Simple Threads?

This is a wall hanging I made for my Mom It was made to hold those American quarters that everyone and your mother collect. Mine is not using the flag for that but....

Happy Flag Day!!!

While my variation of our blessed American Flag is made of simple threads woven together it still produces that moment where the heart stands still and pays tribute.

I used to help coach basketball at my daughters school and each game the National Anthem would play as we all saluted the flag. For those my age and older it brought on that moment- that moment when the heart soars and perhaps the tears roll but for my girls there was this blank stare and the that "lets just get on with the game" attitude. Then came 9/11. That blessed flag was there at the scene and suddenly it was in everyone’s hand and on every fence and car and house in America. It was also once again engrained in the hearts of youth, and while it is flying for different reasons within their hearts none the less those simple threads of red, white and blue remain and remind us Americans that we too are woven together to create the land of the free and the home of the brave. (Note- after 9/11 my daughter headed up a fundraiser at our school to replace the meager 3' X 5' flag with a monstrous one approx. 10' X 15'.)

Whether this simple thread causes you to remember Pearl Harbor, a loved ones coffin gently draped, cemeteries with thousands standing at salute or 9/11, we are still united; we are still woven as one Nation. As the red, white and blue remain tightly woven together to create a strong cloth, may the people of this nation weave together to remain a strong nation, indivisible and not diluted or deluded by outsiders. May God continue to bless us and those who honor this beloved symbol of the United States of America!

"Our flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. It is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the Government. It is the emblem of the sovereignty of the people. It is the NATION."— Henry Ward Beecher, 1861

Our flag is our national ensign, pure and simple, behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue, every stripe is articulate.— Robert C. Winthrop (1809-1894), Senator from Massachusetts