A Much Needed Getaway

 

Hello Friends!  What's brewing in that cup today?  I'm sipping Eight O'Clock Bean.  Just a morning staple for the Barber family.  Let me know what you've got.  It's been a long time since I asked.  

It's been a long time since I focused on ...well, something besides politics.   And it felt darn good to change the scenery and the conversation.

So I woke up Monday and decided I had to get away.  I've had enough.  I'm not a candidate.  I'm not running for office.  Ads in the paper and email threats are ridiculous.  Just had enough of a very spiritually sick individual and his subtle threats to destroy my family.  Bitterness and jealousy kill.  And what goes around comes around.

Anyway, enough of politics...at least for a day.

So those of you who know me, guess where I went?  Let's see if these pictures help:

 You got it right...Straight to Boone.  Straight to solitude.  Peace.  Just me, the road, and a conversation long overdue with my Creator.  And lunch with my boy.

When I crest that hill outside of North Wilkesboro, the radio gets cut off and my focus becomes the beauty our Creator gave us.  No man could have made those mountains.  No man makes those leaves change to such brilliant colors.  No man can do for us what God can.  Those are the things that come to my mind when I go west to escape from the  madness. 


And I can't help but think of the lyrics of "America the Beautiful" when I'm mesmerized by those extraordinary colors on display:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America is beautiful.  Not just because of those "mountain majesties".  No it's deeper than that.  America is beautiful because of you and me.  America is beautiful because thousands of years ago, something far greater than you and I, said "Let there be light."   

America is beautiful because that same entity gave us His Son.  Let me ask, seriously, "How many of us would sacrifice our sons on a cross for the better of mankind?" None of us would, at least not in that fashion.  I know I couldn't.  I would rather die than have my kid sacrificed.  But many have sacrificed their sons, daughters, wives, mommies, daddies, etc..to save mankind and our country.  Thank them please.  Stop those soldiers in Walmart, Food Lion, and the malls and say "Thank you!"

America is beautiful because a couple of hundred years ago,  a few good men with incredible faith believed:

"America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! "