Every Memorial Day and Fourth of July I cry. Maybe I’m a sap, or maybe I just have a deep affection for our country and the ideals it’s supposed to be founded on.
I realize that I have a tendency to rock the boat sometimes with the opinions that I air in this column. Each and every one of us holds unique perspectives on every event and every issue. Sometimes our opinions come between us which is too bad. Some say ‘my country, right or wrong, love it or leave it.’ I prefer to think of patriotism as a relationship that you participate in, not just blind loyalty. My country right or wrong, but when she’s wrong, try to right her.
Yes, “God bless America”, but also “stand beside her, and guide her thru the night.” I don’t know about you, but I want my country to be a blessing to all the other nations of the world, not a curse.
Here are some of the words that make me tear up whenever I hear them.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
What did Lincoln mean by that? I think he meant ALL men, rich or poor, black or white, European or Latin, African or Asian. Liberty means the freedom to make decisions about the laws that affect us. It means the right to participate in society. Jefferson put it this way-
“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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
You could say we get the government we deserve. You could say we have met the enemy and he is us. What you should always remember is that we ARE our government. That’s the great experiment. It started in 1776 and countries around the world tried to copy it. By the 1860’s there were some who thought that the experiment was failing.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure,” Lincoln recognized.
Lincoln summarized what the true purpose of Memorial Day would be, “We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate,” he admitted, “we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
We often hear people say that our soldiers are fighting for our “freedom.” What freedoms are important to Americans? The First Amendment guarantees us the freedom to practice our own religion and the freedom from having any single official religion opposed on us. It promises freedom of speech, freedom of the press, do we exercise those rights? Do we bother reading and writing and speaking up for what we believe in, or do we take our freedom for granted? The First Amendment includes freedom of assembly and petition, and freedom of association. How often are we afraid of people getting organized, or people who protest? How do we impose guilt by association?
What was it that was being tested by the Civil War? That dedication to liberty and equality. That experiment where we are all in this together, that we’re here for each other, or as it says in the Constitution-
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
I think that the most important part of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is not merely recognizing the noble sacrifices of the dead, it’s his admonishment for us to keep working for those ideals.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
“…for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Amen.
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