Happy Memorial Day!
Memorial Day means a 3-day weekend. Sadly, that's what many of us think of first. Of course, it means a lot more than that.
We mourn the dead on Memorial Day - those who gave their lives in America's wars.
Have you ever attended a special service for Memorial Day? I haven't. And I have to admit I've got to make an effort to even remember our war dead. It's easy to slip into the "3-day weekend" syndrome.
The closest I'll come to a special service is when the organist at the Catholic church I attend plays "America the Beautiful" on Sunday - usually at the end of Mass. We'll all sing one, maybe two verses. Then we head for the exits and get on with the weekend. We never get to the third verse.
But if you check the lyrics to that great American anthem, I think you'll find that the third verse is appropriate for Memorial Day - especially this year.
Our financial crisis and economic recession has shaken us up as people and as Americans. Will the success that has characterized our country since 1776 fade into a distant memory?
We've all heard the tale of woe: the dollar is in danger of being replaced as the "reserve currency"; prosperity has ended; America can't continue as the world's one superpower.
Maybe that's true. We don't really know yet, do we? But whatever happens, we can't forget our honored dead. With that in mind, let's read the words of the third verse of "American the Beautiful" together:
We mourn the dead on Memorial Day - those who gave their lives in America's wars.
Have you ever attended a special service for Memorial Day? I haven't. And I have to admit I've got to make an effort to even remember our war dead. It's easy to slip into the "3-day weekend" syndrome.
The closest I'll come to a special service is when the organist at the Catholic church I attend plays "America the Beautiful" on Sunday - usually at the end of Mass. We'll all sing one, maybe two verses. Then we head for the exits and get on with the weekend. We never get to the third verse.
But if you check the lyrics to that great American anthem, I think you'll find that the third verse is appropriate for Memorial Day - especially this year.
Our financial crisis and economic recession has shaken us up as people and as Americans. Will the success that has characterized our country since 1776 fade into a distant memory?
We've all heard the tale of woe: the dollar is in danger of being replaced as the "reserve currency"; prosperity has ended; America can't continue as the world's one superpower.
Maybe that's true. We don't really know yet, do we? But whatever happens, we can't forget our honored dead. With that in mind, let's read the words of the third verse of "American the Beautiful" together:
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!
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!
If success is nobleness and gain is divine it puts a new perspective on things, doesn't it?
And thinking about it, it does change your perspective. It's hard to imagine that our soldiers died to preserve the dollar as the world's reserve currency, or so that we could all be rich, or that America would always be a great superpower.
Anyway, it seems that way to me.
And thinking about it, it does change your perspective. It's hard to imagine that our soldiers died to preserve the dollar as the world's reserve currency, or so that we could all be rich, or that America would always be a great superpower.
Anyway, it seems that way to me.
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