“Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain, America, America, God shed his grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.” –Samuel Ward

This song has gone through my head many times in the last week as we’ve driven miles and miles across America’s fruited plains and experienced her majestic mountains. We were showing our guest from New Zealand a taste of our country, knowing mountains were an important part of what he wanted to see. Our many miles of travel gave him a good experience of the size of our country. We visited the Badlands, Mt Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, the Bighorns, a rodeo on Cody and Yellowstone National Park, all of which were fun and interesting. But when we neared Glacier National Park, we all loved the beauty of mountains and water. It felt the most like home to James, whose family has a crib (cottage) in Fiordland, South Island, with similar vistas. It also felt like our one-time home in Alaska. Our traveling only left a couple days to enjoy Glacier but we managed to fit in some drives on the Road to the Sun and two beautiful hikes to alpine lakes. We are already dreaming of future trips.

            As we travel homeward, we once again are crossing miles of grassland–amber waves of grain—and the song is back in my head. We’ve listened to commentary on the upcoming presidential election and thought about the whole electoral process ahead of us. I’m finding it difficult to get interested in politics. I believe in honoring our president and I especially believe that we need to respect the complexities of his/her job. In our day and age it seems like a very, very difficult task. Although I believe in democracy and love the freedom/responsibility we have to vote, I do not enjoy the pre-election campaigning. Today I listened to a commentator evaluate the two teams on “smart” and “good looking.” Really?

            As we’ve crossed this country we’ve seen different lifestyles, different values. It is a big country with a lot of different people with different values. It is no longer a melting pot but a country full of variety.

            I’m going home with a renewed love for my country, not because we are better than others but because it truly is great—as in big–and beautiful, because there really are spacious skies, amber waves of grain (and sunflowers), purple mountain majesties, and huge fruited plains. And because our freedom welcomes people of all races and religions, perhaps not as equally as one would wish, but nevertheless a welcome and a place.

               God shed his grace on Thee.

My favorite picture: