“Great”, but not “Good”

The song, ‘America the Beautiful’, was sung by Beyonce at Barak Obama’s first inaugural event. It is a beautiful, stirring and moving rendition in a moment of great hope for our nation. It would seem that the prayer for brotherhood had finally been answered.

Unfortunately, that moment seems eons ago and we are faced with the realities of today. Interestingly, the song was not originally written as the patriotic hymn we know it as.  The author, Katherine Lee Bates, actually wrote it as a critique of the nation and a call to be better. She once wrote to friends that unless “we are willing to crown our greatness with goodness and our bounty with brotherhood, our America may fail as other nations who have been “great” but not “good.”

While the words acknowledge the beauty and inspiration of America in lines like “O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, ” America’s beauty was only skin deep. In Bates’ view, America was not living up to its ideals. As a Christian socialist, she watched as the robber barons of capitalism crushed the labor movement with the help of the government. As a feminist, she watched as women were denied the right to vote.  As an advocate for social justice, she grieved the end of Jubilee Reconstruction and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the former Confederacy. Her refrains are just as relevant today.

We are familiar with the first refrain:

“America! America! God shed his grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.” 

But she also wrote these refrains:

America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!

and…

America! America! God shed His grace on thee
‘til selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the free!

and…
America! America! God shed His grace on thee
’til nobler men keep once again thy year of jubilee!

Love and grief; Appreciation and prayer. America will only be great when it is good. We have a long way to go.  So let us confess, repent, and pray for the healing of our nation.