May 23, 2024 - Good Morning! It's Thursday, May 23.
Next Monday, our county will come to our historic courthouse to commemorate Memorial Day. The ceremony, at 11:00, will feature lots of patriotic music, which I have the honor of participating in. It will also feature the reading of the names of the fallen - all those, over the decades, who have left Shelby County and traveled to foreign shores and given their lives for our freedom. The deeply moving recitation of this list takes up the better part of the hour-long ceremony. And a list like that exists for every city and county around America. This Monday, we remember the fallen.
And we'll recite the pledge of allegiance together, too. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist pastor, wrote the pledge in 1892, in an attempt to inspire a rebirth of patriotism in our country. It was first recited by school children as part of a ceremony marking the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. Bellamy also designed a special salute to go with his new pledge. In the 1940's this salute was abandoned because it, well, was identical to the Nazi salute! The simple gesture of placing the right hand over the heart began to be used at about the same time that Congress officially adopted the Pledge in 1942.
There have been several small word changes over the years. But the most significant one came on Flag Day in 1954, when the words "under God" were added. God's Word describes another pledge in 2 Kings 23:3 -
Then the king stood by the pillar and renewed his pledge to the covenant in the presence of the Lord. The pledge to follow the Lord and keep His commands with all his heart and with all his soul, thus confirming the word of the covenant written in the Book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
