Are we still great?

Are we still great?

Sept. 27 2001

Straight Talk
By Muriel Sluyter

Greetings, Gentle Reader,

Alexis de Tocqueville said, "America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

Is America still great?

In the weeks since the terrorist attack, I have seen many reactions in our people. Many talk of hate crimes against people of other countries, but those who commit these acts are criminals. They are criminals before they attack what they think will be perceived as a justifiable target. Their attacks have to do with their own hatred, their own criminality, not the nationality of their victims.

We have become aware of our own mortality. We, too, could die in an instant, and many are making changes in their lives. With a clearer vision of life and death, many are returning to their roots and their church pews.

Americans are strong, but is our strength in our wrath? Is it in our monetary might? Perhaps our military power? Maybe in our amber waves of grain, or even the majesty of our purple mountains. Could it be in our universities? Or perhaps the brilliance of our inventors and engineers.

It lies in neither our wrath nor our abundance. We were great during the Depression, when hunger and want haunted our people. We were great when we were woefully unprepared to defend ourselves against the Axis powers.

We were great and good before our farmers created amber waves of grain. The majesty of our purple mountains is a direct gift from God, and should remind us that He loves us for that goodness and has largely protected us from external evil, from 1607 until the present.

We were great and good before the various religions built universities in order to ensure that we would continue to be an educated and enlightened people. We were great before our inventors and engineers provided the vehicles and tools that have allowed us to grow nourishing grains, fruits, vegetables and animals, permitting us to raise our children in a land of plenty.

We care for our neighbors in times of need. No people on earth are so generous as Americans. We give more to charity than any other nation, and we have a greater concern for our fellow man than any people in history.

That is our strength; what is our weakness? We are less good than we were in Tocqueville’s day. Too many have turned their backs on God. To some extent, it has been the direct result of the very richness of the blessings He has given us. Foolishly, we suppose that we provide these things for ourselves, and now we have been reminded, through great evil and an impending threat of further violence, that we are dependent on Him, not only for our sustenance, but for our very lives. We have learned that we are not in charge of our destiny. Can we affect it? Of course, but we are not in charge.

We have watched in horror as adults and children danced in the streets of foreign lands, celebrating the news that America had been attacked, and we saw with clarity that we and they had been raised to think differently, to act differently. Then we watched as rescue workers risked (and in large numbers gave) their own lives to save fellow human beings. At the sight, many of our people, who had lost faith in the American dream, realized anew that this is a good country, overwhelmingly filled with good people.

Let us pray that the people of this great country will return to their roots and become more aware and appreciative of the inestimable gift of freedom secured for us by our ancestors, at such great personal cost, and made possible only by the protective hand of a loving God.