America

   I woke up this morning with these words and music going through my mind, a song by Katherine 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!

   I can still see the image in my mind as I heard the music, an image of a person taking a picture, probably me, being overcome with emotion as he thought of the music and not being able to focus, either his mind or his camera, on the subject.

   We like to sing these patriotic songs, especially at a time when our country seems in peril from sources that we cannot see or understand. The words give us a sense of hope and togetherness, and a feeling of "all will be OK again".

   But can we sing with hope the words "God shed His grace on thee" when, as a nation, we more and more leave Him out of any equation of national life?

   I knew the words to the song printed above, but I was amiss as to the title. I thought it might be America, but when I looked the lyrics to that up, I got this one, a song written back in 1832 by Rev. Samuel Smith, entitled My Country Tis of Thee:

My country, 'tis of Thee,
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of thee I sing;

   The first four stanzas I knew and had sung, but then there was more, four more to be exact, and included in those other four are two that might give us a clue as to where we are today in our national life. Smith penned:

Our glorious Land to-day,
'Neath Education's sway,
Soars upward still.
Its hills of learning fair,
Whose bounties all may share,
Behold them everywhere
On vale and hill!

Thy safeguard, Liberty,
The school shall ever be,
Our Nation's pride!
No tyrant hand shall smite,
While with encircling might
All here are taught the Right
With Truth allied.

   How can we ask God to bless us and shed His grace on us, when we have shut Him out of most of our educational life?

   Can I, or we as a people, stand and sing, even with patriotic fervor, My Country Tis of Thee, or God Bless America with true meaning, while disconnecting ourselves from Him in this vital area.

All here are taught the Right
With Truth allied.

   Great words to sing, but empty if they are not lived.

   Little wonder that we don't sing all the stanzas. We might see where we are.....

   God, help us to wake up.