One of the best things about celebrating the 4th of July is that it brings together people from all demographic backgrounds… rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, you-name-it… It prompts us to push all this polarizing crud that we’ve allowed to fester — that our so-called leaders have encouraged — to nothing more than the background. There are things that mean more to us… our liberty… and our love and respect for all mankind.
In acknowledgement of America’s 240th birthday, several articulated the reason why they love our country so much. From blogger Ivan Raley: “… It is a land of new beginnings, a land where you can dream, a land of millions of unselfish people with outstretched arms to embrace others. My land is a land of goodness, hope, joy and inspiration. Never have we fought a war where we kept the land of others, demanded payment for the price of our young men and women who have fallen in death. Always we come home leaving the land of struggle with new hope and greater dreams. I love America; it is my home, my joy and the legacy I leave to my children and theirs. Here freedom is real and dreams are always possible.”
From “The View” co-host, Candace Cameron Bure: “We all have a vote. I think that is why this country is so great because we all do have a voice here, and we have the chance for opportunity here. We have the ability to love God here. I don’t ever want to see that taken away from us. We have freedom here that is what makes America so great and that we have people that are willing to fight for that freedom on a daily basis.”
Perhaps it’s best, iconically expressed by John Wayne in his 1973 narration…
“You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I’ll explain…
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?
Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore…
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock?
Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies… way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea…
Or bow your head at Gettysburg… in our struggle to be free?
Have you seen the mighty Tetons? …Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri’s shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word ‘Aloha’… make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief when you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?
From Alaska’s gold to the Everglades… from the Rio Grande to Maine…
My heart cries out… my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?… I’ve a million reasons why.
My beautiful America… beneath Gods’ wide, wide sky.”
My prayer is that in all this festering, polarizing crud that surrounds us — especially in an election year — we never miss the beauty embedded in the Kansas sunset, Arizona rain, Missouri shore, Michigan chill, Alaskan cold, or in the Rockies, way up high. May we never be numb to God’s beauty.
Respectfully…
AR