Patriotism and Pride: Affirmations of a Grateful American (1)
Michael S. Franch
© 2003, 2007

I sat down to write the original version of this sermon on Veteran’s Day, November 11th, which I still think of as Armistice Day. Going toward my front door that morning to get the newspaper from the porch, I took my flag out of its box in the umbrella stand and when I got outside I put the two sections of the pole together and put the flag in its bracket on one of the porch posts. I generally put the flag out on national holidays. It was this sort of thing that caused a friend of mine to call me a patriot.

I was taken aback. “Patriot” was one of those terms that seemed to be something that I wasn’t. Patriotism had a vaguely right wing connotation to me. I shared Samuel Johnson’s suspicion that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”