As we approach Memorial Day 2018, we are reminded that freedom is never free and that many that have gone before us have given the ultimate sacrifice of their lives to protect this country and the freedoms we hold so dear. Nowhere is this better stated than in the words of Abraham Lincoln, as he delivered the Gettysburg address during the height of the Civil War:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
This Memorial Day, let’s pay tribute to those who gave their lives in service to this country, taking “increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion”, and attend a Memorial Day ceremony or parade in our area. It is certainly altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Also in this newsletter, we feature an interview with the Christian Blue Network’s own Gary Stanton, who, along with his wife Cindy, recently returned from a guided tour of Israel. I believe you’ll find the observations of his visit to the Holy Land intriguing, so I encourage you to read on.