From sea to shining sea

Have you had the delight of burying your toes into the sands of Florida's panhandle? In my limited coastal experience, I've only seen sands whiter and felt them softer 1200 hundred miles to the west in, of all places, New Mexico.

Between the Sacramento Mountains to the east and the San Andres Mountains to the west lies a flat basin blotted in satellite imagery with a sizable expanse of white, the peculiarly placed White Sands National Monument. You get the impression that maybe sometime past that that region was under some manner of sea.

Our nation teems with places that gorge the senses. A delightful set of circumstances stuck me in Hawaii for three days. Being a novice snorkler, I felt like Jacques Cousteau gliding over the reefs of Oahu's Hanauma Bay. While the bay testified to the glory of God, the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor testified to the glory of God in man. Both stirred soul.

I work with many Europeans. To a man they all remark about the wonder of driving through Kansas (or Nebraska or Texas or Montana or South Dakota). We have driven a number of times down I-35 between Kansas City and Oklahoma City, and the unsurpassed vastness of our great land is astounding. In all of Europe there is no place so wide open, so uninterrupted.

Growing up in Minnesota, I did not see mountains firsthand until high school. My parents and I drove from Minneapolis to Sun Valley, Idaho. South Dakota is a vast flat except for the aptly named Black Hills (which to a Twin City boy were quite impressive). As we traveled west through Wyoming along I-90, I remember seeing dark clouds on the horizon thinking we'd have rain some time that afternoon. The more miles past, the clear the Rocky Mountains became. I like so many others had been startled to see the majesty of our western mountains.

On our way home, we passed through Jackson Hole, Wyoming and passed the Grand Tetons. If you have a list of places you want to see firsthand before God calls you to heaven, the Grand Tetons ought to be on your list. Pictures do not do their stark jaggedness justice.

Only one time, sadly, have I been to the Big Apple and it was while she slept. Arriving by plane into JFK in the middle of the night Sunday morning, I had to transfer over to Newark, NJ. I did not imagine so vast a city could be so quiet. It was an odd sensation.

I have been blessed to be in New England three other times and all of them fell in the fall. As spectacular as Minnesota colors are, they had nothing on the forests of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Massachusetts in the fall. Man's palettes could not capture such hues.

Flying over our nation at night will catch your breath. The LA basin abruptly ends east and west because of mountains and ocean respectively. The lights trail off in the east as civilization trickles into the Palm Springs passes but the distinct line along the Pacific Ocean's eastern shore is bizarre in its abruptness. The same phenomena occurs when flying over Chicago. The lights merely fade to the west end but seem to have been covered by an ebony blanket to the east. The DFW Metroplex has no such issue. From the air the entire world beneath you is city as the population mass stretches for so many miles to all compass points.

The piney forests of the upper Midwest smell as I imagine heaven to smell. The green of the rainy northwest seems artificial for its depth.

What city can match Washington DC for its tribute to history and to God? The alabaster monuments honor men of character and sacrifice, and they honor the God who made and strengthened those men. I have a soft spot for the delightful functionality of Minneapolis, Minnesota. What state capitol holds the charm and simple beauty of Madison, Wisconsin?

San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, and Boston. Major cities of urban and natural beauty. All American.

We are and have been a people richly blessed. What nation has such places as Mt. McKinley and Glacier Bay, the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon, San Francisco Bay and the Nantuckett Sound, Niagra Falls and Wichita Falls? We have great plains and great mountains. We have great cities and great people.

Yes, we have been lavished upon to live in such a land.

America. My country. My home. May God continue to shed His grace on thee.

Teton photo by Ansel Adams