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Behold, I Am Doing a New Thing

Forrest Church • January 6, 2002

"In the beginning," John Locke once said, "all the world was America." Think about it. When God, in the beginning, created heaven and earth, all the world was a wilderness. This wilderness was populated first by ferns and then by animals. Hundreds of millions of years later, as a home to aboriginal peoples scattered in pockets around the globe, the world was a forbidding garden. Slowly, this garden was cultivated. With cultivation came civilization; city states became nations; nations, empires. Where advanced civilizations flourished, nature was conquered and society tamed. But a new wilderness beckoned. The virgin American woods had their own story, an oral history passed down by shamen of a hundred tribes, but to the European eye America was a second Eden. Long since driven from the garden, with their bibles the first white settlers brought to America not only their own ancestral legends of creation and fall, but also a script for redemption.

At devastating cost to the native populations, the Pilgrims’ and Puritans‘ migration to America was a self-conscious "errand into the wilderness," motivated by a hunger for religious freedom. "Behold I will do a new thing," God sang in the voice of Isaiah. "Now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert . . . to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise." The Puritans thought that God was speaking through Isaiah directly to them. For better and for worse, the imprint this conviction has left upon our nation lingers to this very day. Looking back on America’s first successful immigrants some two centuries after they landed in Plymouth Bay and Salem Harbor, Toqueville reminds us, "It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. In the United States, religion is therefore mingled with all the habits of the nation and all the feelings of patriotism, whence it derives a peculiar force."

On New Years Day, we also do a new thing. We recap one year to pop the cork off a new one. The old man with a scythe becomes a bubbling baby. As one year ends, we honor those who have died during its course; as a new one begins, we pledge ourselves to the promise of new birth. This year we did the same for our republic. In New York, with the Empire State Building lit in red, white, and blue, New Years Eve this year was a little like the Fourth of July.

In the mid-1970s, with American citizens dispirited and divided following our failed adventure in Vietnam and public cynicism toward government reaching a new high in the wake of Watergate, the religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom lamented, "The nation seems to be standing between the times with no song to sing." In the days following September 11, America found her voice again. This may please you or it may concern you, but it is certainly a new thing. Amidst all the flag waving, I find it significant, however, that the song that gave us back our voice was not "The Star-Spangled Banner." Two other hymns captured the moment, giving voice to a newly united people. They were "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America."

Among the commentaries distributed throughout the democracy of e-mail last September was an "Ode to America," written by a Romanian journalist. Cornel Nistorescu asked himself: "Why are Americans so united? They don’t resemble one another even if you paint them. They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are." What captured the imagination and wonder of this observer were the many manifestations of public patriotism and piety. "On every occasion they started singing their traditional song, ‘God Bless America," he observed. Reflecting on the first internationally broadcast charity concert, a star-studded three hour gala that took place three weeks after the attack and raised tens of millions of dollars for its victims, Nistorescu exclaimed, "The American’s solidarity spirit turned them into a choir."

I don’t know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn’t sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren’t able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests.

Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.

At a juncture in our history when commentators rushed to declare irony passe, there is abundant irony here. For one thing, hated by our self-appointed enemies overseas, who caricature America as the great infidel to whip up popular enmity against our soullessness, here an overseas observer (one of many so moved) is staggered by the overwhelming evidence of our nation’s collective soul. For another, the choir of voices raised as one was raised most eloquently in singing not our stirring, martial national anthem, but "God Bless America," a hymn to peace, and "America the Beautiful," a reverent yet self-critical anthem written in part to correct the nation’s course.

Every now and then, some well-meaning group of American citizens attempts to change our national anthem from the "unsingable and bellicose" Star Spangled Banner to America the Beautiful. The most recent failed attempt to legislate changing anthems was made by Congressman Andrew Jacobs (D-Ind.). "We know the first verses to both songs," Mr. Jacobs pointed out in an article in Parade magazine some years ago. "But few of us will ever master singing of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ Passion is important in life, but to be steadfast is crucial. ‘America the Beautiful’ is not boisterous. Neither is true patriotism, which is an abiding thing, calm and steady on stormy seas as well as in the safety of the harbor."

Rep. Jacobs’s sensibilities aside, the terrorist attack on America made Francis Scott Key’s words relevant once again. For only the second time since "The Star-spangled Banner" was written, its vivid language rang true to American experience. "The rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there" actually matches direct American experience. Others recognized this fact as well, most notably (and, again, ironically), our old enemies, the British. Overcoming the scars of ancient memory, for the first time in history the Star-Spangled Banner was played at events sponsored by the British crown (at Buckingham Palace and St. Pauls). Nonetheless, all across the nation during the weeks immediately following September 11, though it certainly was neither neglected nor forgotten, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was spontaneously and almost universally displaced as our national anthem by "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America." Its muted prominence was particularly notable at sporting events.

