Yesterday wrapped up the month of May for us at the office so the next few days will be somewhat consumed with the work of  “Month End.” Posts may become a little more sporadic these next few days…

So for today’s “Patriot’s Journey” entry, I’m sharing an article excerpted from Zig Ziglar’s Life Lifters (© 2003 Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee). I couldn’t possibly have said it more eloquently!

I love America because we are a compassionate land. If there is an earthquake in India or Turkey, Americans are the first there with the most aid. If there is a typhoon in the Philippines, Americans are there first to render aid. If there is a famine in Afghanistan, even as we bombed that land in response to the terrorist attacks, we were also flying in food to the starving. Even before the war started, America gave more aid to Afghanistan than did any other nation. If there is a drought in Africa, floods in Central America, poverty in Haiti or Somalia, or ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, America and Americans are there to help.

We are a haven for asylum seekers from all over the world. Millions of immigrants apply every year to enter our land. Once they become citizens, these immigrants, regardless of where they come from, are four times as likely to become millionaires as are those who are born here. In short, they take advantage of the opportunities America offers. I love America because it’s not where you start that counts.

I love America because despite what some say, historical evidence is absolutely irrefutable that we were founded as a Christian nation, although we have strayed away from those roots…In the early part of the nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville from France said he had seen everything America has to offer, but it wasn’t until he went into the churches that he discovered America’s greatness. His conclusion was that America is great because America is good, and America will be great as long as it is good.

I love America because of what it has permitted me to do and become. I was the tenth of twelve children. My dad died when I was five; my mother had a fifth-grade education. But because of the concern and help so many people have given me throughout my life, I count twenty-six men and women whose photos appear on my “Wall of Gratitude.” Their help, love, and encouragement have enabled me to become successful in my chosen career and in my personal and family life beyond what anyone could reasonably expect.

I love America because of people like Oprah Winfrey, who was born to a single mother, raised in poverty in Mississippi, sexually abused by relatives, gave birth as a young girl, and overcame all of these things to positively influence people all over the world. Mary Kay Ash started her great company on a shoestring and built it on the philosophy that God comes first, family second, and Mary Kay Cosmetics third in the lives of her representatives. Her pink Cadillacs, won by literally thousands of her directors all over the world, are shining lights of opportunity. Mary Crowley founded Home Interiors and Gifts and gave opportunities to countless people through her charitable efforts, literally rescued several Christian colleges, and provided scholarships for thousands of deserving young men and women. These three women have enriched the lives of millions of people and been responsible for billions of dollars in our economy.

I love America because we are a nation of laws.

I love America because a black lady, Rosa Parks, refused to leave her seat in the front of a bus and move to the back with the simple statement, “My feet hurt.” As a result, the boycott in Montgomery, Alabama was on and Martin Luther King’s crusade for civil rights caught fire. When Rosa Parks refused to stand up and move back, an entire people stood up and moved forward – that’s America.

Most of all, I love America because of the freedom she offers. This is not to say that America is perfect. But of all the nations on the face of this earth, this is the one that offers the most opportunity to those who are willing to obey the laws, go to work, and do their best.

Yes, I love America because I can tell a thousand stories of men and women of every race, creed, and color, with every physical handicap you can possibly imagine who have taken the resources they had and, because of their faith, friends, families, and freedom, have accomplished great things and made a difference in the lives of countless other people. Yes, I love America because it truly is the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” the land where any man or woman has an opportunity to do great things, and most of all to enjoy the privilege of freedom.

It really is “America the beautiful,” and I hope you will do your part to help keep her that way.

I‘ve started reading Dinesh D’Souza’s best-selling book What’s So Great About America and find it hard to put down. And before you ask, the title isn’t a question but a statement. “America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence,” writes D’Souza. “American life as it is lived today [is] the best life that our world has to offer.” A central theme seems to be that the freedoms of America offer too much to immigrants, which is why there have been so many. He argues that the success of immigrants historically has been due to their assimilation of American values while keeping their heritage, i.e. the “melting pot”.

This may be his most personal book, with parts written in the first person as India-born D’Souza describes his encounter with the United States, first as an immigrant and now as a citizen. He’s perhaps better at explaining why America’s critics are wrong than explaining why America’s celebrants are right - but he’s very good at both, using a mix of feisty arguments and sharp humor. “I am constantly surprised by how much I hear racism talked about and how little I actually see it” is just one of myriad topics he skillfully filets.

“Only now [following 9/11] are those Americans who grew up during the 1960s coming to appreciate the virtues…of this older, sturdier culture of courage, nobility and sacrifice,” D’Souza writes. “It is this culture that will protect the liberties of all Americans.”

We live in an amazingly  wonderful country, complete with the freedom to help shape, mold and improve her. We are free to complain about those things about her we find less than virtuous and praise those things we find filled with virtue. No other country on earth offers such a challenging opportunity.

“To make us love our country,” Edmund Burke once said, “our country ought to be lovely.” Burke’s point is that we should love our country, not just because it is ours, but also because it is good. America is far from perfect, and there is lots of room for improvement. In spite of its flaws, however, the American life as it is lived today is the best life that our world has to offer. Ultimately, America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible the good life…and the life that is good.

For my “Patriot’s Journey” post today, I’m taking an excerpt from Inga Muscio’s Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil, from the “Eenie, Meenie Miney, Mo, Catch a Cracker by the Toe” chapter. Often criticized for “making things up” and for selectively moderating history to conform to her sometimes extreme views, the author nonetheless expresses, at least in this excerpt, an interesting, provocative and amusing expression of why she loves our country.  Enjoy!

I love America because Malcolm X is from here.

