Utopia

Make our sons in their prime like sturdy oak trees.

Our daughters as shapely and bright as fields of wildflowers.

Fill our barns with great harvest.

Fill our fields with huge flocks.

Protect us from invasion and exile.

Eliminate the crime in our streets.

Sounds wonderful doesn’t it?

A Scottish prayer from the nineteenth century?

A wedding toast from middle America?

Maybe a line from A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor?

When he signs off a letter from Lake Wobegone.

“Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”

A utopian society maybe?

Sir Thomas More, in 1516, wrote a book entitled Utopia.

More writes of a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, where a society offers a near perfect way of life.

Who would not want to live in such a place?

King David did.

Which inspired him to write the one hundred and forty fourth Psalm.

A portion of it opened this entry.

He even preceded his hopes for a perfect society with these words.

“Here is my description of a truly happy land where Jehovah is God.”

I pray these words for our nation as well.

Where our children can once again lead all the world in academic standards and personal achievement.

Where our people  can once again lead in independence and not be weighted down by our own indebtedness.

Where individuals can continue to lead in terms of affluence, influence and benevolence.

Where our land can in the future, once again be strong, without fear of the enemy.

Where we can eliminate the word “terror” from our daily vocabulary.

Where our streets can be a place of gathering together without any thought toward crime.

A happy land.

Happy are those.

Whose people determine that God must be returned to power.

John