July Journal: Fourth Sunday after Trinity

I grew up in the 1950’s pledging allegiance to the United States of America every morning in school, hand over heart, facing a large flag permanently hanging in each classroom. I’m grateful. My parents instilled a respect for the police as well. They often said we lived in the greatest nation on earth and we should be thankful to have been born here.

These attitudes added to our sense of community and nation. Without these common beliefs, what do we have? Without a common language what is America? Without borders and traditions and history can a nation survive? With each man or woman who has shed blood to protect America, we are bonded again, closer than before. We share common suffering in such defense. We are grateful to those who died to make or keep us free.

These aspects of patriotism came to mind today as we recited a set of beliefs that bind us together as Christians, the Nicene Creed. The creeds, recited together with others alongside, pull many voices into one voice, just as the Pledge of Allegiance pulled many voices together through our land as one voice. These rituals, whether they be religious or civic, unite a people. They unite children in a classroom, giving them a common identity and common set of beliefs.

These aspects came to mind naturally since Tuesday is Independence Day, the Fourth of July, the day we recall with gratitude the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Fourth of July, one of the few holidays not moved to Monday, respects the dating of this vital document. That we continue to celebrate it with barbecues, flags, parades, and even fireworks, is a good sign. That we don’t fully understand what we are celebrating is concerning.

And so, as I have mentioned many times in these pages, I am concerned our history is being forgotten for several generations have not been educated in what we used to call “Civics” – American History and U.S. Government. Even classic American authors have been banned, men and women who lived in their times and were influenced by their times. Their works also tell us who we are, where we have come from, what we have in common with our neighbors who live in our town, or shop in our markets.

We are a free nation, celebrating free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly. Hopefully, we will correct some of our wrong turns and steer a course into the future that will buttress these “civic” virtues.

We are a caring nation, offering our lives to promote liberty in other countries. We have big hearts and big smiles and big bear hugs welcoming the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free as our Lady Liberty proclaims in New York’s harbor. And because we care, we try to be just as Lady Justice proclaims with her evenly weighted scales.

These are Judeo-Christian values that continue to live in this land. We shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, heal the sick. At least we try to. And where we do not succeed, we feel guilty. A healthy Judeo-Christian guilt.

Guilt is good – it makes us sit up and take notice. It shows where we went wrong so that we can turn back and choose the better path.

But today we live on the leavings of Faith and all the virtues and ideals that Faith inculcated within us, inoculating us from the greater evils that enter vacuums.

And so we pray today and this week especially for our nation and all those in the world who desire to come here, who desire to be a part of this great experiment in freedom. We pray that God continue to guide us, that the Holy Spirit continue to breathe upon us, that Christ dwell in our hearts, remaking us again and again.

May God bless America!