Sighting flags and bunting in the park below the window of the study where I write inspires me. Not to join the hard-line flag-wavers who measure patriotism by the degree to which one supports or dissents against what our government does, but to recognize real patriotism, born of a love of the many good signs we see in bad times. When people ask me for my list of American pluses I usually start with voluntary associations, public works from the private sector, and accounts of the hours and dollars half of our citizens give (more often than not through religiously-connected institutions or based in religious motivations).

So this Memorial Day let me point to just one of these, World Vision, sighted in a long profile by Nara Schoenberg of its CEO, Rich Stearns, in the Chicago Tribune (May 15). What follows is not a commercial for World Vision; it does not need my endorsement and I am not in position to evaluate everything about it in order to issue a Good Nationkeeping or Consumers Reports seal of approval. Most of what I observe, in any case, is positive.

Anyone who does sightings of American religion in the media knows that the down sides of many otherwise-widely-applauded efforts receive more attention than the upsides of those who stick to their humanitarian purposes. I refer to the conflicts arising from proselytization by some groups, especially when it is aggressively pursued behind the guise of humanitarian aid, and whether such efforts fuel the fires and furies against the U.S. in Muslim and other countries.

The human interest story of Rich Stearns is moving enough: ex-CEO of Lenox China, a poor boy who disdained religion, was converted to and finds his home in an evangelicalism that calls him more to direct action than political mobilization on partisan lines. The cause that drew Schoenberg and the Tribune to Stearns was not only his pay-cut new vocation in general but specifically his reckoning that the HIV-AIDS crisis, especially in the poor world, is the major crisis of our times. In 100 years, our century will be measured by what "we" did as 100,000,000 people died. He knows the odds and recognizes that even World Vision's multi-million dollar, much-energized staff commitment to facing the horror of the epidemic is just a drop in the bucket. But he found himself personally engaged, unable to become disengaged, and unwilling to let us be unengaged.

The personality portrait suggests that he is demanding, as a CEO of Lenox or World Vision would likely be. As he pleads his cause and mobilizes for it, those in range say he makes them squirm. Inducing good squirms may be what the prophets were about. The Rich Stearns of this nation and the millions of their backers will be in my mind as the flag goes by today. And yours?

Author, Martin E. Marty, is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com.