Just a Piece of Cloth

That's all it is....just a piece of cloth.

You can count the threads in it, and it's no different from any other piece of cloth.
But then a little breeze comes along, and it stirs and comes to life and flutters and snaps in the wind, all red, white and blue.

It has your whole life wrapped up in it...the meals you're going to eat, the time you're going to spend with your spouse...the kind of things your child will learn at school…those strange and wonderful thoughts you get inside a church on Sunday.

Those stars in it…they make you feel just as free as the stars in the wide, deep night. And those stripes…they’re bars of blood to any dictator who’d try to change it.

Just a piece of cloth, that’s all it is…until you put your soul in it and give it meaning.
What do you want to make it mean? A symbol of liberty and decency and fair-dealing for everyone?

Then, let’s do something about it. Let’s do plenty and do it soon enough.
Yes, that flag is just a piece of cloth until we breathe life into it. Until we make it stand for everything we believe in and refuse to live without.

Anonymous (said to have been an essay appealing to the public

in support of bonds to support America’s WWII efforts)


Here’s something we read in a book today (I wondered if it was true and found a most interesting website with some history of our national anthem):

THE FINAL STANZA of the STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved 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 preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,

And this be our motto--"In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Happy 4th!