Last week we all celebrated Independence Day. The day that we as Americans get to reflect on and celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in our country, thanks to all of those who worked, bled and died to make us a free nation, and thanks to all of those who continue to do so.
As I was pondering on the day and those freedoms, I recalled a favorite moment from one of my favorite television shows.
In one of my very favorite episodes of “The West Wing” President Bartlet reads a speech and says… ‘Well over three and a half centuries ago, strengthened by faith and bound by a common desire for liberty, a small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the New World where they could worship according to their own beliefs.”
Now, that speech was actually a speech for Thanksgiving, but it seems to me the two are symbiotic. We would not have the freedoms we hold so dear and celebrate each year on July 4, if that small band of pilgrims had not made their way here in search of the freedom of religion.
Because of their journey across the seas, and their enduring courage over the next 150 years or so, our nation was born and our forefathers, the authors of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, were able to put pen to paper and write out the freedoms that we still celebrate some 250 years after they did so.
If you put that all together, the country we live in today is 400 years in the making. Over that time we have seen the worst sides of humankind, and the best. Our earliest settlers wiped out Native American cultures and confined them to reservations.
Later on in our chronology we built our country on the backs of slaves. But then, in later days, we trumpeted the cry of… “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” on the biggest symbol of our freedoms.
We have experienced the ugliness of wars, even battling and killing each other in the Civil War. We have lived through the atrocities of the Great Depression, Viet Nam, and the worst attack ever on the heart of who we are on 9/11.
We know the ugliness of racism on many fronts, and we have seen and heard the heroism of those like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.
We live in a country that divides itself over politics. Red and blue become not so much colors, but dividing lines. We are prone to let even celebrations like a Super Bowl win turn to rioting.
We experience abject poverty and homelessness in our streets, all the while living in a country where wealth and opportunity are supposed to be at everyone’s fingertips.
We argue over what minimum wage should be and we live lives that lust for the almighty dollar all the while in a country like Kenya, the average income is just $500 a month.
As citizens of these United States, we often forget how good most of us have it. We don’t have to worry about whether or not we can go to church on Sunday, the vast majority have plenty of food to eat and a roof over their heads. In comparison to most other countries in the world, we are a privileged people.
In my humble opinion, we need to remember all of that more. We should use the stained days of our history to make us better people today, and we should use the good days in our history to show the next generation how to live.
We need to rally together, pray together and come together like we have the last few days in response to the tragedy in the Texas Hill country. It’s what we do when tragedy strikes. Why not always? Why is practicing the Golden Rule only for certain days or when a Camp Mystic happens?
Today, above all else, I would like to share two things with my grandchildren. The first would be the importance of the fact that we can worship freely and honor God who watches over this country. The second would be that it is my wish that every day in the United States could be like it was on 9/12/2001. The day that we all stood together, proud to be Americans, and we set aside all of our differences to rush to help our fellow man. That is the United States I long for today.
God Bless America.
