By Shellie Miller-Farrugia
Mid-summer is a great time to reflect on the past and look ambitiously toward the future. More than 200 years ago, the families who ventured across the great ocean dividing our continent from theirs were fed up with the past; fleeing to begin life anew. Having absolutely no idea what the future held, they embarked with meager possessions, hearts filled with prayers and faith that would sustain them beyond their wildest imaginations. Beginning with next to nothing, they worked together and made America into a land flowing with opportunity and
promise.
Today, America is a magnet to people throughout the world who feel stifled, trapped and underappreciated. This truly is a place for every man, woman and child to grow to their utmost potential, enjoy freedom without oppression and make a positive difference for themselves and others. I feel blessed beyond measure that, once upon a time, my husband’s family took a boat from Italy to a new place, learned a new language, built a new store and shared the profits with their own generation and beyond.
It is amazing to me that my father’s family fled oppression in Poland, built a deli in Buffalo, and then used Grandma’s pickle recipe to make a very comfortable living for more than a century.
It’s the spirit of leaping before you look, knowing in your heart that you were created for more and then refusing to settle for the status quo that has made Americans an indomitable people. It is Try, Try Again. It is Git R Done. It is We Can Do It! It is Hallelujah and it is “Let’s bow our heads.”
And speaking of prayer, where would we be without the thousands of men and women who spend their days and nights guarding America against the enemies who hate and resent her prosperity? At the recent graduation of a class of Army Nighstalkers, the ceremony concluded with scores of men reciting their creed in unison, loudly. The sheer timbre of their voices was enough to take your breath away. The impact of their volition was a force to be respected. These men who were once little boys… who had certainly gone to a fireworks show or two, attended summer picnics and crushed on a pretty girl in the neighborhood… These young men who had played baseball or chess or X-box…they looked to the future and decided that it was their job to keep America free. It is because of the Brave that we can still dare to dream about any opportunity
imaginable…. and accomplish it.
God bless America.