Yesterday was the 148th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.
Lord, what I wouldn’t give to be able to write something even half that memorable. It seems apt to post the text—although I probably should have done it yesterday, but yesterday I was busy wondering about bugs.
You probably had to memorize this speech when you were in high school. But do you ever pull it out and think about what it’s saying? This is a lot like the Declaration of Independence, one of those documents we know about, approve of, but seldom consider at any depth. I read the Declaration of Independence every Fourth of July, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog. I think it would make sense for me to read Lincoln’s words every November 19th from now on. I’m gonna do it. Will you join me, even if we’re a day late this year?
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
BEEattitude for Day # 404:
Blessed are those who plant windbreaks for our hives, for they shall sleep well, knowing they’ve helped us bees to survive the winter.
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The teeny details:
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