Dry, Desolate Summer

I take a different path to see what I can see.
I take an Instagram of a bunch of frog lawn ornaments under a giant tree.
I can hear the Chech-Chech-Cheching of sprinklers desperately trying to revive the crunchy, stale straw colored grass that shrivels under my feet.
Down at the daycare I can hear children laughing and shouting as they leap over the deliciously cool spray.
There are flags everywhere: on garages, waving from poles in front yards, painted on mail boxes and curbs.
Then, jolting into the stifling air comes an air raid siren--full and thick.
It's just first Wednesday tornado drill, but it still turns my thoughts darker, desolate...

America the proud with all your flags.
Are you still proud when there are shootings in every public place, no acknowledgement of another human being at the check-out counter, squirreling away stuff that you will never use in a storage unit because it wont fit in your house, and when neighbors can no longer share a cup of sugar but leach wifi and cable?

A man whistles appreciatively in my direction.
I don't acknowledge it.
I notice how sporadically, little white flowers have spread over a parched patch of grass in rebellion to the sun's dictatorship over all plant life.

America is like that patch--dry and thirsty for hope and truth.
Yet still, sporadically covering that patch of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are God's people. Growing white and pure in the truth that can see it to true Freedom.
In Jesus is the only Happiness.