Singing from the Wrong Sheet of Music

Last Saturday, we attended a baccalaureate ceremony for our graduating grandson.

There was lovely music, sung by the college choir. Early in the ceremony, the choir sang a spirited rendition of "America the Beautiful."

Unlike the unsingable drinking song with Francis Scott Key's lyrics that we chose as our national anthem in 1931 under President Hoover, "America the Beautiful" isn't bombastic.

I wonder how much of our national readiness to go off firing rockets comes from "bombs bursting in air" and prideful assertions that we are "the land of the free" and the "home of the brave."

Maybe if we had a less bombastic anthem, we could pay more attention to the arts of agriculture and industry, the challenges of diplomacy and the creation and celebration of beauty and a bounteous plenty. Who knows what heights such an anthem might inspire us to achieve.

"America the Beautiful" is just such an anthem.