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