|
|
|
|
Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
 Posted - 10/02/2001 : 21:31:35
|
Came across this one posted at another list; culled from USA Today.
Utterly pathetic......
********************************
God, country gain fragile new toehold
USA Today; Arlington, Va.; Oct 1, 2001; Kathleen Parker;
One can't help notice the silence of atheists these days. Suddenly "God" is everywhere, as ubiquitous as American flags, spreading -- as Dan Rather said in a spasm of simile-rapture to describe rumors following the Sept. 11 attacks -- "like mildew in a damp basement."
War has that effect. There are no atheists in foxholes, we've always known. There were none in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, we can guess. And now there are none anywhere to be found. America today is about God and country, but then it always has been. We just lost track.
We lost track when we evicted God from our public institutions and when we stopped honoring our nation with the songs and rituals that defined American childhood until a few decades ago. We of a certain age remember beginning each school day by pledging allegiance to the flag, singing My Country, 'Tis of Thee and, finally, reciting The Lord's Prayer.
We twitched and fidgeted because we were children. We mouthed words we couldn't pronounce and didn't understand. For years I thought we were "pegging legions" to "Publix for witches," but no matter. We were united in song and prayer and a shared, if immature, understanding that we were a whole dedicated to a common purpose.
That unity of purpose has been resurrected through an unspeakable tragedy and expressed in the language of God and country such as we've not heard in my adult lifetime. Since terrorists brought down the twin towers and part of the Pentagon, we've repeatedly witnessed America's leaders praying, singing, pledging and asking the nation's citizens to join them.
Which is to say, our children must be awfully confused. Reared and educated in godless institutions that also scarcely acknowledge the importance of patriotism -- watching adults sing songs they've never learned -- they must wonder "wassup." It's as though America's adults belong to a secret society to which their children have never been exposed.
These thoughts have struck me over and over, beginning with the memorial service at the National Cathedral. As the audience sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic -- joined by yours truly back home in the family room (confess: you did it, too) -- it occurred to me that my son doesn't even know the words.
He and most other American children don't know that song or a half- dozen other patriotic tunes that are imprinted on older Americans' brains -- for the simple reason that hardly anyone sings them anymore. Patriotism, meanwhile, is as unfamiliar as the alien notions that inform the Taliban.
As with much of what's wrong with America, my (boomer) generation gets the credit. No one needs a rehash of that particular lesson. But thanks to our own World War II parents, we at least have a heritage to return to. We know the words when we need them; our children don't. We've been so overzealously protective of newcomers to and renegades from our traditional heritage -- and fearful of offending anyone hungry for attention -- that we've failed to pass on the very values that made us who and what we are.
"And what values might those be?" asks the cynic. We're a diverse, multicultural nation. Different values for different folks. Hey, it's all relative. Whatever.
The values are those you've heard over and over since Sept. 11. They're the values that prompted Americans to buy up every American flag in the country, to clog Manhattan's streets looking for some way to help, to stand in line for hours to donate blood, to crowd churches and synagogues and other houses of worship to pray.
A friend told me she was trying to figure out what recent events meant to her. After some deliberation, she hit on a simple answer. "I figured it out, and it's really very succinct," she said. "I believe in God and I believe in my country."
From the beginning of American time, the two have been entwined and inseparable. Today, we seem to have no trouble seeing how necessary the one is to the other. By whatever name you call God -- yes, including Allah -- there's no extracting Him from our moments of greatest valor and our times of deepest despair.
Faith in God and devotion to country are values, however, that do not evolve from nothing. Both require nourishment and a continuity of commitment passed from one generation to the next. Our parents, most of whom had tasted war and paid the dues of freedom, gave us these values to which we now so readily return. We have a duty to do the same for our own children.
I don't know how we reconcile the legal separation of church and state required by law with the marriage of God and country demanded by our national psyche, but I'm sure we can figure out something.
If we're to win this war -- sure to last into our children's futures -- we have to reweave the rituals of God and country into our institutions. We can't expect children to understand and someday defend a heritage that they have never been given.
Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
==========================
Here's her e-mail address:
kparker@kparker.com for anyone who cares to write this @#$% zipperhead bigot.
|
|
|
James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2001 : 21:50:51 [Permalink]
|
Thanks, Randy, for reposting this. She's also on USA Today's board of contributors? Either she bloody apologizes or she is removed from that board.
If you want to post on her Chat Board, Go here Have fun... 
The way I see it, christians are godless too...they just don't know it yet.
Edited by - James on 10/02/2001 21:52:36 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
