Hi everybody. Hope you had a great Fourth of July with picnics and fireworks and fun as you celebrated our nation’s freedom. In our church bulletin today I put a quote from Pearl S. Buck “None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascination power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.” And that’s right. We’re so free that we never think about it. Not really. Not the way those who don’t have our freedoms surely think about freedom.
We can do and say whatever we want – within the limits of the law, of course. We can choose our own professions. We can quit one job and find another. We can move to whatever community we want to. We can complain about the government without fear of reprisal. And boy, do we ever do that – complain about the government. But maybe that’s good. Maybe that means we will never be satisfied with things as they are. We will always be growing as a people, as a nation.
But we can’t forget that freedom is not free. Many men and women have given their lives in service to our country to keep our freedoms and to help people in other countries keep their freedoms. We have soldiers right now in harm’s way who need our prayers as they serve our country. What better time than Independence Day to recognize and honor our veterans and those who are serving now. So don’t be ashamed of that tear in your eye when you hear the “Star Spangled Banner.” Let’s wave the flag and count our blessings as an American. God bless America!
My husband’s Southern Gospel Quartet is called the Patriot Quartet, and since they chose that name, they have made it a practice to sing some patriotic songs in all their concerts as they do their best to stand for God and country. They even titled one of their recordings that – “Standing for God and Country.” Their patriotic songs celebrate our freedom as Americans and also our freedom as Christians. You can check out their songs on their website, http://www.patriotquartet.com/. They have some good ones.
They were singing at Fort Harrod in Harrodsburg, Kentucky last night and had a great crowd come out to hear some of those patriotic songs. But there were some unexpected guests that weren’t as thrilled with their music while they were warming up and setting the sound system prior to the concert. Bats kept falling out of the upper reaches. I guess the high tenor notes were getting to them. Or maybe it was my husband’s low notes. I’m not sure what frequency bats are on, but whatever these were on, the guys’ singing was messing it up. Thank goodness and the Lord no bats came down to visit after the people started coming in. We might have heard some high tenor notes from some people besides the Patriot’s tenor singer.
The quartet had three really good concerts this weekend and enjoyed singing on a weekend when they could showcase their patriotism and their patriotic songs.
I’m back to work tomorrow on my next Shaker book. The words were coming hard last week. I keep telling myself I need to make the turn for home. Nobody likes a book that goes on and on and forgets to end. So I think I’m turning for home. I hope I’m turning for home because if I’m not I’m going to have to weed out some of these words that I’m struggling so hard to plant on the paper or computer screen. Of course it’s way easy to delete words on the computer. Hit a couple of keys and oops! It’s all gone. And that’s always when you don’t want it to be all gone. Of course you can recover it. Can’t you? Oh, not if you hit that other wrong key. I did a little of that last week. Just a paragraph’s worth, but it was a good paragraph. I’m sure it was. But I couldn’t find its echo in my head, so I just had to write a new one. I tried to imagine it was better. You know, writer’s are supposed to have good imaginations.
Hope you have a great week with imaginings that bring you smiles and wonders.