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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nGreater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15.13, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person\u2014though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die\u2014but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.6 \u2013 8, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n PS Peggy Noonan wrote a really nice piece, Teach Your Children to Love America<\/a>, published March 25 in the Wall Street Journal. I recommend the article in its entirety. Here’s a brief snippet:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You have to start kids out with love. Irony and detachment will come soon enough, but start with love, if only to give them a memory of how that felt.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve spent the past few days reading an old book, one that couldn\u2019t possibly be published today because it\u2019s so full of respect for America. \u201cManual of Patriotism: For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York<\/a>,\u201d runs 461 pages of text and was published in 1900. The flag that illustrates this column is from its frontispiece.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The manual was written after the Legislature passed an 1898 law requiring public schools to display the American flag and \u201cencourage patriotic exercises.\u201d Organized veterans of the Civil War and of the Women\u2019s Relief Corps, who were nurses on the battlefield, pushed for it to \u201cawaken in the minds and hearts of the young\u201d an \u201cappreciation\u201d for \u201cthe great deeds\u201d of their nation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Memorial Day meant a lot to those old veterans, but more was needed. Their generation was passing; they\u2019d given everything to hold the nation together; they wanted the young to understand why.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unsaid but between the lines: America at the turn of the 20th century was being engulfed by waves of immigrants; they too needed to understand what America is and means to be, so they would love it too.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n The manual includes a lot of opinions on historical events. One I liked was the assertion that the Civil War ended the day\u00a0Ulysses S. Grant\u00a0was buried in 1885. Why? Because America saw who his pallbearers were: \u201cJohnston and Buckner on one side of his bier, and Sherman and Sheridan upon the other.\u201d The first two were generals of the Confederate army, the last two of the Union Army.\u00a0Henry Ward Beecher\u00a0wrote that their marching Grant to his tomb was \u201ca silent symbol that liberty had conquered slavery, and peace war.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You come away from that vignette thinking not only \u201cwhat men,\u201d but \u201cwhat a country\u201d that could tear itself in two, murder itself, forgive itself, go on.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Parents, help your children love this country. It will be good for them, and more to the point this country deserves it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Also when you don\u2019t love something you lose it. We don\u2019t want that to happen.<\/em> – Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s Memorial Day, and I can’t do better than what my friend and former pastor John Ed Mathison wrote in his blog a couple of years ago: We can casually sit back and enjoy backyard barbecues, boat rides, and beach bashes, but the meaning of Memorial Day is that almost 1.5 million men and women … Continue reading Memorial Day<\/span>