The Fourth of July
The U.S. is 250 years old, and to be honest, we’ve seen better days. I’ve lived long enough to watch many institutions come and go, and one thing that perplexes me is how declining organizations fall into incompetence and destructiveness before they fold. One would think a business that is on the ropes would find its best and fight valiantly. Step up the effort, so to speak. Sometimes this happens, but most of the time it allows the product to degrade, lets all its best people go, and tries to abuse the rest and squeeze out the last pennies of profit before selling itself off to its competitors, who then unceremoniously shutter it.
Personally, I’d rather go down flag flying, guns blazing, doing my best until the last hour. But it almost never works out this way.
This isn’t to say that the U.S. is at its end. But the divisiveness, the every-man-for-himself attitude we see in politics and society is just the kind of symptom that indicates a permanent spiral. I don’t have to go into it. We all know what ruinous places our capitals are, how much time our leaders spend trying to push each other off the sinking ship instead of helping the people they are sworn to represent.
For awhile I took the attitude that I was not going to celebrate the Fourth this year. There is too much hate in this country. But as the day got closer I decided I would not allow the selfishness and evil to take my country away from me.
As a Catholic, about 20 years ago I was seriously dismayed by the sex scandals that plagued my church. The stories got worse and worse, never better, and my level of disgust increased. I considered whether I belonged in the Church at all.
But I came to terms with it. Not forget it, or forgive (it is not my place to forgive — that right goes to the victims), or even to defend. My position was that I was not going to allow a group of terrible people to deprive me of my church. The Church is mine — well, in truth, ours. It belongs to the faithful. The evil people who tarnished it do not own it. We Catholics own it, and will not be deprived of it.
I feel the same way about my country. America has a very bad recent record. Not that its long-term record is the greatest, but recently things have turned much worse. But that is not my doing; it is not my fault. I opposed all of it, from the very beginning, as the one thousand entries in this blog attest. Having stood against what has arrived in power and now striving to make it better, I have no intention of being deprived of my Fourth of July celebration, any more than I will be deprived of what is best about the United States.
Because there is a lot that is good about the United States. It isn’t the time for our best people to walk away, for our citizens to become lazy and disgusted. It isn’t time to settle for lackadaisical work or walk away as we prepare to sell off our parts, figuratively if not literally, for scrap. I intend to fly my flag.
I really don’t care what anyone else wants to do, but I don’t plan on giving up. I am sure there are enough Americans around who feel the same and can make a difference. If nothing else works, we can carry out the job of justice and kindness underground and wait until the evil people die off. Because they always do.
Raise the flag with me. But not the flag they are raising, even if it superficially looks the same.
