IT BEGAN IN
THE HEARTS AND THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE
I forgot to mention last week
that when we were at Independence Hall, we were told the British backed down on
their taxes before the Revolutionary War shots were fired. However, “the war had already begun in the
heart hearts and minds of the people.”
It reminded me of how everything we do begins in our hearts and
minds. It is a powerful place that
determines what we do, which determines our destiny. How often our hearts become embittered and determined
on something and it costs us greatly.
How many lives did the Revolutionary War cost? At what price did we gain
“liberty?” And liberty from what? We still pay taxes. Other territories that were under Great
Britain didn’t lose any lives and still rule their own government. We must be careful what we let begin in our
hearts and minds.
October 21,
2017
We went to an African American
church in St. Leonard, MD. During church
a member whispered and asked us if we would do special music – 5 minutes later
we were called up. A very sweet elderly
lady in the church made lunch for us and had it warmed up and ready to eat when
church was finished at 1:15. The church
was so hospitable!
After church we went to Calvert
Cliffs. It is famous for finding a
variety of fossils. We hike 2 miles in
and started digging through the sand. We
found all these fragments of sharks teeth and began to collect them. As we left we looked at the sign and realized
they were shell fragments, not shark teeth fragments…. Bummer…. But we were able to see the layers of masses
of shells buried at the bottom of these cliffs.
It is neat to think we are touching shells that existed before the flood
about 4,000 years ago.
October 22,
2017
Today is Lucas’ 15th birthday! We started out by having him make a pancake
breakfast by himself – he had never done that before and we figured at age 15
that would be a good thing to learn. He
was surprised at how watery the mixture was supposed to be since he is used to
making bread – but he made some yummy thick pancakes! We then went to Frog Pond park just north of
Calvert Cliffs to try our hand at finding shark teeth there. We were told by several people you just walk
along and see them in the sand and pick them up. We walked along the beach… nothing…. A local told us to walk way down the beach
where it is “closed” for avalanche danger.
So we walked down there. We found
some other locals with over a dozen sharks teeth a piece so were encouraged and
kept looking. After 5 hours of looking
Levi had found an alligator tooth, Serenity 1 shark tooth, Dave 1 shark tooth,
and Lisa 2 shark teeth and 2 stingray teeth.
We really enjoyed our time at the beach though. We laughed and said the comments about the
shark teeth everywhere were like the comments that lead to the gold rush. “There are big gold nuggets everywhere! You just bend down and pick them up!” We finished up the birthday celebration by
going out to eat for Mexican food and then bought pumpkin cheesecake and
peppermint chocolate chip icecream. We
then drove into Washington DC. We were
looking for a subway station and got lost.
Dave pulled over on the side of the road and within 60 seconds there was
a unmarked cop behind him. He told us
where to go and when a few minutes later we were lost again, he pulled in front
of us and with his lights on escorted us.
So we parked in the subway parking lot so ready to embark on Washington
DC tomorrow.
October 23,
2017
Monday morning we ate pancakes
in the subway parking lot, locked up the motorhome well, and headed towards the
subway. We figured out how to buy cards
and load them with value and headed onto the Subway. 45 minutes later we were in downtown
Washington DC. We came out of the subway
and asked somewhere where the Smithsonian museum was. They said “Which one?” I said, “Um, the main one?” They laughed and said there were dozens all
of Washington DC. Uh oh…. Within half an hour we had talked to a local,
got a map, already gone through a security check (required for about every
building in Washington DC), and headed into the American History Museum. While dad likes to read every sign, and mom
likes to read 90% of the signs, we quickly realized the Smithsonian history museum
only covered about half of the information we have learned on our roadtrip the
last 6 weeks. Because we have been to
the individual places battles have occurred, and studied each incidence in
detail at each museum, the Smithsonian did not present all the information we
had learned. But we did learn that the
Smithsonian loves to pride itself on having originals. We did get to see the actual original flag
that Francis Scott Key saw when he penned the national anthem. It was pretty tattered, and reduced in size
because early Americans would tear off pieces and sell it. We ate our sack lunches beside the Washington
DC mall.
Afterwards we headed to the
Museum of Natural History. We quickly
realized this was a small scope of what we have seen at the gigantic museum of
natural history in Houston, TX. But we
enjoyed walking around. We then went to
the National Air and Space Museum. We
saw A LOT of original planes. It was a
lot of fun! But after seeing Boeing
Museums in Seattle area and NASA in Houston, TX, again – we didn’t see much new
information. However, it was the first
time we learned about the personal lives of the Wright Brothers and the family
they came from. That was really
interesting.
We had no clue how HUGE
Washington DC was. And there are police
EVERYWHERE! Every few minutes a police
goes flying through town with its sirens on.
The locals don’t even look – its normal I guess… At the days’ end we were exhausted, feet felt
like they were falling off, and so we took the subway back to the motorhome,
ate supper, and went to sleep there in the parking lot.
