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Hi, I'm Stuart Shepard -- We're going on a road trip!
(music)
We're going to the top!
(music)
This is the road up Pikes Peak -- the last 10 miles or so are mostly dirt.
Back in 1893 -- an English professor named Katherine Lee Bates and some of her teacher
friends hopped on a prairie wagon and headed for the top. Not far from the summit, they
switched over to mules for the last part of the trip.
Did I mention there are hardly any guardrails?
Bates was inspired by the "purple mountain majesties" she saw, so she wrote a poem about
it that she called "Pikes Peak."
It wasn't until 1910 that the words were matched with the tune to make the song we know as
"America, The Beautiful."
Here above 14,000 feet, you can see everything that the poet saw.
It's good now and then to get away from the 24 hour news networks and shut off your smart
phone and get a high level look at this country of ours.
For a hundred years, "America the Beautiful" has been sung across these "fruited plains"
by schoolchildren and congregations -- and many people still meant it when they asked
God to "shed His grace on Thee."
But, in recent years, there are people who take issue sentiments like those expressed
in the third verse:
"O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life. America, America, may
God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness and every gain divine."
So, all of that to ask this: Are you still willing to speak up for our
Christian heritage? Are you still willing to stand for the "patriot
dreams" of our Founders?
Are you brave enough to stand with us in support of the Christian foundations - Foundations
that were once envisioned in patriot dreams? Are you still willing to ask God to shed his
grace on this beautiful nation?
Are you willing?
I am.