When I was a child, the Fourth of July was a day of celebration for the whole community. We’d dress in red, white and blue and join the whole neighborhood on Illinois Boulevard, watching watch bands and local groups as they paraded down the street. We would stand for every US flag that led each drum corps. After the parade we’d go to the Village Hall grounds for rides on the traveling carnival and enjoy snow cones or fudge sickles. Friends would gather for picnics, grilling and eating classic American summer foods. In the evening, we’d go to the high school stadium and watch the drum and bugle corps compete. Once darkness fell, the fireworks show would fill the sky with light and sound.
I was just a kid. Life seemed simple to me. I was cared for and safe, so it was easy to believe that ours was a land of justice and freedom, where everyone was allowed the same opportunities and privileges, where all sorts of different people lived in peace and prosperity. I was just a kid, so my parents sheltered me from some of the hard truths about racial injustice and violence nearby. I was just a kid, so I didn’t hear the news reports of our nation’s involvement in foreign military action. I was just a kid, so I didn’t understand anything about economic or social injustice, centuries long discrimination, or the horrible legacy of the very land stolen from native peoples. It would be many years later that these and other hard realities crept into my thoughts on Independence Day.
Now that I am an adult, I pull out the US flag with a mixture of emotions on July 4th. Gratitude and pride are mixed with sadness and shame. I hang our flag with a prayer and hope that we as a nation can one day live up to the ideals set forth in our founding documents: ideals that we have never truly reached. From the very beginning our nation has been less than we professed we wanted it to be. Yet, we are moving toward more fully realizing justice, equality, freedom, inclusion and peace for every person who is part of this nation. Our progress is inconsistent and we frequently backslide and find new ways to turn away from those early ideals. However, we keep trying this great experiment.
Happy Independence Day, my friends!
May our nation continue to move toward the ideals that our founders dreamed of and generations of people have imperfectly struggled to attain.
Peace,