Independence. Liberty. Freedom. For the most part we Americans take them for granted. Save in times of crisis when someone threatens to take them away, we pay little attention not only to the realities themselves but to all the struggles and sacrifices so many have made to secure them for us."Isn’t it alright to be patriotic?” my son Peter once asked me on coming away from Mt. Rushmore on a wistful summer evening. He was but a boy then, but something in the wonder of that sight awakened in him a sense of both awe and thanksgiving. And for him the awe remains to this day as he pursues the reading of U.S. history from Revolutionary and Civil war days to the present. To go with him on a tour to Gettysburg is to be awakened yourself to the dramatic battles there that turned the tides of war to the side of those who gave "their last full measure of devotion” to preserve the Union.
Lest we forget those times and battles, not to mention World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and our current engagements in the Middle East, we need days and celebrations like the Fourth of July and Veterans Day. And we need also to sensitize ourselves to lesser heralded but equally important sacrifices of people like teachers, lawyers, doctors, farmers, ministers, and yes, politicians, each of whom built America up from the ruins of war to a culture both distinct and admired around the world.
In our time and place, however, we need also to use days like these to return ourselves in mind and heart to the true Source of our good fortune. If in a world of tremendous squalor and need we trivialize our own stewardship of God's blessing by careless and self-centered living, what then shall we leave our children and theirs? (See the prophetic statement by my brother Zenos on the May, 2009 RootedWings Home Page now archived at the bottom of this month's Home Page.)
God has clearly blessed America and each of us as Americans. But he has just as clearly done so, as he did the ancient Israelites, to be a blessing in the larger world he created and loves. God help us to further that blessing going forward. And God help us if we don’t.
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