September Column Winner

A salient bit of wisdom found on a car's bumper

By Jeff Mullin, Enid News & Eagle

I saw a bumper sticker the other day. That in itself is not unusual, save for the fact the sticker was, in fact, on the bumper of a sedan. Most of the time anymore they are affixed to the back windows of SUVs, vans or pick-ups.

Bumper stickers used to be the advertising method of choice for many roadside attractions back in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

One summer in my childhood my parents and I were road-tripping to the family home in southern Minnesota and made a stop at Wisconsin Dells, which has been a popular tourist destination in the southern part of that state for decades.

One night we attended a performance of the Stand Rock Indian Ceremonial, held outdoors at the Stand Rock amphitheater. It was great. As a little kid, I was excited to be sitting out under the stars with my parents watching the ceremonial dances of the Ho-Chunk people, as well as those of other Native American tribes.

After the show we returned to our car to find that some enterprising show employee had slapped a bumper sticker on our car advertising the event.

My dad was upset, and spent sever-al minutes trying to peel the thing off the bumper while my mother fumed in the front seat of the car and I fought sleep in the back. I don’t know whether his anger was the result of a simple aversion to bumper stickers or the fact we did not own the automobile we were driving, but rather it was a company car.

Anyway, back to the bumper stick-er I saw recently. It said “Pray for America.” It didn’t specify North, South or Central America, but I assume it referred to the United States of America. Actually Central and South America could use plenty of prayers themselves, since crime, corruption, poverty, violence and political unrest in many Central and South American countries have compounded the border crisis currently faced by the U.S.

Pray for America. So, what shall we pray for? Let’s pray that the radical far left does not gain control of our national government. Then let’s pray the radical far right likewise fails in its bid for power. Extremism in any form is dangerous. Pray that he two sides can somehow meet somewhere in the center.

Pray that the nation can return to a time when compromise was not a bad word, when country mattered more than party and our representatives in government worked for their constituents, not for well-paid lobbyists or simply to win reelection.

Pray that we can overcome the disturbing tendency to try and whitewash our nation’s often troubled history. Slavery happened. Jim Crow happened. The mistreatment of our native peoples happened. Denying history does nothing save make it more likely that we will repeat the mistakes of the past.

Pray that faith will somehow be restored in our electoral system. Denying election losses, intimidating or threatening election workers, attempting to circumvent or sow seeds of doubt in the veracity of the electoral process, pushes us farther away from our traditional democracy and closer to banana republic status, and I don’t mean the clothing store chain.

Pray that our apparent penchant for violence somehow subsides. Shootings happen nearly every day in just about every town of any size in our nation. When two people argue these days, the combatants don’t resort to fisticuffs but to gunfire, with no regard for the safety of those around them. Pray we stop killing each other, often for no reason other than a real or perceived slight.

Pray that newspapers don’t fade into memory, as they have been threatening to do for the past few decades. Newspapers, and particularly local papers, are often the only thing standing between ordinary people and those in power. Without local newspapers there is no watch-dog to keep the coyotes out of the henhouse.

Pray that the decline in church attendance nationwide does not continue. According to the folks who conduct the Gallup Poll, church attendance in the United States has declined about four percentage points since the pandemic, and 10 points since 2012. Of course, the 2022 Census of American Religion found that 26.8% of those surveyed said they were religiously unaffiliated, as compared to white mainline (non-evangelical) protestants, the next largest group at 13.9%.

Pray that we never lose sight of the values that made America great — independence, self-reliance, hard work, fairness, compassion, equality, individualism, determination, grit and courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Pray that hate, prejudice, distrust and enmity can never overcome our capacity to love.

To quote from the song “Pray For America,” by the group Old Crow Medicine Show, “When sorrows are befallen and shadows darken her door. When the fever spreads and a silent scourge outshines her golden shores. When a cry for comfort reaches forth like you’ve never heard before, pray for America, our promised land.”

Amen.