"This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine."

These words written in 1934 by Lloyd Stone reflect the first stanza of a hymn that is a favorite in my faith community. Set to the tune Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, it is the song most often requested by people. It is a beautiful tune, regal and heart moving. But I believe it is the words that people want to sing. They want to claim their love for this country, for the area of the country in which they live and to pay homage to the land that has shaped their view of the world, their understanding of the presence of the Holy.

But I think there is also the wonderful sense of humility in the lyrics that we all want to try to live up to. The recognition that our land is so precious to us but so are the lands of others to them. This morning on MPR’s Morning Show they played several songs about Lake Superior. I found my heart tugging in my chest as I listened to the love songs to this Great Lake and thought of the times this summer when I walked its shores and stared out at the expanse of powerful and ancient wisdom that make up its waters. A person who has never experienced this mighty lake would not have reacted in the same way just as I could not feel the same love and affection for, say, a lake in China or any other part of the world. But my belief if that, just as I can be moved to tears by the beauty of this body of water, so others all around the world find that deep meaning in the land that surrounds them, that defines them, that they call home.

Today marks the autumnal equinox in which all over the world for the most part, humans will experience an equal amount of daylight and darkness. Today we will be held in the same amount of light and the same amount of night light as those who live in countries with which we are at war. Those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan will be held today by the Sun and the Moon just as we are held.Though this is always true,  he equinox is the great equalizer in some ways. What if we all marked this day by honoring this astronomical similarity rather than focusing on the ways in which we are different? What might happen? How might the world change? How might we change? It is humbling thought.

"My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine."

This evening as we end our day and say goodbye to the day in which we are all equal in light and darkness, perhaps our prayer might be for those in lands far from ours who love their home as much as we do. And that prayer might begin the peace we long to see.