What is America? 1

What Is America to Me?
By Herb Dorfman as adapted by Wendy Palumbo

I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the topical question of today’s message – What Is America to me? What does it mean to be an American, a citizen of the United States? I soon realized this was not going to be an easy question to answer – not because it was difficult to conjure up a multitude of answers – but because I was overwhelmed with the volume of possible answers. Being an American brings to each of us many opportunities – as well as many responsibilities.

What is America to me? I cannot think about our blessed nation without going back to our birth. It was the men and women who founded this nation – and in their vision for our country’s future that we can find the meaning of being an American. The explorers had done their work starting, of course, with Columbus. As word of the new world spread throughout Europe, those who were seeking their basic rights of freedom to worship to govern themselves, began coming to this new enchanted, unknown wilderness, we know as America.

Captain John Smith establishes the first permanent English settlement, called Jamestown. Twelve years later, the first representative government is established. However, in that same year Dutch traders brought the first black laborers to Jamestown, and in 1850 slavery is legalized. Puritans, rebelling against the Church of England, land at Plymouth Rock and more than half of their colony died due to lack of food and shelter. Four years later the Dutch leave eight men on Manhattan Island as their ship sails north up the Hudson River to Albany. Maryland is founded as a Catholic community. First Jewish settlers arrive in New Amsterdam. Harvard University is founded as compulsory education in Boston. Roger Williams establishes Providence, RI and the first Baptist Church is built, which still stands today.

And so they came! Cavalier, English, Spaniards, Dutch, Puritans, French, Separatists, Catholics, Jews. They all came with hope in their hearts that they could find a better life for their families, a life free of political and religious persecution. What Is America to me? It is being part of the history of people who were not afraid to stand up against their governments and religious leaders, to say loud and clear, This is wrong. Unable to change their circumstances, they did not spend their lives whining over their plight, but instead picked up and moved on despite the unspeakable hardships. They found the religious and political freedom they so desperately deserved. Their courage is what America means to me.

And in time, after bitter disputes with the French, Dutch and Native Americans, the Thirteen colonies are established under the rule of King George of England. But England has expended huge amounts of money on these wars, thousands of miles from the homeland. Governing these rowdy colonists had been a severe drain on the royal treasury and it was inevitable that England would begin to apply pressure to squeeze more money out of the colonies. The taxes began with increased frequency and corresponding annoyance to the colonists: Navigation Act – regulated shipping; Stamp Act – taxed a variety of products; Sugar Act – taxed lumber, food and molasses; the Townsend Act – glass, paper, tea. Finally, the Intolerable Act of 1774 curtailed self-rule in Massachusetts. It was just a matter of time before these fiercely independent colonists were going to rebel against these measures that threatened the freedoms they so dearly loved.

So the rebellion began. First slowly, but ever gathering momentum, until the only acceptable solution is independence, break away from England. Farmers fought the autocratic British Government, Jamestown was burned, colonies banded together to adopt a Declaration of Rights against Taxation without representation, the Boston Massacre transpired, and tea was thrown overboard in the Boston Tea Party. The next year, the first Constitutional Congress held in Philadelphia protested British measures and called for civil disobedience. Patrick Henry issued a battle cry of “Give me liberty or give me death” and Continental Congress named George Washington Commander-in Chief of the Colonial Army. Richard Henry Lee, the representative from Virginia, tells the Continental Congress “These united colonies are and aught to be free and independent states”. The resolution was adopted on July 2nd and The Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4th.

Who were these men with no money, no army, and no real authority? Who were they that they dare challenge the King of England and the most powerful military organization in the world? How dare they declare “all men are created equal and endowed by God, with rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”? Nonsense, only the King has that right. Who were these men who dared issue a Declaration of Independence? They were thirteen lawyers, ten farmers, eleven merchants, and thirteen judges mixed with doctors, surveyors, teachers and one clergyman, John Witherspoon, of New Jersey.

What is America to me? It is being part of a heritage of these men and women who could have easily folded under the extreme pressure of the day, but did not. They stood firm for what they believed in and accepted the consequences of their activities. The integrity of their faith is what America means to me.

Throughout the history of this nation of ours we have maintained a strong association and deep dependence on the existence of a Creator. To those critics who will tell you that is not so, refer them to these words from The Declaration of Independence. “For the support of their Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Were they relying on their money, their armies, their education? No, they were declaring their independence with a new firm reliance of the protection of divine providence. They were depending on a Creator.

What is America to Me? It is a right and privilege we have of worshiping, when and how we please. It is being able to live side by side in peace with those whose beliefs and worship practices different than ours. One cannot examine honestly the meaning of being an American without soon facing the radical idea of people governing themselves. We call it a democracy. Prior to this time nations had been governed by some type of monarchy. The common people had no say. They were under the absolute life and death power of the leader.

Now these ruffians dare to suggest they can govern themselves, that they can make decisions for themselves – absolute nonsense. We will show them – it will not happen! But it did. And in 1787 The Articles of our Constitution began with these words: “ We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”

What is America to me? It is the blessing of being able to live in a land where the word freedom means I can step into a voting booth and help select those men and women who I choose to govern my family, my nation and me. I can voice my opinions, good and bad concerning those who govern, without fear of retribution. I can seek public office at all levels of government, regardless of the color of my skin or the size of my bank account or the degrees I have or don’t have or the lineage of my parents.

What is America to me? It is the freedom I have to live in a land where the government is by and for the people. At the heart of our nation is our commitment to freedom.

What is America to me? It is those courageous men and women who settled our nation and created a government so wonderful that 232 years later people are still willing to risk their lives to cross our border. It is these courageous men and women who gave of themselves, sometimes with their very lives, to protect that freedom, for each of us and for our children.

But in the final analysis, when you pose that question of What is America to me?, it becomes very clear that the heartbeat of our nation has been, and will always be its people. Americans love their freedom and are willing to give even their lives to defend it. Americans are among the most creative, industrious people who are willing to work hard and take risks in a very competitive capitalistic atmosphere to provide for their families. Americans are the most generous people in the face of the earth, who do not put those nations they defeat in war in slavery but give them the resources to rebuild their lives. Ask people of Germany and Japan if that is not so. We are a people who are the first to respond when others face natural or man made disasters, we are a kind and loving people. And we are a people who, no matter our religious beliefs, believe in a Creator that formed this nation, who has guided us through tremendous difficulties, and has blessed us time and time again. We are a Godly people. That is what America means to me.

But what most of all exemplifies what America means to me can be found in houses like ours. Where I see families worshiping together, where little kids giggle, where together we pool our talents and our finances to help those in need, with no return expected. Where together men and women, rich and poor, black, yellow, brown and white, young and old come together with different beliefs to worship a Creator, who in His grace allowed us to live in this marvelous country. That is what America means to me.