It's appropriate that this 1972 version of Ray Charles' "America The Beautiful" begins with stanza three...

MEMORIAL DAY 2024

By: E.P. Unum

May 20, 2024

 

In a few days the nation will be celebrating Memorial Day 2024, some seventy-nine years since hostilities ended between the many warring nations of the world, and documents of surrender were signed.  Millions perished in World War II and it is indeed a time for remembrance.  This year, however, adds a special moment of significance.  One week later, on June 6, will mark 80 years….eight decades….since June 6, 1944, when 150,000 troops from Britain, Canada, France and the United States stormed the beaches at Normandy, France, gaining a foothold on the European Continent…the single largest invasion in recorded history and a testimony of sound strategic planning.  These brave souls spearheaded the Allied Effort to rescue millions from the tyrannical clutches of Nazi Germany culminating in April  1945 when Freedom was once again restored.

It seems fitting and proper that we do this to give thanks for all those who defended our nation in a time of great peril, and give honor, respect and appreciation to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today. They sacrificed their tomorrow’s for our today’s!  It is important we remember….we are because they were!

I have always found the words written in the beautiful poem entitled America the Beautiful, by Katherine Lee Bates, then 33 years old in 1892 to be one way to show such appreciation.  Like most of you, I learned the words of the first verse of this poem at a young age in grammar school.  But, I never learned the remaining three verses and so, I thought I would print them and talk about them briefly.  I am sure Katherine Lee Bates would be very proud to know that her words, later committed to music in 1903 by Samuel Augustus Howe, have been the subject of some truly outstanding renditions by such noted singers as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Mariah Carey, Frank Sinatra and many others.  But the words of her poem are really the heart and soul of this beautiful piece. I am sure you recall the first verse and the stirring phrases describing “amber waves of grain” and “purple mountain majesties”.  These focus on the beauty of our great land and the magnificent rich bounty God in His benevolence has granted us.  But, beyond this, Katherine Lee Bates brilliantly reminds us of our pioneering forebears who “beat a thoroughfare of freedom….across the wilderness” and then pays eloquent tribute to defenders of our nation in war, the brave “heroes who more than self their country loved”.  The author then turns her gaze to the future and wistfully writes of a time when America’s “alabaster cities” will “gleam undimmed by human tears”.

It is difficult to read this entire poem without feeling deep emotion.  I remember vividly the stoic voices singing the first verse at Ground Zero on 9/11 and I recall Pope John Paul II reciting its fervent prayer as he descended from his plane on his first visit to the United States:  “America, America, God shed His grace on thee!”  And, forgive me, but no one sang America the Beautiful like Kate Smith before political expediency and wokeness caused many to refuse to allow her voice to be heard at athletic events across our nation!

So, as we all claw our way back from the devastation wrought by the Coronavirus Crisis, and as we celebrate yet another Memorial Day, take a moment to read Katherine Lee Bates’ magnificent work (full copy below) and give thanks to God that we live in the “land of the free” because it is and always has been the “home of the brave.”  And may God continue to bless this land we love so much.

Finally, at the end of America the Beautiful, I have inserted the full original text (actually handwritten) by President Abraham Lincoln we all know as the Gettysburg Address.  It is arguably the most powerful, prescient speech ever given, and his words ring true today.

 

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

By: Katherine Lee Bates (1859-1929)

 

                                                O beautiful for spacious skies,

                                                For amber waves of grain,

                                                For purple mountain majesties

                                                Above the fruited plain!

                                                America! America!

                                                God shed His grace on thee

                                                And crown thy good with brotherhood

                                                From sea to shining sea!

 

                                                O beautiful for pilgrim feet

                                                Whose stern impassioned stress

                                                A thoroughfare of freedom beat

                                                Across the wilderness!

                                                America! America!

                                                God mend thine every flaw,

                                                Confirm thy soul in self-control,

                                                Thy liberty in law!

 

                                                O beautiful for heroes proved

                                                In liberating strife.

                                                Who more than self their country loved

                                                And mercy more than life!

                                                America!  America!

                                                May God thy gold refine

                                                Till’ all success be nobleness

                                                And every gain divine.

 

 

                                                O beautiful for patriot dream

                                                That sees beyond the years

                                                Thine alabaster cities gleam

                                                Undimmed by human tears!

                                                America!  America!

                                                God shed His grace on thee

                                                And crown thy good with brotherhood

                                                From sea to shining sea!

 

Our Battle-Weary Flag

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

So, let us begin again…..

 

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