This weekend as celebrate our Independence Day we will sing the familiar songs that fit the occasion.  But we also live in a time when we as a nation seem to be increasingly divided and that is being exploited and encouraged in the campaigns which invade our homes and sensibilities.

It’s a time when we need less glaring red rockets and bombs bursting in air.  We live in a beautiful country with spacious skies and amber waves of grain weaving in the breeze.  The plains are fruitful and the purple hued mountains rising majestic.  God has shed his grace on our country.  We do well to crown God’s goodness with brother and sisterhood, “from sea to shining sea.”

This land is not only your land, but it’s also my land from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from the waters of the gulfstream to the white pine forests.  This land was made for you and me.  Therefore, we lift up our voices and sing that God would keep us forever in the path of liberty for all.

In the light of all of the above, we ask God to bless our native land.