Near our home in Rockport is a bank with four tall flagpoles. Each pole has a beautiful American flag waving on it. These poles reach up, perhaps thirty feet, into the sky. On this day after Fourth of July, I was moved as I saw those four flags waving and flapping to and fro in a stiff southeast breeze. I thought how that flag so aptly represents our great country. Today I saw something in the four flags I had never seen before, though it had always been there. Each flag was different in it's movement. Not for a single moment did all four flags wave exactly in a formation. The breeze did one thing to one flag and something else to the others. They never were the same, though exactly the same in size and shape.
That's our nation! None of us are exactly the same. We are different in color, religion, size, family, economic standing, physique, health, and a thousand other ways. The gulf breeze that blows me in one direction blows another differently. So, we are never exactly the same. Not even in our little family groups.
But something is vital, even in our differences. It is illustrated by the poles. Those poles are exactly alike. They have some "give" to handle the winds, but they are firmly planted in a pillar of concrete. They offer the same support for each flag. Those poles will survive a hurricane when it strikes. The flags will not if they continue on the poles. They will need to be folded and put away until the storm passes. There are times when our country calls for unity of purpose. We put aside our individual ways and join in a common purpose to survive.
I saw all this in those four flags waving smartly in a South Texas breeze.
