Our purpose for this three month trip we just took was three fold; to enjoy God’s creation, to see and experience historical places, and to observe the spiritual climate of other parts of our country. In this post I would like to summarize my observations.
God’s creation is breath taking and our country is very unique in this aspect. We visited about 30 National Parks sites, several of them having to do with nature. We were in Big Bend and South Padre in Texas; Big Cypress, the Everglades, and Gulf Islands in Florida. Nathan keeps a list of birds that he has seen and he added oh so many to his list on this trip; over 20 in one day in the Everglades. We saw so many flowers because of the schedule of our trip, everywhere we went it was the beginning of Springtime.
Water, water, everywhere. We saw the Gulf Coast from Texas, Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. We traveled up the East Coast from Key West, Florida (the farthest south you can go) all the way to New York City. We saw rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, canals, bays, inlets, and swamps. We saw where Washington crossed the Delaware, four of the five great lakes, and Niagara Falls (even at night). We saw the power of God in nature. We saw storm damage from hurricanes, flooding, fires, and tornadoes.
Our country is relatively young as far as nations go. Here in Oklahoma, we have just been a state since 1907. So we enjoyed seeing the old houses, public buildings, and State Capital buildings (went to 6 or 7). History is everywhere to be seen in the eastern half of the nation where people from Europe first settled.
The accomplishments of man in building edifices in this country is quite impressive. We crossed multitudes of bridges, saw a massive number of sky scrapers, and saw beautiful homes that have been in place for hundreds of years.
But our underlying goal in all that we did was to be with people; in the marketplaces where we shopped, in the places we stayed, in the national parks we toured, in the public buildings we went through, in the churches we visited. There were people everywhere. We drove through or visited 10 of the 20 largest cities in the USA; including 1 New York City, 3 Chicago, 4 Houston, 6 Philadelphia, 7 San Antonio, 9 Dallas, 11 Austin, 12 Jacksonville, 17 Indianapolis, and 20 Washington D.C.
So what were our basic observations from the people we met and interacted with along the way? We had wonderful experiences meeting people from different backgrounds, cultures, heritages, and belief systems. And generally speaking we were treated with kindness, respect, and graciousness in so many situations. But I have learned over the years in watching others that if you approach people with kindness and sincerity, they almost always return the same toward you. So it was a joy to meet so many new people along life’s way.
Our only dissappointment along the way had to do with the spirituality of our nation. It looks like we have entered a time of true apostasy (a falling away). We had hopes that maybe things would be different in other parts of our country. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part our experience was not encouraging. Christians in our nation have lost the zeal for living the Christian life. Chrisitianity in America is broken. In a future post, I will discuss my thoughts regarding this matter.
