God bless America, land that I love Stand beside her and guide her Through the night with the light from above What a song! Irving Berlin wrote in 1918 for WWI and updated in 1938 for WWII. What a great verse! Today we have so many challenges in America, that this song is so welcomed as a meditation on God’s guidance over our great nation. On July 4th we celebrate our liberation from tyranny with our Declaration of Independence that was crafted by some of the greatest minds of the day. They realized that America could only succeed, if people of good-will had faith in God—a God that had a providential concern to keep America a land of freedom and opportunity based on ones goodness and willingness to work. We have succeeded in this incredible experiment of freedom through so many trials and challenges, but perhaps, we now face our greatest test. Today, the greatest enemy is not from without—from a nation or terror cell, although, to be sure, we have these enemies. However, the greatest enemy is from within. In a recent survey 38 percent of the survey participants said they were very patriotic. It was the same number that also said they were weekly participants in organized religious services. This was down in both these categories about 26 percent from just 25 years ago when people were last asked these questions. Can America survive on this downward spiral? America is not just a place where we live or where we emigrate to, it’s a concept of participation in the values of the founding fathers that expected people to defend what was so precious to them: both God and country. If no one believes in these, how will they/we survive? The remedy for our present malady is faith! PRAY, my friends, for a renewal of patriotism and religious fervor that will help us to always be that nation guided “by the light from above!”