I was born on July 4th, one year before the bicentennial. My nativity was attended by fireworks, and because of that, I always felt that I was America's child.
I was a majorette in the marching band. My favorite colors were always red, white, and blue, and as the years went past, my red turned to pink, and my bright blue to cobalt, but the primary source of my hues remained. I felt connected to my country, and I believed it was innately part of my DNA.
In school, we were told over and over that "The United States is the greatest country in the world!" This was never presented as an opinion, but as an objective fact, followed by all the freedoms that we had, and, apparently, granted.
And for some, that was where their patriotism journey ended. They'd learned what they needed to learn, and now it would be all flags and picnics until their last days. We were encouraged to let it end there.
But it's hard to be a participant in the world- to read and travel and meet new people- and not begin to crave more. Not because you want to destroy your previous love of your nation, but because you want to understand it.
Like a romantic partner by whom you are enchanted in the first few months, eventually, if you plan to spend your life with that person, you have to get to really know them. To deepen that love. To secure it. To make it last.
Acknowledging the good AND the bad doesn't make you less of a partner- or patriot. It makes you more. Because you are saying, "I love you, flaws and all. I will stick with you and be here for you. Because I believe in your greatness."
These days, our absolutist attitudes have made that concept difficult to swallow. Criticism is treated as treachery, and blind faith is heralded as 'loyalty.' What a shallow love we now demand.
Over the last few years, I've been sustained by the magic of Independence Day. It's a day when I always take a moment, during the fireworks, to feel the grounding connection of my heart, mind, and soul to the moment, and myself to this land. To acknowledge another year around the sun from THIS place. To let those admissions bring peace.
But this year, there was no peace. Not for me, and not for a huge number of fellow Americans. Less and less do I recognize our surroundings, as the values and standards we used to all hold slip away. Where is the "ONE nation," the "indivisible," the "justice?" We talk about civil war so often now, it has ceased to alarm the ear.
Where is America?
If we truly care to preserve our ideals- the ones about which we have waxed poetic for the last nearly 250 years- we have to do it ourselves.
Not with an election, not with slogans and rallies and phone banks. But with our neighbors. With our private interactions with each person we meet. By saying, "no matter what is going on, I will act 'in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty."
If each of us do that, perhaps we can restore the joy and the meaning of Independence Day.
