Singing patriotic hymns together in church stirred the emotions and memories of the congregation last Sunday. What a great time of unity, of oneness, of being a part of something bigger than our own little worlds! Older folks sang harmoniously from memory alongside younger generations and little children.
Returning home after church I began flipping through the channels to see who was playing. I stopped on a channel to listen to Scottish soccer fans performing our blest national anthem word for word in a Boston, Massachusetts pub before USA’s match with Paraguay. I had missed this novelty when we played the game. Oh, Cheers!!! We cruised to victory 4-1 making one more step toward the knockout rounds in July. In retrospect, I was awed with Francis Scott Key’s refrain, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,” that captured the essence of the birth of our nation.
Teams and fans from around the globe have offered enthusiastic tributes to our nation and our people. They love us! They are universally impressed with who we are, especially considering how their national media depict America. We really are bigger and better than they had thought.
One of Americans’ favorite hymns is “America the Beautiful.” In 1893, Katharine Lee Bates began each stanza with the words, “O beautiful…” giving successive tributes to “spacious skies,” and “for heroes proved in liberating strife who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life,” and “for patriot dream that sees beyond the years….” Moreover, Bates attributed America’s beauty to God Himself in six out of eight stanzas writing, “God shed His grace on thee.”
No list of patriotic hymns would be complete without Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” Berlin calls his verses “a solemn prayer.” Writing the hymn in 1918 and revising it in 1938, Berlin continued the tradition of Americans’ humbly attributing our blessings to God. What other nation has done that from its founding? We are a unique nation of people who have answered the call to prayer.
Berlin began his beloved hymn, “While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free, let us all be grateful for a land so fair, as we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
Why wouldn’t our national hymns and anthem include appeals to God? George Washington himself expressed his opinion many times about God and the rule of nations. “It is impossible to govern the world without God. It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.”
John Adams wrote, “The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.” He also wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Are Americans divided today? Perhaps those who divide us and denigrate our nation don’t know the roots of our foundation. For 250 years we have been flexible enough to settle divisions. Now is the time to return to what has worked, rather than failed politics and corrupt government.
Daniel L. Gardner is a columnist who lives in Starkville, MS. You may contact him at PJandMe2@gmail.com.
3 comments:
The last paragraph is dead on. Im glad that DL has finally called out the failed MAGA politics.
The Establishment Clause is part of the very first amendment to the constitution.
Politics have no legitimate place in church.
AMEN AND AMEN!!!!!!!
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