This morning, we have been listening to patriotic songs and I have been bawling most of the morning. I grieve that my children will not grow up in the America I grew up in. I don't mean to say that those were the "good ol' days." Everyone can say that about their childhood. I mean that it feels like I don't live in the same country I lived in growing up. I saw a glimmer of it return after 9/11, but only to return back to complacent America. I grieve that our President has told the world that we are no longer a Christian nation. I grieve that our flag is spat upon and burned more than it is respected and revered. I grieve the fact that character qualities such as "sacred honor," "duty" and "loyalty" are old fashioned relics in our nation as a whole.
I must say that I don't think I'd be in this funk if it weren't for some of the reading the kids and I have done this last week. My plan for history this past year was to spend 14 weeks on the Little House books (by Laura Ingalls Wilder) and move on to other American literature. Well, we are at week 40 and are still digging into the Little House series (don't laugh, Angela!) and LOVING every minute. I didn't believe that you could spend a whole quality year on Little House, but boy was I wrong! Our time in these sweet books is soon over and I am sad to leave them.
Anyway, this week we read about the 4th of July celebration in Laura's town. As I read the chapter, I had goosebumps all over. It sounded so amazing, yet so foreign to me. Their celebration was what the 4th SHOULD be, yet doesn't come close in 2009. As the Ingalls were in town at the celebration, the townspeople gathered around the flagpole and this was the speech they heard:
"...today's the glorious Fourth! This is the day and date when our forefathers cut loose from the despots of Europe. There weren't many Americans at that time, but they wouldn't stand for any monarch tyrannizing over them. They had to fight the British regulars and their hired Hessians and the murdering scalping red-skinned savages that those fine gold-laced aristocrats turned loose on our settlements, paying them for murdering and burning and scalping our women and children. A few barefoot Americans had to fight the whole of them and lick 'em, and they did fight them and they did lick them. Yes sir! We licked the British in 1776 and we licked 'em again in 1812, and we backed all the monarchies of Europe out of Mexico and off this continent less than twenty years ago, and by glory! Yessir, by Old Glory right here, waving over my head, any time the despots of Europe try to step on American's toes, we'll lick'em again!"
"It's the Fourth of July, and on this day somebody's got to read aloud the Declaration of Independence. It looks like I'm elected, so hold your hats, boys; I'm gonna read it."
Laura and Carrie knew the Declaration by heart, of course, but it gave them a solemn, glorious feeling to hear the words aloud. They took hold of hands and stood listening in the solemn crowd. The Stars and Stripes were fluttering bright against the thin, clear blue overhead, and their minds were saying the words before their ears heard them...
"...And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor..."
[As the Declaration closed, Pa began to sing aloud "My Country 'tis of Thee" and everyone joined in and sang all of the verses.]
The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America's king.
She thought, "Americans won't obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why, when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good."
Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. "This is what it means to be free. It means that you have to be good...The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God's law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free."
Several things struck me about this passage. First, when was the last time you heard the Declaration read aloud...in full? Are our school children taught the Declaration in our public schools? Does anyone remember the foundation upon which our country was born?
Psalm 11:3 says, "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Our nation's founding document was the Declaration, and it seems cast aside as an old relic, revered for its historicity, but not as an ongoing foundation stone for our country.
Another thing that struck me is Laura's epiphany, "God is America's king." How untrue today. We live in a country that kills its unborn children. Does this sound like a nation with God as its king? If so, we are living in tyranny.
I also loved Laura's declaration that only by obeying God's laws are you truly free. I miss the America where that thought was the thought of all young men and women. Will my children be able to declare in their lifetime, "God is America's king"?
If you ever get the chance, read Peter Marshall's book "The Light and the Glory." This will further humble you to see how far we have strayed from our foundation as a nation.
I still love America. I still endeavor to teach my children the foundation on which our country was laid. I pray we may return to that foundation. I also pray that my sons may be noble and honorable men, serving God and country above themselves.
God bless America...land that I love.
