My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty…America. The land of hope, of dreams, of promise. Of thee we sing. For thee we pray.
We let go of any ambiguity about our nation, and remember the times when it was simpler to love this land. America. The New World. A place of wide-open plains, mighty rivers, and miles and miles of unexplored grandeur.
America lives in the hearts of her people. America is an ideal as much as it is a place. It is the ideal of a country where all people are welcome, all people are equal, and all people are free.
The birthing of this ideal has not come easily. Making manifest the vision of our forefathers has required years of struggle--times of seeming failure, seeming injustice and seeming defeat. Yet the dream lives on. We still see that noble country, the home of the brave, the land of the free.
Perhaps we have been charged with the mission of enlarging this vision to encompass the planet. Perhaps we, as 21st century humans, will at last hold to the truth that all men are brothers, all women are sisters and all people have the right to be free. We see our own nation as the flagship of this New World--a world where each country is honored and appreciated for its history, its culture and its unique place in the tapestry of life.
Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. We grow in the awareness that our country was founded in God-mind and abides in God-heart. We allow it, and all other countries, to unfold into world destiny—a destiny where peace reigns and love abides. This is our prayer, the prayer for our global family and our earthly home.
AND SO IT IS, AMEN.
We let go of any ambiguity about our nation, and remember the times when it was simpler to love this land. America. The New World. A place of wide-open plains, mighty rivers, and miles and miles of unexplored grandeur.
America lives in the hearts of her people. America is an ideal as much as it is a place. It is the ideal of a country where all people are welcome, all people are equal, and all people are free.
The birthing of this ideal has not come easily. Making manifest the vision of our forefathers has required years of struggle--times of seeming failure, seeming injustice and seeming defeat. Yet the dream lives on. We still see that noble country, the home of the brave, the land of the free.
Perhaps we have been charged with the mission of enlarging this vision to encompass the planet. Perhaps we, as 21st century humans, will at last hold to the truth that all men are brothers, all women are sisters and all people have the right to be free. We see our own nation as the flagship of this New World--a world where each country is honored and appreciated for its history, its culture and its unique place in the tapestry of life.
Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. We grow in the awareness that our country was founded in God-mind and abides in God-heart. We allow it, and all other countries, to unfold into world destiny—a destiny where peace reigns and love abides. This is our prayer, the prayer for our global family and our earthly home.
AND SO IT IS, AMEN.