God Bless America!

I admit it. I am a flag-waving, America-loving, patriotic nerd. When I was a teenager, instead of posters of girls or cars, my walls were covered with a life-size replica of the Declaration of Independence, Gilbert Stuart’s portait of Washington, postcards from the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and an autographed picture of Ronald Reagan.

I was fortunate to be born into a family who loved this country and I absorbed that from them. My maternal grandfather was a union man and he and Grandma were Democrats. My paternal grandfather had a small business and he was a Republican. It didn’t matter, though. They all loved this country.

In fact, I remember once when I was at church with my maternal grandmother. I was sitting by my cousins. The speaker mentioned that they didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance every day anymore in schools. Grandma looked over at us demanded to know if that was true in our schools. When we told her it was, and that we did not say the Pledge every day, she swore. Right there in Sacrament Meeting. She was so indignant. I’ve rarely seen anyone so mad. But then, she lost a brother in WWII, so she knew a little bit about the price of freedom and the Pledge wasn’t just a collection of words for her.

I was also fortunate that when I was in school, especially high school, my teachers were men who fought in World War II. They believed in the fundamental goodness of this country and they had made sacrifices for this belief: storming the beaches at Normandy, fighting in foxholes, and liberating concentration camps. I may have been in the last generation of schoolchildren to be taught by unashamed patriots.

When I was fourteen, my family took a vacation to Washington D.C. At the time, the thought of being anywhere with my embarrassing parents and annoying younger siblings for two weeks felt like cruel and unusual punishment and I did not have the best attitude about this trip.

I remember being dragged to the National Archives. Could anything be more boring than going to stand in line to see a bunch of old papers?

I had little choice, though so I went. I remember standing in front of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. As I looked at them, I felt sudden rush of reverence and sanctity that I have felt only very rarely since them. Even as an immature teenager, I could feel that these were very special documents. I had a spiritual experience standing in that building, in line with all the other tourists. I knew then, in the deepest parts of my soul, that America was no accident. I knew that God’s hand had been involved in the founding and that He had inspired the Founders who wrote those documents. This conviction sank deep down inside of me and it is as fundamental to my beliefs as the fact that I believe in God.

This experience in my adolescence has been confirmed and strengthened hundreds of times since then. As I have learned and lived more, my appreciation for the miracle of America has deepened and grown, as has my conviction that God has always blessed this wonderful land.

One of my hobbies is reading history and I am especially fond of early American and World War II history. While I am not an expert, or even a terribly informed amateur, I have noticed how many junctions there have in our past where the wrong turn would have been disastrous to America. Somehow, at most of these junctions, at the last moment, we have always turned the right direction.

Often, and I find this incredibly compelling, nature seemed to give us the benefit of her help. For example, Washington had his back to the East river when he and his army were dug in on Brooklyn Heights in the very early days of the Revolution. British ships were not able to come get them because of opposing winds, but they were able to keep them from crossing the river and British troops were advancing quickly from Long Island. They were trapped, perfectly and completely.

And then the fog came in. A thick fog that obscured everything. Washington’s men were able to cross the river into Manhattan and then retreat to fight another day. Had that fog not come in, it would have been over.

And of course, there was the storm that came on Christmas night later in the war, the storm that masked Washington’s troops when he crossed the Delaware and surprised the Hessians at Trenton the next morning.

Or, consider D-Day when the Allied Forces were going to cross the English Channel and land at Normandy. The weather was foul and would not permit a crossing. Eisenhower was just about to call the invasion off when the weather changed just enough to let it happen.

In these cases, and in so many other similar examples, it was as if Nature—or, perhaps, Nature’s God, was fighting for the United States.

We have certainly seen dark days in this country, and frankly, we should not have survived them. The Revolution, the Civil War, the Depression, World War II, these were all serious problems that really should have finished the United States. But they didn’t. In fact, if anything we were stronger.

Today there is a lot of worry and anxiety about our country and it exists on both sides of the political aisles. Countries with crazy leaders who hate us are getting nuclear weapons and 9/11 showed us just how vulnerable we are. The world seems less and less stable and safe every day.

At home, we have heated debates about the nature of freedom and the balance between security and liberty, between freedom and responsibility, and between individual rights and collective well-being. We worry either about the impact of global warming on the planet or the fact that all the cures seem to subtract our freedoms. Whatever side you happen to be on in the debates, I think it is fair to say that most of us are worried. Certainly the economic distress of the past few months has been an equal-opportunity stressor.

A few months ago, I was driving to my parent’s house to attend a wedding. I was preoccupied with worry about the country that I love so much. This country has been incredibly good to me and my family. It has provided us with opportunity to work and to be rewarded for that work. I want those same opportunities for my children and grandchildren.

So, I was worrying deeply about the present and especially the future. As I drove along the interstate I remembered that I had been up at night worrying when I was a child. It was near the end of the Cold War, although we didn’t know that at the time. We just knew that it was a very tense time.

I remember having fire, earthquake, and nuclear attack drills at school. Our proximity to a key Air Force base led us to live with the knowledge that we would certainly one day be the victims of a nuclear attack.

I don’t think anyone back then ever imagined that we would escape the Cold War without a single missile being fired. I think that the odds were that at least one major city would be attacked, and that the rest of us would become post-Nuclear attack zombie mutants.

And yet, somehow, we emerged from that difficult time safely. Just as we did from all the other tribulations in the past.

When I realized that, I felt peace. God has always blessed America. He has had a purpose for this country. And if He did in the past then He surely does now. He has always led us through the difficulties and the challenges and I believe He will do the same now. This is the seat of His kingdom on the earth today and I cannot believe that He is finished with His church or the country that provides its base.

The Book of Mormon tells us that there are powerful promises here in this country and no one can take those away from us. If we are righteous, that is, if my family and I are righteous, then the Lord has to honor those promises. And if I share the gospel so my friends and neighbors also know about those promises, then so much the better.

We need to do all we can to advocate for the policies we think are best. We need to give our best consideration to the issues of the day and let our voices be heard. The Church is scrupulously non-partisan and politically neutral, but they encourage us to be active and vocal. I noted in the First Presidency’s letter that was sent out during the last election that they said that there are principles compatible with the Gospel in both political parties. We need to do all we can—the Lord didn’t magically lift Washington’s army to Trenton, after all, he had to march at night in a storm—and then we need to be righteous and trust in the Lord.

But our past gives us reason for optimism, for hope, not fear.

In 1888, Israel Baline was born in a small village in Siberia. In 1893, his family fled from a brutal pogrom and made their way to New York City. The family of ten started in the United States with literally nothing. They all had to work to support themselves. It was a classic immigrant story. They worked hard, learned English and eventually prospered in a country that didn’t give them an easy life, but gave them freedom and safety. Israel’s father died and so Israel went to work to support his family. He started out selling songs and eventually he rose through the ranks to become an incredibly successful and prosperous songwriter.

During another dark time in our history, he penned these lines:

“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.”

A few years into his new life here, Isaiah Baline changed his name to Irving Berlin. He knew a thing or two about storm clouds gathering in other lands, and having living through world wars and depressions, he knew about God guiding us through “the night with a light from above.”

Irving Berlin wrote with the feeling of an immigrant who fled his home to escape being persecuted and killed and with the feeling of someone who came to this country with nothing and climbed to the top of his profession. He knew what he was writing about.

God has blessed America. Many, many times. And surely, if we ask, He will continue to do so.