History and $8 fuel

The highway runs strait and the road beats its rhythm to the tune of the six tires that hold my F-450 to the road.  In tow the horses on board are passing the time while I take in the never ending white line that will take us to our destination.  We travel the great interstates and sometimes highways of a big land.  Every once in a while if I am lucky I can see the great wagon trains moving along side me or a lone Indian watching me cross his sacred home.  The whisper of a west gone by is often louder than the satellite radio that projects the country rock of Eric Church.  All this old mixed with new just keeps on trucking as another mile post passes and the hope of a great horse show waits.  The only disruption to the ride is when I stop and fuel up, currently a very painful experience to the tune of a good 150 bucks or so for 30 gallons of diesel.  As the pit stop ends I hear the voice of those who want our fuel prices to rise to the rates of Europe. I look back at the wide expanse of the western United States and ask why do we want to be Europe when we have all this?

  When I ponder this Idea of being the new Europe I must ask why are we in a hurry to be a “has been” empire? A nation sunk with dept and a spoiled young generation of entitlement who fail to produce and fail to compete and invent.  The sun now sets on the British Empire, the Spanish have had their conquests, and the French seem more interested in color coordinating their uniforms than actually fighting for anything.  Italy has produced some amazing people, art, and philosophy, but Rome is a vanished dream from two thousand years ago.  In other parts the remnants of failed communism are complemented by horse drawn plows and poverty.  Beautiful architecture is surrounded by memories of people who once worshiped Christ but now are Godless.  Islam is quietly fighting and winning its second holy crusade into Spain and France.  Germany is reminded constantly of losing two world wars as it tries to carry the Euro currency.  When I look at Europe I see what is left of greatness suppressed in history, a land of $8 fuel and history.

I am not ready to stand by and see the United States become the next England the former most powerful nation on the earth.  I will not stand by and see my children raised with the idea that we used to be a great world power; we used to be the light on the hill.  The greatest days are always before us, the next Steve Jobs is in Woodrow Wilson Elementary in small town U.S.A.  The Doctor that will cure cancer is attending Freemont Middle School, and the first person to walk the surface of mars in rolling around in a stroller in some Cody municipal park.  Somewhere in the Bible belt is a young man reading his Bible who will cry repentance to the masses, while two Mormon missionaries teach the parents of a future prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  A young girl in downtown sits at her first recital and will one day change our idea of the power of music.  In the heartland a Grandpa drives his grandson across the field that one day will be the grandsons’ way to feed the greatest nation on earth.

Our greatest days are before us I will not pay $8 a gallon so we can become something that used to be great.  We are not better than the people of Europe or anywhere else for that matter.  We are good people in America and there are good people everywhere.  We are however a nation of liberty a nation of hope.  We are an empire that makes the world better because we are good.  We should not embrace ideas that make us less than what we are. Or allow people to lead us who try to move us into the shadows of a fallen empire long betroved of royalty.  We are one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.  We cannot pay Europes gas prices because we have something here to great to become history.  Looking out the window I see a great sacrifice by those who came here and started our history, now we must continue to write it.  When future generations travel our highways may they see us on our horses and remember to keep this land free and strong, not a picture in a history book.

cities and mountains

I am used to falling asleep to crickets chirping, an occasional horse whinny and the silent sway of pasture grasses.  Tonight it’s traffic, police sirens and the noise of downtown Seattle.  The dark curtains of the hotel room on Sixth Avenue do their best to block the light; I prefer my curtinless windows of home that show the stars.  I love where I live and am very grateful for the goodness of the land my family calls home.  Such an interesting idea home, what emotions it invokes and pictures and dreams it brings to the mind.  I hear some screaming outside and wonder why would you call this wretch of a place home, the same thought the screaming person would have to the stinky horse pasture that surrounds the place I long for.

I look to the beautiful mountains that surround and dominate the skyscrapers that rest at the heart of the city. Why would you ride an elevator when your legs or better yet your horse could draw you to the tops of the peaks?  The winter has been mild but long and the mountains seem to call my name.  They are a voice of a lost lover who whispers for me to come back to those arms that cradle and vanquish the fears and worries of life.  They offer all I need, water, food, shelter and freedom.  The building out my window tonight is a prison wall to tall to escape.  Perhaps the person dancing in the window across the street fills the same way to the wild as I do to his or her city.

The voices outside my door in the hall are loud full of laughter and thoughtlessness. Far away dead Indian Creek whispers over the rocks as a fly rod tickles the air.  From the far meadow the elk breaks the evening silence with a call of authority.  While the quaking aspen play a song for the spruce pine.  Doors slam open and shut now with some running teenage voices squalling with that annoying sound they make when your kid voice is arguing with your adult voice.  Nothing like the crackle of the fire as the North Star gives way to the light show of the spinning planets of eternal time.  Interesting what we each view as fun.

Each of us is living an amazing life trying to figure it all out and to live it.  For some the time is long and well spent, for others long and wasted.  For some it is short and full for others short and empty. It sometimes is full of question and in a grand moment full of answers.  Around here it is lived very fast, at home it’s lived a lot slower.  In the end it is just lived spent and over.   I am just grateful that for me it is spent in a saddle occasionally in the mountains and always with the Lord and my family close by.  I am glad the guy across the street can live it dancing in his window.  I am also glad he has clothes and I have curtains in my hotel room.  In the end though I hope we all can just be grateful we have life.  No matter if it’s in the city, country, or somewhere in-between. No matter if it’s long or short or in the middle.  This is what we have.  I recently heard a wise man say “come what may and love it”.  I love my dear friend Kirk Young, now come what may.