Patriotism

I'm going to be sarcastic in this post because I'm not in the mood to be diplomatic.

Here are some lines from the offertory hymn at mass at our parish last Sunday:

"This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
(so far so good...)
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine."

(give me a break)

"My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight too, and clover,

(At this exact moment, both MamaLlama and I put away our hymnals and mouthed to each other "hippy song...")

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations;
A song of peace for their land and for mine."

Can you guess when it was written? Copyright 1964, of course. I wonder if the author was smoking something.

Okay y'all, it's Independence Day. We should be focusing on how America kicks butt, right? Look, I know God is not an American (unless you're Mormon, I think), and our allegiance is first to God and the Church, and he loves everyone equally, blah blah blah. But is it necessary to diminsh America's unique greatness so as to not offend everyone else? It's not like there's some limited amount of greatness and we're hogging more than our fair share. I realize America is not perfect, but we definitely have something to be proud of. Not only the most powerful nation in the world, but the most free, and the most benevolent to those in need. And any other country could be just as great by following our example and not being a bunch of liberals and commies with spiraling birth rates.

Here's a rule of thumb. Any song written in the last 50 years that contains the word "peace" is going to piss people off. Fortunately, they redeemed themselves by singing America The Beautiful for the recesssional.