A Child Comes Around

 

 

 

My son was educated well

He learned to worship earth

He learned the Lord did not exist, there was no Savior's birth.

 

 

His urban college taught him

how to challenge country mice

who had the nerve to own their land, he'd learned that was a vice.

 

 

He worked and sued and

made his fortune off the poor

who tilled the fields and held the land, he'd show them to the door.

 

 

 

His client was the government

who wished to take the right

and soil and water from the folks who gave this country might.

 

 

His uncle lost his job up north

the logging mill closed down

the students vanished from the schools, there's nothing left of town.

 

 

And then his father's farm was lost

to those who wished to sue,

His father's anguished pleas were tossed, my son had much to do.

 

 

His thinking quickly turned around

He saw he had been wrong

He learned that owning land exists to keep this country strong.

 

 

His goal was now to keep the rights

of landowners intact

His love for people now made up for what he once had lacked.

 

 

Now my fine son's a congressman

He's learned to love and live

Now fairness to his fellow man is what he wants to give

 

 

And as for God, it took awhile

to change his point of view

But gazing at his tiny son was when he finally knew.

 

 

 

This was written after an Eagle Forum meeting during which a very tearful mother spoke of her son who had chosen to work with a big environmental legal firm. They were from the rural lands on the northern California coast so this went against her deepest beliefs. I wrote this to cheer her up and give her hope. Please use this if you think it appropriate. Here is the original I gave her (I found it in my suitcase).

 

Deborah Ettinger

 

February 2005