Penley's art reminds us of what is great about our country. Somewhere in America this Sunday, in a small wooden church, a meek and grateful congregation will hold their heads and worn songbooks high and proudly tell about the old, old story. Somewhere in America this week, in an elementary school classroom, a teacher standing near an American flag will proudly tell her young students the story of our nation's founding, how the many institutions and freedoms they know about today or will soon encounter were once mere ideas, the subjects of great debates, and then a declaration, and then a war. Americans invented, and constantly reinvent, the unique aspects of our spiritual, government, and secular institutions. From the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence to the first amendment to the Constitution, our founders recognized the preeminent place our Creator and the free exercise of religion must hold in a nation that protects individual liberties.
We know that both inside and outside our great nation there are many consumed with the passions of jealousy, cynicism, pessimism, and evil, hard at work to tear down the institutions, culture, and freedoms that the great majority of Americans live, fight, and die for every day. This book is an effort to reconstruct the great heroes, icons, and institutions of America, to tell a story of the people, places, and ideas that inspire us, make us smile, and make us cry, yet remind us of the inherent goodness of our country. Our nation, like her citizens, is a living symbol of something bigger that itself. It is a nation and a people that project across the oceans the limitless potential of mankind, yet remains humbled by an innate spirit of thanks-giving.
- ISBN10 0881461393
- ISBN13 9780881461398
- Publish Date 1 November 2008
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 August 2010
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Mercer University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 128
- Language English