Yay for America!

Out of town sometimes means blogging goes out the window. We are visiting with family in the west for a few reunions and having lots of fun. This weekend was the 4th of July - our Nation's Independence day and I have to tell you I have felt ultra patriotic this weekend. I am so grateful to live in such a wonderful, free country. Our government, leaders and policy makers are not perfect - and their decisions do not always reflect my wishes but none of that matters in the end because this is still such a great country. I am so blessed to live where I can practice free speech, freedom of religion and so many other great freedoms. I am especially grateful for the many millions of servicemen and women who have, over the history of this great nation, fought and died preserving these freedoms. I am truly indebted to their bravery.

While we were at our cabin this weekend with my family, a few of my family members sang all the verses to our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. What a moving song. There are few songs out there that portray such vivid imagery or provoke such emotion in me than that one. Last night, on the 4th of July, I went with some of my family to watch a fireworks display. While we were waiting for the fireworks to start, my family (we are huge lot) began singing the anthem. Many in the crowd joined in and the feeling of love and pride and gratitude for this great nation was palpable. Afterwards the crowd cheered. It was a wonderful moment. The words to our anthem are below. They depict the scene visible to the author of the song after he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy in the War of 1812.

O! 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, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in 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 washed out their foul footsteps’ 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.


O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

God Bless the USA!