I love America because Malcolm X, Audre Lorde, Paul Robeson, Diamanda Galás, Robin D.G. Kelley, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Paris, my Grammy, Missy Elliott, Yuri Kochiyama, Oscar the Grouch, Ho Che Anderson, Janeane Garofalo, Cookie Monster, Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, Jan Schakowsky, and Gore Vidal are all from here.

They all grew up in America, just like me.

I love America because it’s where I’ve had Iranian rosewater syrup ice cream and Indian cardamom ginger ice cream too. America feeds me veggie kung pao chicken, rich Ethiopian stews, and Boca Burgers with organic tomato slices, fat and juicy and salt-and-peppered. I love the food of America. It is the best of the whole wide world.

I love America because there are so many voices here. There is Neil Diamond and Talib Kweli. Ann Coulter and Lisa Tiger. Bill Cosby and Louis Farrakhan. Colonel David Hackworth and General Tommy Franks. When I think of all the voices in America, I almost lose consciousness with the breathtaking whirling in my mind.

I love America because each state is a different country and when I am all bundled up in “Minnesota” when it is a bone-numbing forty-six degrees outside, total strangers chide me and tell me to take off my hat, and in “Ohio,” a group of young Amish people told me I was English, and I said, “No, I am Irish and Italian,” and they laughed at my ignorance, because to them, everyone who is non-Amish—including Neil Diamond, Talib Kweli, Ann Coulter, Lisa Tiger, Bill Cosby, Louis Farrakhan, Colonel David Hackworth, and General Tommy Franks—is “English,” and in “New York” it is totally against the law to dance in a bar and you can get in big trouble, and if you tell people in “Louisiana” that you don’t eat meat, they will feel sorry for you and express their sincerest condolences. One of my favorites, I think, is when I am in “Michigan” and if I ask someone where they are from, they will hold up their right hand and point somewhere on it.

I love America because almost everyone I hold dear to my heart and share memories and history with lives here.

I love America because it offered a home to my immigrant mother, gave her a place to raise her children.

I love America because there is a festival here for every conceivable occasion, celebrating the strawberry harvest, the antique motorcycle, the first day the mall opened, the most poised six-year-old girl in a specific geographic region, and the go-cart. There are Greek Orthodox festivals, hippies run amuck festivals, black nationalism hiphop festivals, Sun Dance Warrior festivals, Japanese cherry blossom festivals, lunar new year festivals, gang truce festivals, and Mennonite quilting festivals here in America.

If I did not love America, I would do what the bumper sticker says and leave it in a heartbeat, but I cannot imagine how sad I would be living somewhere that is not America. How could I survive without radical cheerleaders and Dave Chappelle, without loud-mouthed assholes like Howard Stern, without pampered doggies in cashmere sweaters, without Margaret Cho and Alix Olson, without deep plush golden velvet interiored lowriders and flamboyant homos prancing down the street in ball gowns aglow with little white lights in the tulle?

I love America because it describes every aspect of my identity, humanity, and complex ideology.

It is a beautiful place and I am deeply honored to have been born here.

I love America.

I’ve decided to join the 4th Annual Patriot’s Journey wherein I’ll endeavor to post something positive about the USA each day between Memorial Day and Independence Day. If my math is correct, and assuming I have access to a computer and am not otherwise indisposed, I’ll have 28 weekday posts, 28 good things to say about my country. Sounds worthy and doable, right?

Other bloggers participating are Drumwaster’s Rants, Speed Of Thought, The Bastidge, Right Thoughts and Cosmicbabe. 

If you have a blog, feel free to join in or, if you feel so inclined, feel free to contribute to this one.  So let’s begin:

As I was preparing yesterday’s Memorial Day post, I stumbled across this short essay written in 2001 by a third grader named Ali at Academy Elementary School in Madison, Connecticut, presumably as a class project. I was immediately taken with the beautiful simplicity and wisdom of her words, and amazed that someone so young could so clearly see what so many of us have seemingly forgotten: that we owe a debt of immeasurable gratitude to the men and women who made the supreme sacrifice to insure our liberties and freedom, and that we should always remember how they set us free.

“As the flowers rest on the decorated graves and the sunlight shines on the beautiful sailboats, Uncle Sam whispers in my ear about how we should care for the soldiers and remember the ones that have died. Swimming pools open, BBQs fry. Today is the day to think of what they have done for us. There are blurs of red, white and blue marching down the street and flags are lowered at half-mast. But we should always remember and never forget what set us free, from this very day on.”

Whenever I read or hear something like this, I’m relieved, thankful that there is hope for our future, that we won’t forget those who gave their all to preserve liberty. And I’m reassured knowing that young people like Ali will help keep the fire burning in all of us.

Memorial Day began as a spontaneous outpouring of honoring and remembrance for six hundred thousand American soldiers who died fighting the Civil War. Towns and villages in both the North and the South began decorating the grave sites of the war dead with flowers. Decoration Day, as it was then called, became official with General Orders No. 11 issued by General John Logan, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in May 1868.

In 1915, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

She conceived the idea of wearing red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. In 1948,  the United States Post Office honored Ms. Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a 3 cent postage stamp bearing her likeness.

Today, in military cemeteries across the Nation and in lands where U.S. soldiers died far from home, men, women and children will gather to remember, reflect and to honor those who gave what Abraham Lincoln called the “the last full measure of devotion.”

I hope you’ll join me today at 3 P.M. in the National Moment of Remembrance. One minute of quiet reflection isn’t too much to ask to honor the supreme sacrifices which continue to make freedom possible. Wear a red poppy with pride in honor of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Remember that  “All gave some and some gave all…” for you.