Saturday, November 25, 2006
God Bless America
I was recently with a friend who recounted how his grandfather had recently passed away. It was a good time of sharing and I was reminded of a story about one of the last times I saw my grandfather.
My grandfather was a strong Lutheran pastor, long retired, but still very active in his church. He had a great disdain for Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". It is probably about the only thing he would have agreed with Woody Guthrie about. His argument was that we should not limit our prayers to the United States, but that we should express our desire for God's blessing to be extended to all nations.
He was the only one in the family who believed this. My mother and I argued with them, but to no avail. Our point was that prayers are to be specific. One does not pray for everything, everytime one prays. Asking God to bless our nation is a valid request and should by no means be construed to ask God to bring damnation on the rest of the world (which is what my grandfather seemed to think).
I had traveled to Florida with my wife (she was my girlfriend at the time) to visit my parents and grandparents over the Fourth of July weekend. My brother had also flown in for the occasion. We were all making more frequent trips because my grandfather's health was failing and he was hospitalized for his congestive heart failure.
We worshipped at my parents church that Sunday. The service had a patriotic tone, and at one point all the men were called up to the front to sing "God Bless America". Afterwards, we went to visit my grandfather at the hospital. Expecting to get a kick out of recounting this story to him, we proceeded down our normal course of arguing about the song. Even as he lay there, barely able to keep his eyes open, he would not budge.
Shortly after we were on our way out. He stopped us and told us that he wanted to show that there were no hard feelings (we never thought there were), he wanted us all to sing the first verse to "God Bless America". We sang the verse and my grandfather sang with a gusto we hadn't seen in that whole visit. The patient in the next room banged on the wall while we sang, but we kept on singing.
My grandfather was a strong Lutheran pastor, long retired, but still very active in his church. He had a great disdain for Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". It is probably about the only thing he would have agreed with Woody Guthrie about. His argument was that we should not limit our prayers to the United States, but that we should express our desire for God's blessing to be extended to all nations.
He was the only one in the family who believed this. My mother and I argued with them, but to no avail. Our point was that prayers are to be specific. One does not pray for everything, everytime one prays. Asking God to bless our nation is a valid request and should by no means be construed to ask God to bring damnation on the rest of the world (which is what my grandfather seemed to think).
I had traveled to Florida with my wife (she was my girlfriend at the time) to visit my parents and grandparents over the Fourth of July weekend. My brother had also flown in for the occasion. We were all making more frequent trips because my grandfather's health was failing and he was hospitalized for his congestive heart failure.
We worshipped at my parents church that Sunday. The service had a patriotic tone, and at one point all the men were called up to the front to sing "God Bless America". Afterwards, we went to visit my grandfather at the hospital. Expecting to get a kick out of recounting this story to him, we proceeded down our normal course of arguing about the song. Even as he lay there, barely able to keep his eyes open, he would not budge.
Shortly after we were on our way out. He stopped us and told us that he wanted to show that there were no hard feelings (we never thought there were), he wanted us all to sing the first verse to "God Bless America". We sang the verse and my grandfather sang with a gusto we hadn't seen in that whole visit. The patient in the next room banged on the wall while we sang, but we kept on singing.
# posted by Martin @ 8:41 AM 
