Vacation is almost here

So I am very excited that there are only 4 more summer school classes left to teach and then a little vacation time! With my comprehensive exams, teaching, writing, and working on a grant, I haven't really had much of a break so I am looking forward to it. We are going down to visit the fam in Alabama and the to Blowing Rock, NC and the mountains for hiking, biking, and relaxing. This summer has been so busy, but good and I am hoping there are more good things to come!

America the Beautiful

Yes it is July 5th, but I was reading the words to America the Beautiful today and thought how unfortunate we never get to the 2nd and 3rd verses of the song. This song is not about a prideful nation who seeks to be a world power but about a nation built on humility, self-control, and mercy. What beautiful words that truly are patriotic, no matter how you choose to define patriotism- they involve love of God, love of others, and treating others as you would like to be treated....sound familiar? I wrote the second and third verses down and they are not hanging over my desk. It is a prayer for myself as well as this country as I am sure Katharine Lee Bates (she wrote America the Beautiful) would want us to read and remember not just the first verse. Below are the first 3 verses...there are more but the first three just really spoke to me this weekend :

" O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine! "