Screenshot of Ring of Fire in Gulf of Mexico – Photo: L. Weikel (video CBS)
Celebrating Freedom
Interesting holiday we Americans (technically, we citizens of the United States) are celebrating this weekend (and particularly tomorrow, July 4th). The birth of our nation; the anniversary of the day we declared our independence from Great Britain. We’re supposed to be celebrating freedom and – perhaps paradoxically – unity.
As we approach our country’s 245th birthday tomorrow, I think it’s fair to say we’re at a crossroads of greater consequence than we were at just eight months ago. Don’t get me wrong – November 3rd (but more accurately, the election of 2020, since all votes weren’t cast on a single day in November) was of enormous consequence. I shudder to think what shape our country would be in had the election not been won by President Biden. (And I base that opinion on the shape we were in and the prospective devastation we were facing had circumstances simply stayed on track with the prior four years.)
But because of the unprecedented and shameless dissemination of propaganda across pretty much every expression of traditional and social media, and the confluence of this manipulation with a toxic combination of fear, hopelessness, cynicism, and despair, we’re a country teetering on the edge of self-destruction.
Last Year
Last year’s 4th of July celebration felt drastically different than any I’d celebrated up to that point. A major reason it felt so vastly different was because my nuclear family didn’t get together with a branch of our extended family, in Connecticut, with whom we’d celebrated the 4th of July holiday for at least 30 years, possibly even more.
The reason, of course, was Covid-19. It was simply too much risk for too little gain when we loved each other enough to sacrifice one year so we’d all have plenty to spend together in the future.
Instead, as I wrote in last year’s post (“New Normal – Day 601”), Karl and I stayed close to home. Lucky for us, M and T live close by and we were able to revel in a fireworks extravaganza that rivaled almost anything I’d ever seen before. (Thanks to several of their neighbors engaging in what almost appeared to be a competition on who could shoot off the biggest and best for the longest amount of time. The by-product of this apparent rivalry was astounding.)
But that sense of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots was palpable. And sadly, in spite of Joe Biden’s victory in November, that gap is rapidly becoming a chasm that could swallow us whole.
Chasm of Fire?
Ever since the election, but especially since the insurrection of January 6th, it’s become harder and harder to bridge the chasm and find any principle or value that moves us deeply enough to find unity. And it feels bitterly ironic to me that this is what our country was founded upon: Unity to protect our diversity.
Now we can’t even unite ourselves to harness our substantial wealth of intelligence, resources, creativity, and determination to stop the imminent destruction of the planet upon which we all live. We are literally left gaping at the image of a virtual Eye of Sauron swirling in the Gulf of Mexico while we distract ourselves from it and power grid failures by vowing to plow more money into building a border wall. Goodness knows we need to keep brown skinned people out of our country while 12 story walls of condominiums crush their inhabitants because (and we all know this is true) it was going to cost too much money to make the necessary repairs.
Every day it feels like our fundamental values are growing further and further apart. I worried last year that we might not even be celebrating “Independence Day” this year. While technically we still are, would any of us have believed we’d be here, right now, with the memory of January 6th seared into our hearts and minds?
Haunting Questions
How many more of those can our 245 year old republic weather? What can we do to rekindle (or kindle in the first place) a true and sincere respect, if not love, for those with whom we share this country and this planet?
Maybe, as many find themselves resuming their old traditions of family gatherings (because Covid-19 is being taken seriously and hopefully they’ve been vaccinated) we’ll be inspired to find answers to these haunting questions and find unity in our diversity.
Storm Before the Rainbow – Photo: L. Weikel
(T-146)