Recruited On A Bike Ride

My friend came to sit on my porch.
It is a favorite thing for us to do.
We always know when it is time to catch up.
Porch sitting is the best.

I was on my porch swing.
My friend was across from me in one of the rocking chairs.
We have sat just like this so many times before.
I was listening to everything she said but one thing was distracting me.

A bird was in the process of building a nest in one of my hanging plants.
I could see all sort of things in the bird’s beak.
Two birds were there.
One was working and the other was watching, perched on the hook above.

The working bird would disappear into the thick leaves of the begonia plant.
Whatever it had been carrying in its beak, was now placed expertly in the nest.
I was not sure which one was the mother bird and which one was the father bird.
This was a two bird job and I was intrigued.

There are wind chimes hanging on my porch.
Sometimes, the watching bird would perch on the wind chimes.
As the bird flew off the wind chimes made a lovely sound.
By this time my friend was intrigued, too.

A story she began to tell me was far more interesting than the birds.
My friend loves to ride her bicycle and thinks nothing of a thirty mile bike ride.
This particular day, she was on a bike ride with her husband and her brother.
They rode their bikes to Valley Forge National Park.

Do you know where the arch is? She asked me.
I did remember where the arch was located in the park.
We had just arrived at the arch when a man asked if we could help him, she continued.
I was trying to guess what kind of help the man might need.

And then I saw it, she said.
I watched her face and saw that she was replaying the scene in her mind in order to tell me.
It was an American flag, she said, the biggest flag I have ever seen.
The man needed help holding the flag and was recruiting people to stand around the edges.

She tried to describe the size of the flag.
She used my porch as an example.
Our side porch goes the entire width of our house.
The flag, as she described it, was more than half the size of my porch in length.

There were people all around the perimeter of the flag, she explained.
The man did not want the flag to touch the ground.
He asked children to climb underneath to hold it up, she continued.
I couldn’t even take a picture because my phone was in my pack on my bike, she said.

She learned that two men began The Star Spangled Banner Project right after 9/11.

This large USA Flag will tour the USA on a five year journey to be displayed at a minimum, every USA State Capitol and at memorials, monuments and landmarks. The Mission Statement: Honor the fallen who gave their lives for the Red, White, and Blue. And respect the men and women on the job today willing to risk it all to keep us safe and preserve our freedom.

The Star Spangled Banner was donated to the WORLD MEMORIAL by The Joliet Fire Fighters, Joliet, Illinois. The Star Spangled Banner will continue The Patriot Flag Project endeavor, which evolved into a national project of patriotism. It was a testimony to what happened on 9/11/2001 and how we responded as a nation on 9/12 and the days that followed. This flag should garner no more respect than the flag at your local post office, school, library, or fire station. The significant detail is that it is large and it will gather credibility as it travels around the country. The flags are shipped via FedEx with all of the rigging and hardware. We provide support and logistics and assist you with the flag display. (http://www.thepatriotflag.us/)

My friend happened to be in the right place at the right time.
All the people standing around the edges of the flag were not recruited beforehand.
The people holding up the flag represented all of us, in all our diversity.
It was a privilege and an honor for my friend, her husband, and her brother to hold the flag.

Two men are the project coordinator and project scheduler.
They have been traveling with the flag since this project began.
Fed Ex ships the flag for free.
People are recruited as volunteers, much like my friend.

For a moment in time, it is a call to remembrance.
It takes dedication and a lot of motivation to keep this project going for so long.
It is to remember the ones who keep us safe.
It is to remember the ones who have fallen.

We all remember the picture of the firefighters raising a flag over the ruins of the Twin Towers.
That flag withstood destruction.
That flag was lifted as a reminder that beauty does come out of ashes.
This Patriot Flag, though much larger, is a reminder of the same thing.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:1-3)

There is One who will lead us into the banquet hall.
There is a banner.
It is His banner.
His banner over us will be love. (Song of Solomon 2:4)

The Lord Jesus is the One who covers us with His banner.
We will stand in all our diversity and marvel.
We will be in awe of the size of His banner.
Every tribe, every nation, every tongue who have come to Him in faith, will be there.

We look forward to that day.
Men, women, and children will stand.
His banner will cover us.
His banner over us is love.