We are children, playing at adulthood. Our measure of time is minimal. Like Ants or Grasshoppers we move around. One changes the environment the other exist and dies away. Nature measures time in Eons while we palpitate when we loose a few seconds that we deem to be precious. We think we matter, we think we can undo what it took Millennia to accomplish. Nature works slowly but deliberately. Sometimes it takes leaps forward in one instance and in others it creeps along age after geological age. As the Ant who's colony can be wiped out by a strong rain, or the Grasshopper who is ended by a frost, we are here but a moment and are fleeting. We play at the religion of the moment, then we die away. Ideologies change and points of view differ. In one century we reach for the stars, then in the next, we are using stone tools because creation changes it's mind. How much do we really affect a natural balance that shifts like the sands of a desert? Does climate change, the answer is yes. With political opinions, or mass cataclysms climate changes, but do we really have anything to do with it at all?

The dust falls off of the flag as the soliders quietly salute. The stars and stripes ripple beneath a pair of well worn boots. An honor guard walks ahead of the covered coffin, another fallen son. Children weep silently, dad's work is done. On a TV people scream, but they do not understand the sacrifice that our sons and daughters have made for this land. In quiet repose a coffin sits awaiting 21 guns, before being laid in hollowed ground where others have gone before. At last a solider has come home from another foreign war.

Men and women come home from war with limbs missing. Their body parts lay in the dirt of some foreign land. American blood stains another person yard, and yet they keep standing for what is right. Our children can't pledge allegiance to our flag but burning it is okay. Our politicians open our borders but American children cannot go out into the city streets and play. Drugs and violence end innocent lives while politicians complain about civil rights, unless you try to mention God or own a gun then they say you have no rights.  Our leaders turn their backs on their own people while running down the land of the free. If the haters of our country had their way they would take all our freedoms away from you and me.

Hobbits had their holes and dwarves shook mighty mountains with their picks in an endless quest for gold. The forest were alive with elves and fairies and birds could talk to men. Dragons and eagles soared under the sun. Men built cities on the water and sailed on mighty ships across dark seas. How wonderful it was when the world was magic and perhaps can one day be again.

Men sit in silence as they surround a metal box. The roar of the engines is all that can be heard. A flag drapes the coffin upon which sits a simple emblem, elite special forces. What he did is known only to a few, it may be 50 years or never before we all know the truth. Men who choose a different path now reflect on what has been done. One of their own has paid the price, a hero that will remain unsung. His family will receive a letter and a medal posthumously. Some will know he died a hero, but silence is their creed. Many could have gone a different path, they could have been an athlete.  Instead they heard a higher call, one that most will never understand. Suffering the rigors of training that few will ever see, they work to achieve excellence, to take their place among the elite. The best our country has to offer, they go off to fight in wars. In places that we have never heard of, against enemies that we may never know. Knowing each mission could be their last, and that the flag draped coffin could be all that they get as a reward. The hidden heroes of Americas special forces, do what must be done, so that we can live in peace in the land that we call our home.

God is in my pocket, where I carry a few extra dollar bills. He goes with the money when I give it to do his will. God is in my heart to convict me of my sin. He is in my prayers when I ask for his forgiveness again. God is in my life when I think I cannot do anything right. He lets me know I am not alone in this fight. God is in the sick beds and in the nursing homes. Despite what people thinks, he does not leave his children alone. God is in the rain storm when the earth cries out with thirst. God is in the city streets when we go on to our work. God is not just in one place you see. If you think about God can be found in you and me.

On a cruel tree blood and water did flow. From a broken body the sinful world was made whole. In anguish he cried as the spear went in deep. Then rivers of salvation from his side did seep. He gasp for one final breath and said father it is done. Then the sky grew dark and the earth trembled at the setting of the son. A Roman solider looked on and said truly a righteous man has been slain. Yet salvation was born when they pierced his side that day.