To The Hills Of Tennessee...

So I promised some stories from my trip to Tennessee and since I am a man of my word, here you go.

As I blogged before, my dad asked me to preach for him on the Sunday morning we were there. I had forgotten (and he had conveniently not reminded me) that they were now doing two services. One in the early morning for the old folks (traditional) and one in the later morning for the youngins (contemporary). Sunday morning we arrive at the church and I walk in the doors hearing the music to "God Bless The U.S.A." I kinda laughed and just assumed that they were testing the sound system or something. Once service started, I quickly learned that "G.B.T.U.S.A." was being used as the call to worship. I'll admit I snickered a few times when on the chorus a couple of people actually stood up (I guess to defend her?...). I found this a little strange but then I remembered it was July 4th week and the song does say "God" in it, so whatever. Well, I look at my little program thingy and notice the hymns we would be singing. I believe they were as follows:

"My Country 'tis Of Thee"
"God Bless America"
"America The Beautiful"

Now, (and Mom and Dad, I know you'll read this, so don't be offended) I'm all about America. One of my regrets of youth was not signing up for the service out of high school. I think it would've done me a lot of good and I regret not serving my country. I would gladly stand up next to you anytime. But, I was a bit bothered singing to my country at church. I even stopped and just listened for the most part. I know what we are saying. That we are sincerely grateful for a country that allows us to sing to whoever we want to sing to. But I'll be thankful while singing to Jesus, not purple mountain majesties thank you very much.

So then, on Independence Eve, we went to a baseball game. Knoxville Smokies verses the Mississippi Braves of the AA minor league system. Pretty good game. Guy smashes a home run the first two times at bat. Pretty exciting. But the real fireworks came after the game when they shot...well, fireworks. They were launching these enormous explosions all set to patriotic music. But the one that really got me was when John Wayne's voice comes over the loudspeakers quoting the "Pledge of Allegiance."

All of the sudden it hit me like a lump in the throat. I live in the greatest country in the world. So what if we sang to America at church. In a lot of countries in the world, that would've been a requirement at church EVERY WEEK! So here I am sitting at a baseball game, eating a hot dog and salted peanuts, watching fireworks, listening to John Wayne recite "One Nation under God." The only way I could've felt more patriotic is if I'd remembered my stars and stripes thong.

Single tear.

God Bless the U.S.A. indeed. Thank you Lee Greenwood, thank you.

(BTW, the single greatest moment at the ballgame was when the Smokies were losing by about 47 runs and they were down to their last six outs. Question, how do you get 6,000 Tennesseans on their feet in an instant? Tell them there is a sale on NASCAR souvenirs at Walmart? Tell them you just saw a 30 point buck in the woods behind the stadium? Nope. Rocky Top Tennessee baby. Rocky Top Tennessee.)