It was just
last year, July 4th 2008, when Americans were beginning to see and
feel the strain and pain of the economic downturn and the recession to come.
Just 12 months ago we were in the throes
of the presidential campaign and all of us were looking for "hope" and
"change". Two commonly used enticements
when candidates are trying to lift themselves up above their opponents in an
effort to be set apart. Pledging hope and change and trying to make us feel
that the past was not good enough, that somehow, our lives as Americans were
intolerable.
Granted,
things were not perfect. We were, and still are, in the middle of a war in the Middle
East. Oil prices were at an all time high, unbelievable, four-plus dollars per
gallon. Someone once said, "It's going to get worse before it will get better",
or maybe you have heard, "it is always darkest before the dawn". These age old sayings are timeless and they
could not have been more right! Just in the last 30 days, several of the icons
of American culture we grew up with are no longer with us. Some of the political leaders that we saw as
rising leaders have been caught by their human failings.
So what do
we do...? Where do we turn? You turn to faith! Faith is the thing that God has
given us that enables us to deal with the challenges that tests men and women. Those
things that make us stretch to be as good as we can be.
Especially
today, I have FAITH in America and our ability to weather the storm. Because
"this too shall pass..." The following is an excerpt from the editorial section
of the July 4th 2008 edition of the Democrat Gazette that says it
all!
"...There
will be many a patriotic speech today sandwiched in between the picnics,
barbecues, fireworks and general folderol. But when it comes to saying the
spirit of '76 and the idea that gave birth to it-the idea that all men are
created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights-we
have yet to come across a finer summary of the American ideal that this brief
but comprehensive summation: "It was always accounted a virtue in a man to love
his country. With us it is now something more than a virtue. It is a necessity,
a condition of survival. When an American says that he loves his country, he
means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in
the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means
that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which
a man can draw the breath of self-respect." (Adlai Stevenson, "The Nature of
Patriotism," August 27, 1952)
I love my
country, and I have FAITH in America,
and the Americans in it! I hope you and
your family had a happy and safe 4th of July.
Allen Kerr
and family
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