Remember the good

On July Fourth, a friend of mine who has lived in many countries issued a timely reminder on Facebook.

“I would like to challenge everyone to speak to your children about the positive aspects of our country,” she wrote, noting the controversial election year. “We can improve to be sure, but our children need to see us appreciating this great country.”

Little could she know how prescient her words would be.

A day later, FBI Director James Comey announced a decision many felt was unjust. Over the next two days, deadly shootings occurred in St. Paul, Minn., and Baton Rouge, La., that many felt were unjust.

Thursday night, snipers in downtown Dallas shot 12 police officers, killing five, in violence everyone recognized as unjust.

The Dallas tragedy hit particularly close to home: For 15 years my wife lived a mile away from the site of the shooting, and in 2008 we met there—within earshot of the sirens, if not the gunshots. I’ve walked the downtown streets numerous times.

Amid the temptation to fixate on everything wrong with our country, I can’t help but think of another experience this week. On Wednesday I had the honor of attending the funeral of Navy veteran Charles “Jack” Cornelison at Arlington National Cemetery.

I interviewed Cornelison two years ago for a WORLD Magazine article on Pearl Harbor survivors, and he recalled in remarkable detail what had occurred 73 years prior. After surviving the Japanese attack, Cornelison rose through every enlisted rank in the Navy in only four years—a sequence that normally can take two decades. He retired in 1974 as a lieutenant commander.

“I’d do it again, but I don’t think they’re soliciting 92-year-olds,” Cornelison quipped in 2014.

Sixteen years after Pearl Harbor, Cornelison was stationed in Japan and he said he felt no resentment: “They’re really just like anybody else. It was just natural to forgive them.”

Cornelison lived a life befitting of the Greatest Generation, and his burial was equally befitting. It was impossible not to be filled with both emotion and pride as some 60 active sailors in pristine Navy whites laid Cornelison and his wife Marge, who preceded him in death, to rest with full military honors—including a band and a 21-gun salute.

Today, as I grieve for Dallas and pray for those affected, I’m grateful we can look forward to a day when God will make everything right again.

And until He does, I’m grateful we have the privilege to live in the best country on the planet.

Look at someone like Jack Cornelison, and remember the good.

“We’re so fortunate to live where we live,” Cornelison told me. “We should never lose sight of that.”