type that one might find at that station on any other Friday evening; mostly African Americans in route and on routine.



          My evolving state of euphoria was abridged the moment I walked through the doors of the Peachtree Road Building.  The TV was tuned to CNN.  It was a good news - bad news situation.  They were talking about Glenn Beck’s 8/28 Rally.  They were interviewing Al Sharpton.  It was at this point that the message from this journey of mine began to take form.  The sharp contrast of the motives of the conservative majority of our nation and the motives of the liberal left were already in plain view.

          My colorful childlike memories of train stations past were supplanted by a cold black and white of what I would have expected from a bus station.  There was an air of bored complacency waiting to cycle down into despair at any moment with Sharpton’s resentful rants offering background noise.  I could not really discern who the rally travelers were unless I wanted to use a racial template.  Later I learned that I could have used that template to point out who was going to Washington to take part in the next great event in a wave of spiritual awakening in our land.
         
         
People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord……
 Curtis Mayfield

          Struggle as I might to write without a negative bent, I must face reality and my reality tells me things are looking bleak.  The train ride was cold…literally cold.  One of the catalysts of my initial enthusiasm was the Amtrak publication that I read prior to the trip: full color pictures of glimmering trains moving across a spectacularly scenic America.  The magazine had the information I needed to take advantage of all the great amenities this service offered; the romance of interstate travel on our great country’s original transcontinental mode of movement - the engine of the industrial age.  Then the reality set in.  Amtrak is owned by the Government of the USA.  There is no hospitality and there are no amenities.  It is beaurocracy in your face!  Did I mention how cold it was? It is the temperature business owners set their thermostats to when an IRS agent visits to audit them.  I thought maybe they wanted me to get off at the next empty station.  When I finally fell asleep I had a nightmare that Obamacare had finally kicked in and I was in an emergency waiting room on an Amtrak train.  It couldn’t be hell.  It was too cold!

          Thank God for the sunlight, the Virginia countryside and hot coffee!  There is a certain peace that comes when one realizes that they have survived or passed through discomfort and conflict.  I had that peace Saturday morning August 28, 2010.  I was confident that what lie ahead at the steps of The Lincoln Memorial would be worth any tribulation endured.

          The beauty of the old Virginia farmhouses shimmering in a foggy morning mist screamed at us for a return to simpler times when truth had meaning for most people. There were two hot air balloons hanging above the valley in Charlottesville, home of UVA, a university started by a founding father, Thomas Jefferson.  Through the window of the rushing train car they seemed to levitate in space.  One was in red, white and blue colors.  Coming ever closer to our destination we stopped in Manassas.  Here in this town there was a farmer’s market bustling across the street. There I saw Americans exercising their freedom so afforded them by our sacred founding documents made possible by colonists’ ultimate sacrifice during a revolutionary war.  Just a short distance away another battlefield where the first major land battle of our pivotal American Civil War took place.  The train charged ahead carrying us to our ultimate destination on the National Mall.

“The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.”
John 1:5

          We arrived at Union Station ahead of schedule and it must be said that of all the disappointments of the Amtrak experience previously encountered the engineers more than did their job.  The train departed Atlanta late but arrived Washington early.  I had looked at the DC Metro rail map and decided to approach the rally from the north side of the Lincoln Memorial instead of from the east, since the crowd would stretch from west to east.  The first noticeable element of the environment in Union Station was the buzz of anticipation.  The Atlanta station’s submissive environment had been replaced by one with a hurried pace.  All of a sudden there was no doubt as to the intention of this crowd.  The start of the program was minutes away as was the target site.



The crowd coming up from Foggy Bottom station validated my motives for being there.  It was a large crowd with cause to be stressed but it’s character remained patiently assured, steadfast in faith.  We were caught in a gently flowing current brushed by the hand of providence. Our road ran smack into the north wall of the majestic landmark behind the stage and we could hear the real voice of Sarah Palin and take in a literal breath of fresh air and let go a sigh of relief.  And she said “We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want. We must restore America and restore her honor.”

          That moment as I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking out towards the Washington Monument over the splendid sun splashed crowd I felt a wave of emotion well up and knew our journey had been validated.  It was a huge crowd enveloped by a mood best described as contented composed calmness.  Grace like a down comforter enveloped all of us.


          I wandered about the masses with the desire for a better understanding and meaning of what was taking place.  I observed.  I took photographs.  I wondered if I could ever justifiably describe what was happening. I sat down in the grass and listened.  Tears rolled down my cheeks.  Would this effort have the power to stem the tide of Godless anger and resentment that would divide our land and destroy our liberty?

“The struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.”     
  Ronald Reagan 1983

          I ended up at the WWII Memorial as the program came to a close.  I met some folks from Ohio who were active in the Tea Party Patriots.  They wore identical t-shirts labeled “Portage County Patriots.”  As we sat together by the fountain the gathered throng joined into song. Amazing Grace originated from a Gospel Choir on stage accompanied by bagpipes.  We needed no Church or hymnals for the Holy Spirit was with us. 
Many of us were in Washington a year ago for the 9/12 march.  Then we were protesting the impending health care legislation, what we now call “Obamacare”.  Last year the energy of the crowd was focused on letting our lawmakers know that there was significant opposition to the proposed bill specifically and Government’s intrusion in our lives generally.  In the year since we have learned that the Government is not concerned with the “Will of the People”.  This year the crowd was twice the size of that event, which in one man’s opinion shows that a Spiritual Awakening is occurring. As has been preached in at least one southern pulpit by Andy Stanley, national morality cannot prevail in exclusion of religious principal. There can be no moral consensus in our national conscience without divine accountability. The fact that this year there were no signs and no overt chanting protestations would speak to the knowledge that we need God in our lives.  If there was a protest going on during 8/28 it was about stopping the active removal of God from the sacred institutions created by the Divine Providence of our founding documents: The Declaration of Independence and The US Constitution.

“And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”  
            John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address January 20, 1961

          After the program had ended I visited the Jefferson Memorial for the first time.  On one of the walls I found this simple question.  “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?”  My answer is no they can’t.  I would suggest that the people in the gathering on the Mall this fine August day would answer the same way. So what now?  Where do we go from here?   My belief is:  that if each of us who were blessed by having had the opportunity to be a part of 8/28 takes the message to others, that if we maintain a vigilant conviction to the idea that our Country was founded by Divine Providence, maybe we stem the tide of malevolence that would tear down all the goodness that has marked this Nation since it’s inception. I pray that this story and these words are precious cargo in the freight car that brings the message to every station in the land.  All Aboard!

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”

RONALD REAGAN, October 27, 1964


Amen America
Bradford Bosworth
June 2016

No comments:

A Carnivore's Paradise

  (Writer’s Note: In my upcoming book “ Angel Food Cake” A Forty Day Devotional for an Upside/Down World, there are stories referencing ange...

Most Viewed