Last issue, I wrote an article about the flag and included information from a website that told how we should honor the flag. I have thought of it often and decided that I didn’t say enough about the flag.

It is not just a piece of cloth sewn together with expertise by Betsy Ross, a noted seamstress; it represents all that is good and right about America. According to the writers of the Light America Spirit website, the colors of the flag have significant symbols woven into the design and fabric of the flag:

At the time of her birth, America’s flag was simple, with bands of red and white color and a circle of stars against a background of blue.

Yet, in this simplicity lay a depth of meaning, for this composition of elements was not accidental but held together by an overarching sense of meaning and purpose in concert with the higher realms of light.

The red of the stripes was not only emblematic of the blood that was shed in the war that led to the establishment of an independent republic. It also signified the passage into the embodied state of the higher principles of light.

Red is the color of the lifeblood that runs through humanity ... bringing light and energy from the higher realms to the earth for the purpose of benefitting the realms of life ... In this sense, America functions as the heart of the planetary body, and her purpose serves the purposes of all.

In relation to the white stripes that accompany the red, just as the red signifies the life of the earth, the white signifies the higher realms of light joining and intermingling with the life of the earth, a constant companion to the spiritual evolution of mankind and of all beings.

The stars on the blue background are a composite image that has gone through many changes as the Republic of the United States of America has grown from 13 colonies to a much vaster size. Indeed, the blue background, today, is almost filled with the stars representing the 50 states of America ...

The number of stars in the original pattern were shaped in the form of a hexagon, with invisible lines of light joining the 13 stars. These lines crisscrossed from one star to another.

Though they could not be seen outwardly, they represented the developing national identity that was being given energy and light by the forces that supported the birth of a nation and the principles upon which she stood ... Finally, the blue background against which the stars are placed is a symbol of the eternal being of God, the Creator of all, and represents the infinite, out of which both America’s identity and the earth itself have been constructed.

The eternal and the infinite are interwoven into America’s outer life as they are interwoven into her spiritual life and despite the fact that there have been significant departures from the fulfillment of her true destiny since her founding and clear departures from the moral vision that is also part of her foundation, the blue that represents America’s relationship to God remains as the assurance that this connection will never change, no matter what ideology becomes popular ... The flag of America is a symbol of her spiritual heart, just as America herself is meant to be the heart of a greater whole.

So many factions of society have lost the American vision of the Founding Fathers, who were devoted Christian men who believed that Jesus Christ is the God of this land. It is evident in how we honor the flag.

Walk around a stadium after a political rally or a parade and see how many disposable flags are strewn on the ground. Go to a graduation and see how many stand for the presentation of the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Let the flag pass by in a parade and pay attention to how many people get off their lawn chairs and put down their sodas long enough to put their hands over their hearts.

I think of the soldiers who carried the flag into battle and died keeping it from falling to the ground in the face of the enemy. Their hands so attuned to keeping it afloat that even as they fell in death, they planted the flag staff in the ground so a fellow soldier could pick it up and carry it on to victory.

I wonder what they think looking down on the America they died for and realizing we have forgotten how to respect and honor sacred things. I am sure they are dumbfounded at how easily we let the flag fall and don’t even bother to pick it up.

I am sure they are puzzled at how we enthusiastically outwardly display our patriotism by making sure every man woman and child waves a disposable Star-Spangled Banner, display star-spangled T-shirts and put flag decals on our cars and use them as window shades, but inwardly we are like sleeping dogs on a hearth, not knowing or caring what happens to the piece of cloth once the celebration is over.

I guess those same soldiers would be puzzled at why there are 10 times as many cars at the casino on the Sabbath as there are cars in the church parking lot. They would probably ask, “What are they thinking?

We gave our lives to preserve the greatest freedom idea in the world, and they are letting it drift away in their stupor of insatiable bodily appetites. Don’t they know there is a God who rules in the heavens?

Don’t they know that one day they will be accountable for how they reverenced their freedom and honored His day? Don’t they know that God can preserve this nation if they will let Him? Wake up! Don’t let freedom go! You will never regain it in your lifetime.” Their pleas will fall on deaf ears and heavy eyes.

We honor the God of this land about the way we honor the flag. It makes me wonder if there is a direct correlation between how we respect God and our patriotic feelings. I wonder, also, if the waning reverence is the root of many of our society’s problems.

We have become slouchy in our dress, our language and our morals. We have become lackadaisical in our worship and our prayers, and we can see our freedoms being yanked away from us at an alarming rate.

John Adams wrote in a letter, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I would add reverent people. We must honor deeds of greatness, not the trappings of success.

We must respect our traditions and remember the past with the vigilance of a mother watching a sick baby in a cradle. There are those who have forgotten already what it means to live under tyrannical law.

There are those who believe that communism could have worked if only ... They have their list of reasons and are willing to give it a try again – and want to impose it on the entire world.

There are those who think Christianity is passé and should be replaced with something else. There are those who would fight just as hard to bring down the Star- Spangled Banner as there are those who would give their last breath in her defense.

I am not sure how America got in this situation, and I am not sure how to turn things around, but I do know that God knows the answer, and He alone can save us.

We must be willing to repent of our sleepy-eyed stupor of “All is well at the home front” and ask Him. Not just a please-bless our-country kind of prayer, but a what-can-I-do kind of prayer.

We must have a serious heart-to-heart talk with our children and teach them what is at stake. We must teach them how to honor and respect the flag and the values that made America great.

We must go back to old history books and original documents so that we can remember what American history was really like. Schools teach current trends, not traditions.

We must ourselves get out of our lawn chairs as the flag passes by. We must stand taller and salute with greater fervor than anyone around us. We must be the ones to take our children to gather up the disposable flags and burn them because they touched the ground.

We must talk to our children about soldiers and sacrifice, and we must read original documents so there will be no question in our children’s minds where we stand with God and the country. We must stand and say as Joshua, “As for me and my House, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). PD