A RECENT LETTER to the editor prompted me to think again of reasons that God might not particularly bless America. It’s beyond sad that we’ve lost so many of our young men and women fighting for human rights in other countries when there are so many opposing factions there.

Our questionable treatment of the Cherokee Indians in our part of the country as well as other tribes out West, and the unspeakable cruelty to the blacks in the South and North should serve as reminders that we humans have not always treated others as we’d like to be treated.

The Jewish and gay people have not been without our scorn either. U.S. history is most revealing of the fact that we’re really stretching the idea that we in the U.S. deserve God’s blessings more than other countries. Maybe we think that the good done in World War II outweighs the bad in other areas?.

Go to the library and check out “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson, whose mother was a member of Thankful Baptist Church here in Rome, and a World War II book called “Flyboys,” by James Bradley (Just to name two of thousands of books available on the subject).

Our local library’s Special Collections Department also has the diaries of former Roman Rose Esserman Levin who along with her husband and others helped (secretly at the time) the young black people in Rome to stand up for their rights as human beings. It seems ridiculous now but they spent time behind bars simply because they wanted the right to eat in a public restaurant. Rocks were thrown at two black students who were entering one of our local colleges while at the other, it caused little disruption.

Sometimes when I see others doing things that “I would never do,” something always brings me to my knees, and the pious feeling goes away for a while. There are all sorts of injustices that some still experience in work places, schools, state, local and national government, and yes, even churches. This is meant to be food for thought, not a declaration that I’m an authority.