Last Sunday in church we sang the Star-Spangled Banner, all 4 verses. Most of us are familiar with the first verse…normally followed with “Play Ball !” But as we sang each verse the words struck deep, especially verse 4.
I would ask of you to read the words to the Star-Spangled Banner…and pay particular attention to verse 4. Think about these two lines…
“Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – ‘In God is our trust,’”
The Star-Spangled Banner
September 20, 1814 by Francis Scott Key
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
As you read these amazing words…what whispered in your mind, your heart, your soul? What did you feel? What was the message? What do you now do?
But I am not done, please now read the words to…
America the Beautiful
1893 by Katharine Lee Bates…
O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea
O beautiful for Pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat, across the wilderness
America, America, God mend thine every flaw
Confirm thy soul in self control, Thy liberty in law
O beautiful for heroes proved, in liberating strife
Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life
America, America, May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine
O beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea
The line that really struck me was “O beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years”. Our Founding Fathers, the patriots, tried their very best to pass their dream on to us. Are we too a patriot?
What does the spirit whisper to you right this very moment?
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Note: I didn’t write a 4th of July article last year because it was the day after the 1.5-hour surgery on my leg for nerve damage.
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This was him in 2019. He was helping me build our house. Just before I took this picture he had been playing around the building site, dirty as all get out, and he was so happy to just be…yeah, just to be.
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