Freedom Festival

We are lucky to live in Provo, which goes crazy for the Fourth of July every year. There is a month-long huge festival, including parades, hot air baloon launch, Stadium of Fire. AND a non-denominational religious service. (OK, we concede that the two featured speakers were Michael Ballum, famed Mormon opera star, and Glenn Beck, famous - or infamous according to your polictical persuasion- Mormon talk show host.) But, there was also a Jewish Rabbi who did the invocation.

Jim and I trekked down to the Marriott Center for the 90 minute service and it was better than expected. No crazy right-wing babbling, just a stirring emotional tribute to this great country we are blessed call home.

Beck told the story of his experience in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, wandering lost and bewildered in a city he had just moved to weeks before. He also pointed out that people are "dying in the desert" trying to have a small piece of what we take for granted every day."

I love that he also said we should not be a nation who gets on our knees and begs the Saudis for more oil. We are a nation that can create our own solution to any crisis, even oil shortages. Without begging. If we choose to do so.

He was truly inspiring, as was Ballum, who told the story of Marian Anderson, perhaps the greatest African American opera singer, and her courage in singing at the Lincoln Memorial after she had been banned from singing at an opera hall in D.C.

Here is some more of his speech.

Enjoy!!

'The Leader We Need Is You,' Beck Tells 17,000 at BYU

The answers to America's problems aren't found in Washington; they're found in the people of America.
That's what radio and TV personality Glenn Beck told a vocal crowd of nearly 17,000 gathered at BYU's Marriott Center Sunday evening for America's Freedom Festival's annual Patriotic Service.
"In a time when America is begging for a leader; in a time when America is shouting out, 'Where is the leader, when will he step forward?' I am here to tell you: You are the leader — the leader we seek. The leader we need is you; it always has been.
"We are the United States of America," he said. "We can solve any problem."
Beck said the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in "hot, humid, not-yet-riddled-with-gangs Philadelphia," put "we the people" at the very top of the document in big, bold letters for a reason — to remind the people of America who would shape the nation's destiny, even with all of its problems.
"Hope is the recognition of who we truly are," Beck said. "Not in who we've allowed ourselves to become — all we have to do is remember."
Beck repeatedly told the crowd it is vital for Americans to remember how important God is in America's past and future. He said the pilgrims humbly came to the American continent according to God's will. Like those pioneers, he said, America needs pioneers now.