My favorite part of this summer’s family vacation at a rented cabin was sitting on the porch facing the lake. One afternoon while I was reading on the porch, I could hear my neighbors sitting on the dock shouting to one another ...

“Look! It’s an eagle!” “Look! Another eagle, and it’s carrying a fish!”

The beautiful scene captivated our attention until the eagles squabbled over the fish directly over my back porch. Suddenly the fish went bouncing through the tree overhead like a metal ball making its way through a pinball machine.

Splat! The fish landed on my porch. The eagles soared away. And the neighbors and I replayed the beautiful, yet bizarre scene of two eagles and one “flying” fish.

“That’ll happen when pigs fly,” you may have heard a time or two. Living on a hog farm I can tell you that pigs stink and they squeal, but those heavy animals don’t fly. So “when pigs fly” refers to a time that will never come. At least that’s what the skeptics say.

Makes me wonder how many “flying pigs” comments our grandparents and other great-great ancestors would have to eat today as we explain Skype (a software application that among other things makes it possible to have international, long-distance family meetings over the internet that includes voice and video), BlackBerrys (a wireless handheld device that provides access to e-mail, data, phone, web and organizer features) and the amazing advances in health care (kidney transplants, stent placement for heart attacks and cancer treatments, to name a few).

If these same ancestors could take a peek into our culture today, they’d see much more than impressive technology and proverbial flying pigs. They’d probably be sickened by the dramatic shift in the goals and values that were once high and lifted up within our nation.

George Barna, the founder of The Barna Group research organization, said this about the changes that have taken place in the United States in the past three decades: “We have shifted our energy from a willingness to work hard toward achieving significant outcomes to an attitude of entitlement”

Entitlement: the right somebody has to do or receive something. It’s my right. I deserve it. It’s my prerogative, my privilege and my power trip.

The chorus to music artist Gil’s song, “My Way” puts it this way, “Going my way — I don’t need to justify. Doing what I want — no alibis. Living my life in the way I want it to be. The way I want it.”

Can’t you hear our predecessors clicking their tongues and shaking their heads. “Your way? You’re entitled to do what you want, when you want it? Ya sure. Ya betcha. When pigs fly!”

Barna continues, “we have transitioned from having a commitment to the common good based on shared values to an emphasis on personal good and individual values.”

There’s a much greater pursuit of individualism — what’s in it for me — than community and core values such as service, simplicity, responsibility, accountability, humility and compassion. A grassroots revival and renewed commitment to living a balanced and just life, that is quick to serve and dedicated to positive, moral values needs to be woven again into the fabric of American life.

In times like these that kind of core community and moral mindset may all seem a bit idyllic and unrealistic. If you’re waiting for that moral turnabout to be led by the government, the entertainment industry or mainline business sectors, it’ll happen when ... well, when pigs fly.

This farm girl may be a bit prejudiced, but it seems that the one place where community care and wholehearted service and responsibility is still a driving force is within the rural pockets of America. If that describes the place that you call home, give thanks, but don’t get comfortable and coast.

The only direction to coast is downhill. To hold moral ground, or to do the uphill fight for family values and personal responsibility requires determination and perseverance.

The moral turnaround comes not through bailouts or other funded programs, but through families. Family — it’s the foundation to great nations. As former President Lyndon Baines Johnson said, “The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions and the values of the child. And when the family collapses, it’s the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community is crippled.”

And when it happens from coast to coast, the nation will fall.

Don’t think this great nation won’t fall before pigs fly. If we don’t collectively, from sea to shining sea, seek to strengthen our families and renew our commitment to the common good based on positive, moral values we’ve got a barn full of hogs that’ll be sprouting wings.