July 4th, 2012

Over the last two years, I've read A People's History of the United States, most of the Gospels again repeatedly, and I'm just past the American Revolution and War of 1812 in A People's History of the Word.  At this point, it is clear that the US is full of the plagues which have caused so much suffering on every continent for as long as we can find any data on the people who lived on them.  It has always been so full.  My reading of human history (so far) tells me that the response to Jesus' teaching about loving one's neighbor and loving one's enemy is truly unique.

Because of this, I wonder what to think of America, and where to put the sum of my loyalties.  God gets the command and control, and the vast majority.  What remains gets divided between my wife, my children, and my country.  Perhaps I shouldn't have any loyalty to my country, as national loyalty doesn't seem to do much to solve any problems.  But, I do have this loyalty.  I still love this country.  It is still, more than any thing else, a country of ideas.  It is itself an idea, "the most powerful idea in the history of nations" - President Clinton, February 4th 1997.  This idea allows for the strongest love, and the severest greed I've yet read about in history, or seen in my lifetime of news-gathering.

I taught my eldest daughter some of the words to the Star Spangled Banner today.  I love our national anthem, because it too, has more to do with the idea of America than the physical nature of the country, or any foolish notion of a specific make-up of its citizens.  My most favorite part is that the last line of the first stanza sums up the challenge of our advanced citizenship.  Especially now, it is no question that the flag still waves.  It is only question of what kind of land and people over which it waves.  Are we still brave?  Are we still free?