Petunias of the world...

"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now."

from "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

Bene Diction posted about Philip Yancy's article in Christianity Today. Yancy was looking at how the rest of the world sees America. Relapsed Catholic responded in a predictable way. I'm with the bowl of petunias: Oh no, not again.

I strongly object to my people and my country being called "losers AND liars," "bitter and  twisted" by Relapsed Catholic. That's out of order.

Christianity Today's timing is bad. To publish this around 4th of July is asking for exactly the response Relapsed Catholic gave. What bugs me is not someone leaping to America's defence. What bugs me are the assumptions in that defence that America is the only country that helps other countries in need, that every other country ignores the US when it needs help, that other countries are of no importance, and that America single-handedly won WW2 for the Europeans. That one really irritates, because my country, Britain, did actually play a part there. We lost whole generations of men, and it changed the entire country.

America does do a lot of good in countries all over the world, and since it is the richest nation on the planet, it has more resources than anyone else to apply where it sees fit. My country does what it can with the resources we have available. We have less to give than America because Britain is a smaller country.

The world is not divided into America and America's enemies, or America and all-the-other-insignificant-hasbeens. I like America, I love the people. If I didn't, I wouldn't live here. Even as a Briton I can celebrate and respect Independence Day. What I can't do is pretend no country matters but America.