The Rockets Red Glare

Of late, I have had more feelings of despair regarding the state of our Union than not.  When President Biden was elected, I held onto a shard of hope that our long national nightmare was over.  This has not been the case.  Given how diligently some segments of our Union have clung to The Big Lie, turning their eyes and actions toward state legislatures where multiple laws have been passed to make it more difficult for other segments of our Union to vote, I find myself agonizing over the state of our Union.  What happened to the belief that America was a country where everyone MEANT everyone?  Where is that belief buried?  Can it be unearthed, withering shoots tended to, replanted, fertilized, nurtured to where it once was?  I think I have been so incredibly naive to believe it ever was like that.  All along an undercurrent flowed beneath my feet that selectively picked off segments of society in a most fastidious, nefarious manner.  Ah, White Privilege.

This past year I took three classes on the intersections of faith and racial equity through an organization I would recommend to you, the Center for Social Ministry.  The opportunity to learn, and re-learn, with others was indeed a gift.  We shared our hopes for what work needs to be done and how we might engage.  But overall, I must admit, I came away feeling discouraged and disheartened.  What kind of world am I leaving (being so arrogant to believe I personally am leaving behind a world) for my children and grandchildren?

So I wasn't feeling particularly patriotic (more 'Murica than AMERICA!!) coming into this 4th of July weekend.  I fearfully watch the Covid Delta variant continue to chew its way through the world, frustrated with how politics has blanketed parts of our Union resulting in citizens refusing the vaccine.  I feel the rumble of the aforementioned undercurrent in some way, almost every day.  Yes, the gathering of family in our backyard yesterday with attendant hugs and kisses is not to be underappreciated.  But still.  Should we really be shooting off fireworks to celebrate a holiday of independence that in truth didn't mean everyone from its inception? (Check the facts, Jack.)

On Saturday, My Friend Jeanie™ (who had come up for the weekend with her husband, Bill) and I volunteered for the Excelsior (MN) Firecracker Run, a long standing tradition in that community, put on by Minnetonka Community Education.  1700 people were registered to run on the morning of the 4th and as we handed out packets to the prospective runners, my cold cold "America, I love ya!" (cf: Field of Dreams) heart melted at least a little.  Many families came to collect their numbers and t-shirts, little tykes whose parents would push them in the stroller for the race, early elementary students bashfully yet proudly sharing, often with a prompt from their parent, this would be their first time running the 1K.  Men and women telling us they had grown up in the area, moved away, but they came home to visit for the 4th and always ran this race.  People already on the 3rd decked out in their red, white and blue.  Yes, it got me in the mood.

As noted, Sunday our backyard was filled with grandchildren squeals, puppy yipping, adult laughter.  It was more than hot enough to sit outside all day, not too hot that you gave up the ghost for the air conditioning.  (The cheese on the appetizer platter did get a bit melty, however.)  And at the end of the day, a few of us left standing headed out for fireworks.

I sat on the rear tailgate of my car with my oldest grandchild in my lap.  We compared notes regarding which type of fireworks we liked the best, wondered how a firework shell is constructed so that it exploded just as it was intended to shoot across the darkened sky.  At one point she leaned close in against me, tucked under my chin.  The fireworks exploded and so did my heart.  

Those two events are pushing me in the direction I was already going.  What can I do to ensure the state of our Union, which, to me, means everyone, our brethren who had the audacity to be born with a skin color other than white or who decided to immigrate to the land where, last time we all looked, the Emma Lazarus poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty still said this:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I see those descriptors in all of us.  

There is so much work for all of us to do, under the rockets red glare.