3 posts tagged “america”
Two nights ago, I was listening to coverage of inaugural events, mixed with reflections on the life and sacrifices made by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A wave of emotions I did not recognize washed over me. Suddenly I realized that, for the first time in eight years, I have felt once again a sense of pride in being a citizen of the United States, and a gratitude for the liberties and rights we honor.
In Forward Day-by-Day, the writer offers a prayer, "May we, on this day, give thanks for the welcome we have been shown. And may we become agents of that welcome for others as well." This is a conclusion I have come to as I have reflected on my own pilgrimage, and I shared that with the youth and their chaperones, whose feet I washed last week: coming to the end of your pilgrimage, you have received the rights and priviledges of pilgrims - gracious and free hospitality. Now, as you move forward, the return journey must be one of sharing, of "paying forward."
This is what the author of the devotional was saying, too. If we truly consider ourselves, as citizens of the US, somewhat rooted historically in a people called "pilgrims," then we, having arrived at this wonderful convention of democracy, must move beyond the journey "to," and beyond, in the journey of gratitude as agents of welcome.
I think this is what saddens me about the statue of liberty remaining closed. It's as if the current political regime intended as part of their agenda against liberty that, before building a wall around the US, it should close its gates, including the most powerful symbol of the country's welcome: as if saying, 'DON'T give me your tired, your poor, your hungry masses yearning to be free.' But that is the exact opposite of God's Jubilee vocation. And it is the exact opposite of a pilgrim people.
The great question remains freedom for what? I believe the answer is freedom for service in Christ, which is the freedom to love without condition, and to welcome the stranger.
Normally, I am in an Episcopal church somewhere, praying the office, or, hopefully, communing. It's important to me to observe the Fourth of July with both confession and thansgiving.
This year, I walked about 12 kilometers over a mountain - mostly in a light drizzle. I had a most wonderful piece of pan with pate, which reminded me of a 4th I celebrated nine years ago with a friend, Myra, under a bridge under cover from rain in a national park in North Carolina. The rhododenrums and mountain laurel shed their petals in the rain that year, and made a blanket along the river, and a lovely stream of petals floating past us. I am grateful for the freedoms this earth affords us, and that being a citizen in the US affords, though I lament the loss of our hope for righteousness. While I am inspired by the reclaiming of hope Sen. Obama has sounded, I wonder if we are being attentive to hopefulness beyond ourselves, or whether we are merely hopeful in ourselves. There is a difference.
In the quiet, in the drizzle, mostly alone, walking against a the flow of occasional pilgrims, I realized something I was only able to put words to a couple of days later as I read in the devotion booklet, Forward Day-by-Day: that our freedom is bound up in community, not in isolation. That is where our hopefulness has lost its vision in the US: it's righteousness - the vision of hope has turned to what Soelle calls death by bread alone. Being alone.
I think this was inspired by the collect for US dia de la indepencia: "grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace...."
