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| Irving Berlin, Age 18 (Public Domain) |
Particularly around the time of Memorial Day, you can hear the strains of “God Bless America” from many a house of worship.
This song was written by one of America’s most famous immigrants:
Irving Berlin. He was born a Jew in Czarist Russia at a time when entire Jewish villages were deliberately
being destroyed there.
Berlin managed to escape.
The gratitude that this young lad felt for his “Promised Land” of America never faded.
It was beautifully expressed within the opus “God Bless America.”
Recently, a local church posted this message: “America Bless God.”
It serves as a vivid reminder that blessings often work in covenantal fashion. If God is to bless America, then it is incumbent upon Americans to also bless God.
In a way, this is a spiritualized version of John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your [blessed] country can do for you, but what you can do for your [blessed] country…”
The Huffington Post
reports that immigrants Peter and Joan Petrasek took this covenantal philosophy to heart.
He a survivor of Nazi persecution, and she originally from Ireland, agreed to bless their adopted land America by leaving their entire estate of $847,215 to the United States Government.
Resources
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/immigrant-couple-leaves-dollar847000-to-america/ar-BBk8Pil
Copyright May 24, 2015 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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