What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if you say you have faith but do not have works?
Can faith save you? If a brother or sister
is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them,
‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’,
and yet you do not supply their bodily needs,
what is the good of that?
So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.  

– James 2:14-17

A few months ago, long before the horrific events of January 6, I had occasion to read the lyrics of America the Beautiful. We sang that song in grade school music, but now, for the first time, I paid attention to the words, and I was struck by this verse.  

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years;
thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

I finally realized that the song was not about how America is, but about how patriots dream it can be. About a vision of gleaming cities in which no one is reduced to tears by poverty, hatred, or inequity. About a place where brotherhood rules across the land.

On January 20, Amanda Gorman urged us all to renew our efforts to achieve the dream. “We are striving to forge a union with purpose / To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man / And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us.” (Link here).

And just a week later, I followed a link to another poem, written by Langston Hughes sixty years ago, that tells how that dream is only a dream, not reality, for millions of our citizens. “O, let America be America again / The land that never has been yet / And yet must be / the land where every man is free.” (Link here)

Being Moved is Not Enough

My heart was moved by the verses I read, but I know that being moved is not enough. All the emotion I feel, all the emotion in the world, will do nothing to bring our country’s dream to reality if I fail to act to make it happen.  “Love your neighbor,” is not a command to feel; it is a command to DO SOMETHING! Let us join in acting to make sure that, 50 years from now, people are not singing America the Beautiful and wondering if the patriot dream of which it speaks will ever be fulfilled.

– Tom Lund

Prayer

Lord, prod me, push me, motivate me to act. Make me love my neighbor not only with my heart, but with my hands and feet, which are your tools for doing good in this world.