October 24,
2017
Tuesday morning we got up and
headed to Arlington Heights Cemetery. Security was insane and our beet humus
for lunch that was homemade and placed in a peanut butter jar caused a deep
questioning session of Benjamin who happened to be the one carrying it in his
backpack. As Benjamin put it, “Why are
they guarding all these dead people?” It
was a gorgeous place but sobering to consider all the thousands that are buried
there and throughout the earth. I
wondered, how many of these were ready to meet the Lord when they died? How short life is, and for what purpose? We were told the land was Robert E Lee’s and
because of his heading up the Confederate Army the Union took his land and
turned it into a cemetery as a reminder of how many lives his decision
cost. Interesting natural consequences I
have to say…. We were able to watch the
“changing of the guard.” It was amazing
to me how in sync they were – without watching they would tap their feet
together and perfectly mirror each. It
reminded me of Pathfinder marching. As I
looked at their procedure – I thought how impossible! - to be able to perfectly march in sync like
that – to be able to stand in perfect attention for an hour. And yet with the heart and mind to do it, a
purpose and vision in mind, and much practice I am sure, they become perfect in
their job. I thought this a good example
of us as Christians. It might seem
impossible to have perfect self-control, but if we desire it, realize we are
living for a purpose, and practice, and connect to God’s grace – we can walk
perfectly in the Spirit.
We then walked across the bridge
to the Lincoln Memorial. We grabbed a
taxi quick and held on tight while he drove us to our Congresswoman’s office so
we could have a guided tour of the capitol building. We learned the president only comes to the
capitol building 2-3 times per year and he can only come to Senate if he
received an invitation. The president
happened to be in the building while we were there. It was a busy place and had so many beautiful
things to look at. Everything is either
granite or marble. There are beautifully
painted dome ceilings. One is of George
Washington and all these women escorting him to heaven with other men trying to
fight to keep him on earth. Each state
is allowed 2 statues for the whitehouse and these are moved throughout the
whitehouse at different times. They have
to be bronze but Hawaii is known for not following the rules – their’s is
Hawaii’s king and much of it is painted gold.
We saw the best view of the capitol mall – it was from the Speaker of
the House’s balcony. It was incredible!
After another picnic lunch
seated on the lawn of the Mall, we headed to a bike rental place to try and
save some walking. But everyone had to
be at least 16 to rent. As we were
standing there suddenly a black SUV pulled up right beside us and stopped. It had its windows down and was full of
secret service guys with big guns. One
of the guys was really putting on a show smiling at us and posing. Behind it was a big armored car. About the time it hit us we should be
snapping pictures because this was the president of the U.S. right beside us
the light turned green and away they drove. No pictures – but seriously – we were right
there! As we walked up to the bus stop a
couple minutes later the couple standing there was talking about how they had
also just seen the president’s car.
Next we went to the holocaust museum.
It was very sobering – nothing new from our reading. Once again it was interesting to note the
history of Hitler coming into power.
Once again they showed it was because of the depression and so people
were upset at their condition. The value
of money plummeted to no value and the people even used it for wallpaper. Hitler presented himself as one who would
give them hope and a new life. He lost
the election, but the officials decided to make him chancellor so that they
could give him a position and control him/keep an eye on him. Within 6 months he was dictator and with
force gotten rid of all who opposed him and began to annihilate the Jews. The museum had thousands of shoes in a pile
from holocaust victims. It was also
inspiring to see the names of thousands who risked their lives to save the
lives of Jews. Many died for their
stand, but thousands of Jews’ lives were saved.
We then walked over to the white house and got as close as possible –
which was far away and with 5 gates between us.
There was a team of secret service on the roof. We then walked around a bit and got onto a
bus to help us get back sooner. The
driver was a fun character on his last round for the day and so he was a
blast. He kept stopping and taking our
family picture at some great places. He
said that the printing press for money there prints 3 million dollars a
day. WOW!!!! And where does that money go considering the
world uses plastic these days instead of cash?
Scary…. I don’t think I really
want to know… Pretty soon we will be using
the money we have to wallpaper our walls.
But until then, it isn’t actually paper money – it is 10% paper and 90%
linen. After getting back to our parking
spot we found a laundromat, ate supper, and drove to the Seventh-day-Adventist
General Conference Office so we are ready for their 9am tour tomorrow without
driving through rush our DC traffic.
October 25,
2017
So last night we got the first
knock on our door in the middle of the night!
It happened at 11:15pm at night and we were parked in the SDA General
Conference parking lot. Dave got out of
bed and explained to them we were parked there so we could go on the 9am tour
the next morning. They let Dave know we
should stay for lunch in the cafeteria the next day and that haystacks were on
the menu. So we woke up and took the
tour. There were beautiful paintings
over walls that gave the story from the garden of Eden to eternity. They were some beautiful paintings! We went to the EGW estate below where they
had a REALLY nice tour. I had forgotten
that Smithsonian had listed EGW as one the 100 most influential Americans of
all time.
In the afternoon we drove to Mt.
Vernon and toured George Washington’s beautiful plantation on the Potomac
River. We learned all about his love for
agriculture and the thousands of fields he had growing along with over 300
slaves. His slaves he released in his
will, but half of them where slaves from his wife’s deceased husband’s estate
and so were split up among the descendants.
We learned that George was heavily involved in the French & Indian
War and then went home. For the
Revolutionary war he was gone from home for the entire 8 years but his wife
would join him on the battlefield every winter.
George Washington was a very courageous man who would go into the heat
of battle without fear and thus his soldiers admired him and fought in the
worst of conditions. As Britain put it
George didn’t outfight them, he just outspied them. George refused pay as general of the army saying just as Britain
did not deserve their money, neither did he deserve their money. When elected president he refused to be
overpowering and after 2 terms refused to be president any longer because he
did not want to become as a king. When
he died the country wanted him buried in Washington DC, but according to his
wishes, his wife had him buried at Mt. Vernon where along with his family. There are two locked bar gates. We are trying to figure out why they guard
and lock up dead people over here. What
are they afraid of?
No comments:
Post a Comment