O Say, Can You See?

I was listening to a radio interview with a missionary from a relief organization called Rivers of the World this morning on my way to my Saturday job, and he started talking about the kids he met. He said that one thing he always liked to do with local children was to ask them to sing. He would pull out his video camera to record so that he could watch all their faces later. And he said that no matter where he was, whether a jungle village in Africa, Peru, Brazil, or anywhere else, they would always sing the same thing! When he said that, I was a little confused, because the last time I checked, they don't speak the same language everywhere. But then he said that the children, no matter where they were from, when they were asked to sing, would sing their National Anthem! How cool is that?

After they talked about this for a while, they mentioned America. What if a stranger came into a classroom here and asked a kid to sing? What would they sing about? Well, I certainly don't know what they'd sing, but I do know one thing; It wouldn't be the Star Spangled Banner! I find it sad that in one of the greatest nations in the world, where we enjoy so much freedom, we can't even take the time to appreciate all that we have been given. When Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics to that song, he was watching a battle going on; He was waiting and searching through the smoke to see if our beautiful flag was still flying. He knew that as long as the flag was waving, there was still hope. We hadn't surrendered yet!

I was talking to my grandmother just yesterday about how I don't even know the other 3 verses to the anthem. She was telling me about some people who didn't even know the words to the first verse that everyone sings! I find it really sad that in a country that has been blessed in so many ways, we can't even honor our country and our forefathers by singing the National Anthem with pride. And I personally think that the language it was written with is pretty cool. Why don't we talk like this anymore?

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!