VDH: In thanks

People who pray will tell you that praying in thanks is the most powerful prayer, a lesson I learned the hard way. So on this Independence Day weekend, let us pray in thanks: Via Irish Spy, a great essay by Victor Davis Hanson, Reflection Day

We live in the most prosperous and most free years of a wonderful republic, and can easily rectify our present crises that are largely of our own making and a result of the stupefying effects of our unprecedented wealth and leisure. Instead of endless recriminations and self-pity — of anger that our past was merely good rather than perfect as we now demand — we need to give thanks this Fourth of July to our ancestors who created our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and suffered miseries beyond our comprehension as they bequeathed to us most of the present wealth, leisure, and freedom we take for granted.

We sang this in church today

The music is from God Save the King, but here are the American lyrics:

My country,' tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims' pride,
from every mountainside let freedom ring!

2. My native country, thee,
land of the noble free, thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
thy woods and templed hills;
my heart with rapture thrills, like that above.

3. Let music swell the breeze,
and ring from all the trees sweet freedom's song;
let mortal tongues awake;
let all that breathe partake;
let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.

4. Our fathers' God, to thee,
author of liberty, to thee we sing;
long may our land be bright
with freedom's holy light;
protect us by thy might, great God, our King.

In thanks we live for our founding fathers, and for every American that has contributed to this our blessed country.

Crossposted



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Today is the National Day of Prayer

Praise

O Lord God Almighty, I thank You for Your presence and for Your guidance. You alone are worthy of our worship, and You alone are to be praised in all the heavens.

Father, on this day of prayer, I remember all the goodness You have showered upon this nation and I lift my voice in prayer and gratitude along with many of my fellow citizens. I pray that our worship rises to You as a fragrant and pleasing aroma, and ask You to come into our lives and inhabit our praise.

I ask my readers to pray for our great nation and its people, and to pray for the bloggers, for my visitors and for me. I'll be praying for all of you.

We all get weary, after all.

Cross-posted at DNN

Update:
Confession
Supplication
Update 2
Thanksgiving

[We] will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples;
[We] will sing to You among the nations.
For Your mercy reaches unto the heavens,
And Your truth unto the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
Let Your glory be above all the earth.

Friends I haven't met yet

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
One of the most rewarding aspects of blogging is coming in contact with many wonderful people.

Over time, you grow to enjoy their writing, and to admire their human qualities that shine through their writing. I think of those people as friends - friends I haven't met yet.

Go read what some of my friends have posted recently,

Jeremayakovka wrote an open letter to Matt Sanchez.

The Anchoress writes about God.

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred ponders The Pendulum of prayer

For every prayer that is extended our way when most needed, there are an equal numbers of prayers that we must extend because those prayers are needed.

Francis Porretto looks at life's journies.

Kathleen faces an enormous challenge.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali in today's WSJ

Don't miss the WSJ's interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Free Radical
Ayaan Hirsi Ali infuriates Muslims and discomfits liberals.

Many liberals loathe her for disrupting an imagined "diversity" consensus: It is absurd, she argues, to pretend that cultures are all equal, or all equally desirable. But conservatives, and others, might be reasonably unnerved by her dim view of religion. She does not believe that Islam has been "hijacked" by fanatics, but that fanaticism is intrinsic in Islam itself: "Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous."

The Muslim faith has many variations, but Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the unities are of greater significance. "Islam has a very consistent doctrine," she says, "and I define Islam as I was taught to define it: submission to the will of Allah. His will is written in the Quran, and in the hadith and Sunna. What we are all taught is that when you want to make a distinction between right and wrong, you follow the prophet. Muhammad is the model guide for every Muslim through time, throughout history."

This supposition justifies, in her view, a withering critique of Islam's most holy human messenger. "You start by scrutinizing the morality of the prophet," and then ask: "Are you prepared to follow the morality of the prophet in a society such as this one?" She draws a connection between Mohammed's taking of child brides in the first century A.D. and modern sexual oppressions--what she calls "this imprisonment of women." She decries the murder of adulteresses and rape victims, the wearing of the veil, arranged marriages, domestic violence, genital mutilation and other contraventions of "the most basic freedoms."

About the culture war:

The most grievous failing of the West is self-congratulatory passivity: We face "an external enemy that to a degree has become an internal enemy, that has infiltrated the system and wants to destroy it." She believes a more drastic reaction is required: "It's easy," she says, "to weigh liberties against the damage that can be done to society and decide to deny liberties. As it should be. A free society should be prepared to recognize the patterns in front of it, and do something about them."

Go and read every word.



Cross-posted at MSN

Ash Wednesday

The Anchoress sent this wonderful article, Ashes Say Something About Who We Are

Ash Wednesday is a day of atonement, but a day of testimony, too. It is a day when we proclaim ourselves as Christians, as followers of the Way - even when the Way leads to nothing but the remnants of an extinguished flame, brushed with a thumb against the brow, as crumbs fall to the floor and we feel the warm residue stick.

Read it.