"America the Beautiful" is an aspirational anthem, reverent but not jingoistic. It acknowledges the ambiguities of our history, while challenging us to recommit our lives and fulfill our promise. Elevating freedom by lifting the sights of faith, "America the Beautiful" closes with an echo of the shining city on a hill that Governor John Winthrop foresaw when he led the first Puritans to Boston:

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

How appropriate, at a time when the entire nation was brought together in grief, that it was to these sacred verses we spontaneously turned, recalling ourselves to a victory of the spirit, not a victory by might.

Katherine Lee Bates wrote "America the Beautiful" in 1893, inspired by the 360 degree view from the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, where the continental divide parts the waters that flow from sea to shining sea. Bates was a minor poet; she set these words to the tune of an equally unknown composer, Samuel A. Ward. Yet the combination of words and music is sheer magic. The folk-singer Woodie Guthrie, whose "This Land is Your Land" more recently achieved national status, once said, "The main secret about singing ain’t so much to have other folks listen as it is to pick up your own spirits." Throughout last fall, millions of Americans picked up their spirits by singing Bates’s lyrics as set to Ward’s tune.

However sentimental its devotions may seem at first blush, the original lyric gives evidence of being a protest song. Though written in a period of high patriotism marked by a growing sense of American manifest destiny, Bates tempers her exultation of God’s grace shed on America by urging the renewal of moral responsibility. The early 1890s were distinguished by a major diversion of American capital into the control of a handful of plutocrats who tapped the nation’s vast natural resources to generate heretofore-unprecedented wealth for themselves and their tiny class. "Till all success be nobleness and every gain divine " originally read "Till selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the free!" a pointed reference to the danger economic empire building might pose to the American soul. America’s natural beauty led Bates to aspire to the day when "souls wax fair as earth and air." She rhymed the words "free" and "jubilee," recalling the Biblical promise of debts being forgiven and the poorest unbowed by material burdens in the coming Golden Age of the "Jubilee." If blunted, this same spirit still inspires "America the Beautiful" in its more felicitous if somewhat homogenized form. The message remains: we must prove worthy of our freedom Liberty must be ratified and elevated by a faith worthy of those on whom it has been bestowed.

The other hymn to which we spontaneously turned was Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America." Recast in 1938 from more militaristic material dating to the first Great War ("Make her victorious on land and foam"), "God Bless America" was conceived by its composer as a peace song. Berlin finished it at the end of October; Kate Smith performed it less than two weeks later during her now historic national radio broadcast in celebration of Armistice Day. An immediate hit, "God Bless America" generated so powerful a stream of royalties that the charitable foundation Berlin established from them ("The God Bless America Fund") vitalized the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America for years to come. Though less explicitly moralistic than "America the Beautiful," by uniting faith and freedom in a similar manner, Berlin’s peace hymn offers as great a contrast to the martial spirit of "The Star Spangled Banner." Before asking for God’s guidance "Thru the night with a light from above," "God Bless America" opens with a rarely performed poem:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

"God Bless and America" and "America the Beautiful emphasize not God’s favor, but God’s guidance. They are not battle cries, but solemn, prayerful hymns.

I’m not sure whether this is a new thing or not, but it feels that way to me. That we should turn almost as one to "America the Beautiful" at our time of trial is telling, given how eloquently this anthem captures the true spirit of our union of faith and freedom. The aspiration to "confirm success in nobleness" and "crown [our] good in brotherhood," has led succeeding generations of Americans to turn to God to "guide us thru the night with a light from above," "mend [our] every flaw, "refine" our gold, and "make every strength divine." One reason that our religious history is so intensely relevant is that the greatest legacy America offers and the recurring object of our highest hopes as a redeemer nation is not our devotion to freedom alone, but also the way in which, at our finest, faith elevates our freedom into a sacrament.

I continue to be a little uncomfortable with all the flag waving and singing. But on New Year’s Eve I wasn’t. I was proud. Proud not in the sense of pride that lifts us above others. Proud of that which unites us. Proud of the values, never yet achieved but always beckoning, that could make our nation strong, brave, and true.

"What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way?" Nistorescu asked.

"Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion: Only freedom can work such miracles." Not freedom alone, Mr. Nistorescu, but (in face of religiously inspired terror) freedom leading many distinct spiritual voices to join in one choir, to harmonize their differences into a symphony of millions, a symphony so powerful that you yourself were moved to call what you heard echoing across the waters, "the heavy artillery of the American soul."

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