This summer I spent a month taking a 5,000 mile road trip!

As I drove alone for 5,000 miles, a number of ideas popped into my head. Now that I’m back home in San Jose, I’m turning them into blogs.

I drove my car (nicknamed White Lightning) from our house in Vero Beach, Florida to the Northeast, then through Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, then south along the Pacific Coast.

Now, I was only about two hours away from San Jose and home.

I could have reached San Jose if I’d followed the quickest way on my GPS. It went along the eastern side of San Francisco Bay through Oakland.

But I chose the “scenic way” so I could cross the Golden Gate Bridge. This seemed to be the perfect symbolic way to mark the end of my epic 5,000 mile road trip.

As I neared San Francisco, the sun was setting. In the haze, the sun’s rays turned golden. The perfect setting for crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Just north of San Francisco, the highway passes through a tunnel named in honor of the great comedian and beloved human being, Robin Williams.  It is aligned in a way so that driving through it is the first time you see the Golden Gate Bridge.

We overuse the word “awesome”.  But this view of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco truly was “awesome”.

The golden sunset enhanced the color of the Golden Gate Bridge. The amount of haze and clouds were “just right”. They didn’t obscure the iconic view of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. They made the view enchanting.

No wonder the famous song says, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”!

The lyrics laud the “city on the bay” that “sits high on a hill”. The singer envisions: “When I come home to you, San Francisco, your golden sun will shine for me.”

Seeing the golden city and the golden bridge brought thoughts of “the shining city on a hill” that Jesus spoke of in his Sermon on the Mount and that Ronald Reagan turned into a vision of America. (Matthew 5:14-16).

And so, I thought of the ideal America that was first discovered in the hearts of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

Not the actual United States of America that has so often gone astray and fallen short of the glory of its ideals.

No. I thought of an ideal America.

An ideal America that is a golden gate to the Promised Land for ALL Humanity.

An ideal America for citizens of every country and for people of ALL Humanity.

An ideal America for ALL Humanity where ALL people are blessed!

An ideal America for ALL Humanity where we challenge ALL pharaohs to set ALL people free!

An ideal America for ALL Humanity where we heal ALL hurting people.

An ideal America that comes in peace—in shalom—for ALL Humanity.

READ MORE

In the final line of this blog, I use the Hebrew word “shalom” to enhance the meaning of the English word “peace”. Peace must mean far more than the absence of war. Peace must mean a fair civilization for all people and for each person so that “justice rolls on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24). See my blog “The Mighty River of Living Water!”.

For additional thoughts arising from my 5,000 mile road trip in my car nicknamed White Lightning, please read my blogs “Lightning from East to West”, “Directions Along the Way”, “Delays Along the Way”, “Dangers Along the Way—Narrow Roads”, “Dangers Along the Way—Heavy Traffic”, “Hiding in Plain Sight”, “Smoke from Distant Fires”, “Camouflaging Hideous Death with Fake Life”, “Dry Lightning”, “The Mighty River of Living Water!”, and “Black Pine Trees”.

For additional thoughts about the ideal America first discovered in the hearts of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, please read my book Visions of America (published together with my book Visions of the Church).

As almost anyone reading this blog knows, there is a famous hit song: “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”. Also, I refer to “the way to San Jose” as a reminder of the many references in my blogs to “the Way of Jesus”.