For me being American is about a people, a place, and the promises and dreams that were nurtured there. This combination has the potential of nurturing hope.
My favourite places were lived in without much thought in my younger years of their promises. I was just living, enjoying, and experiencing the life I lived as normal. In fact if questioned at the time of this picture (see above) I would have probably thought everyone’s life was like this. But upon reflection I think my sister and I knew even then that the regular weekend and summer trips to camp on land that my mother’s parents had farmed was not everyone’s norm. But once there, we were having a grand time anyway!
Nor was it normal in my neighbourhood at the time to have an immigrant father who solemnly put the flag of the United States in its holder as a reminder of the journey he had taken and the promises he had made and the promises a country had made to him. Even when he was disappointed that these promises would not be fulfilled in the highest court of the land to the degree to which law and merit would have warranted, he continued to be thankful for the freedoms we enjoyed in this place and with these people. I believe my dad treated his movement of appreciation, flying the flag, what some would call patriotism, as a civic act of thankfulness and of hope.
For even when personal advancement and success did not meet all his dreams, my Northern Ireland, Irish Catholic father was grateful for the freedoms he enjoyed with us. These freedoms were measured out in society in such a way that we could pick up the newspaper and read the news and the opinion sections without fear. Where we could attend religious services and assemble with any people and in any church, on any given day as we desired. Where we could access the legal system and seek justice as needed. Where we could vote and generally expect that the elections would be fair. Where we could walk down the street without worrying that our neighbours or the police would track us with guns drawn and fingers on the trigger.
It does not escape me that what I have described above is now being tested and has been tested all along.
But are these aspects of liberty what made me an “American?”
Yes, but not by themselves.
Being American for me has in large part been about a society infused with hope. It’s strange to me but hope seems dangerous. Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, knew his hopes were dangerous to others. But, when the full ideals of our hopes cannot be fully met in this place, people, and it’s promises, I know, even as Roger Williams knew, that we must look elsewhere. Disappointment of hope can be crushing. That’s why I look ultimately look to Jesus and His Kingdom for my hope. “Hope we have as an anchor to the soul.” (Hebrews 6:18-19) I have now lived half my life outside of the United States of America because of the promises and dreams fuelled by Jesus. No matter where one lives or started life the allegiance to Jesus supersedes all others and some allegiances of the soul must be renounced in order to be free in Christ. (If you don’t know Roger Williams, b. 1603 — d. 1683, please get to know him!)
Yet every follower of Jesus has a body and lives in a land so I do carry some tension in my body. Participation in the life of the land can be limited to “our neighbour” but most followers of Jesus I know at least still choose to vote locally and federally as participants in our common governance. Some even choose to participate in politics with the ambition of serving others and not just themselves. I have been thankful for the immense liberty I have enjoyed as an American and now as a Canadian where we celebrated “Canada Day” on July 1st. Both countries share a “freedom construct” that seeks to share liberties broadly. And so I am thankful that I enjoy civilly many of the liberties only once afforded to kings and queens.
Yet, not all people in our lands are getting to participate fully in or enjoy the fruits of our most noble ideals. The blindness and the inequities created by self-interest work against some people and their places. When dreams fuelled by promises remain unrealized hope decays and the accompanying despair can be a crushing burden. It will be replaced by raw self-interest so people are enslaved to false loyalties and governed by fear. That’s what racism and classism does. Every meme and cheap news story becomes a physiological reinforcement for finding identity in what we are against or what we fear rather than in the higher ideals of what we could be for.
I hope for my friends and family in the States that we would insist on creating favourable conditions in which the most noble ideals are extended and even re-formed in all neighbourhoods across America (and Canada) socially and economically. That’s what hope inside our liberty seems to demand.
So thankfully our calendar arrives again with me still living on the 4th of July. To celebrate I had grits for breakfast! Butter, salt, and pepper. Want some? I had coffee with almond milk, no sugar, in an “Ole Miss Civil Engineering” mug given to me by a dear person who prays for me. But does any of that make me an American? Today I’ve been asking myself, “how do I know I’m an American?” What do I carry in my body, beside grits, that tells me I’m an American?
Here’s what I’ve discovered: I carry in my body more than memories, I carry hope.
Pictures:
1. Me and my sister enjoying “the camp.”
2. The Seal of Rhode Island created by Roger Williams.