Faith, Hope, Charity, and What am I Doing Here, Anyway?

I spent the better part of my day today preparing for a special event this weekend. It is a rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. called “Restoring Honor”. I’m proud to stand with those who will answer this call to personal responsibility and citizenship. Time will tell if or how much difference it will make, but I’m praying for our nation like never before.

By ‘preparing’ I don’t mean packing, though I need to get started on that soon. Mostly I have been preparing my heart and mind for the days ahead. I’ve been praying, listening to scripture on my Ipod, and reading. I read Wives of the Signers, The Women Behind the Declaration of Independence, and a transcript of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

Rev. King delivered that speech from the Lincoln Memorial 47 years ago this Saturday, and my mother was there that day to hear him. I remember being in the city with her during those tumultuous days, and always been proud of her for standing for what was right even when it was hard.

My white, middle class family did not suffer anything remotely like what the nonviolent protesters in the south endured, but as a small child it rocked my world. I remember my father bellowing in the middle of the night, trying to raise cash because my mother had been put in jail as a result of our car tags being on a watch list. I remember the adults talking about our phones being tapped, about being watched, about the injustice. I remember watching the city burn from our apartment window, and waiting what seemed like days for my father to safely return home. Mostly I remember the smell of the tent city on the National Mall when my mother took me with her to deliver food to the protesters.

Those were different times, but what has always stuck with me is that a man of God was willing to risk everything to stand for the ‘unalienable rights’ to freedom that God so abundantly blessed us with at this nation’s founding. Rev. King did not stand on those marble steps and demand a government that controlled our lives, treated us like children and taxed us into bankruptcy; he was there to demand “the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

I believe that his dream we so famously recall from that day, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” is only possible when we recognize one another as the free men and women God created us to be.

‘Faith, Hope and Charity’ are the source of our strength as free people. Not trust in government, but in the God who created us. I sense more and more that we Americans have lost sight of ‘the riches of freedom’, that we have traded our birthright for a cheap imitation, our freedom for a false sense of security not based on justice but on power and greed. Our politicians may promise us everything, but we need not foolishly believe them.

So that is why I will be in our nation’s capitol this weekend. Not because I put my trust in men, but because I will be pleading with God to heal our hearts and our land.