Independence Day

Independence Day just doesn't do that much for me. OK, so it gives me a day off work this year (and most year's, but not all) to spend with my family. That's quite wonderful.

Don't get me wrong. I am very appreciative for the freedom that is afforded to me by the sacrifice of others. My Dad and paternal Grandfather and many other family members have served or do serve in the armed forces. I hold their service in high esteem. I appreciate the fact that I have never had to serve.

I will always disagree with the aged Marine Corps League representative at my uncle's funeral who said, "He will meet us at the pearly gates saying, 'Semper Fi'!" I felt sorry for him because he obviously held the Marine Corps in higher esteem than does God.

Here are some quotes and musings that give an idea of what I tend to look for around this time of the year . . .

"War is not a way of life, an interminable series of hit-and-run raids for the sake of vendetta and tribal honor, in societies built on blood and discord. War is awful, to be waged only as a last resort, and with terrific intensity, to elicit a desired outcome in the shortest possible time."

copyright http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806u/medal-of-honor

" War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." - C. S. Lewis

This one's my all-time favorite musical statement about how American Believers should respond to the world around us . . . it was performed by a now-dead guy, Rich Mullins.

LAND OF MY SOJOURN

And the coal trucks come a-runnin'
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin'
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin'
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
and I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you'll come to love it
And how you'll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I'll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city's best answer

And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

In the land of my sojourn
And I will sing His song
In the land of my sojourn



Copyright 1993 - Edward Grant, Inc., Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing