Independence!

I love the 4th of July. Maybe I just love fireworks...the smell of the smoke, the sounds, being wrapped up in a blanket watching them with friends and family. Having a BBQ, playing games until it gets dark enough to start the fireworks. Bug spray, sunblock, buckets filled with water and used fireworks, and matches. I love it all. Getting up early to proudly put out the flag. Singing patriotic songs with my hand over my heart, remembering all the men and women who have fought and are still fighting for my freedom. My dad in his Army uniform, boots polished, pants ironed stiff. Watching parades, feeling that surge of fierce pride when the soldiers walk by holding the colors of our country high.

Sorry, I sort of went stream of consciousness there. I have been thinking about this stuff over the past several days. Today in church, we stood to sing the National Anthem. I love doing that. I miss being the chorister. There is something so moving about leading a congregation in singing a song like that. Listening to them sing and knowing what it means to all of them and to me. It is an awesome feeling.
As we were singing, I noticed particularly the 2nd and 3rd verses of the song. Verses that most of us don't know by heart like we do the first verse. I love them, even more than the first verse of the song. They have so much emotion. Music does this to me often...paints a picture in my mind or helps me understand a concept better than other ways. I might be silly, but music moves me, speaks to my soul in a way that makes me feel the spirit of the Lord and makes me want to be a better person. I love it. I want other people to feel the things I feel when I hear or sing a song. I usually end up in tears when a certain song touches me. I love it!
So, enough of my blabbering, right? Well, not quite. I am going to leave you with the words to that song...pay particular attention to the second and third verses, and take a few moments to just "feel" and "see" the words.

The Star Spangled Banner

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause. it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!