Interdependence Day?

I always feel a little conflicted on the Fourth of July. I love fireworks and have fond memories of sitting with my family and neighbors on a blanket as marching bands and community organizations paraded past, throwing candy and honking. However, I’m not, even on a good day wildly patriotic. I don’t love and never have loved saying the pledge of allegiance, or singing our national anthem, which I think should be, unequivocally, the Ray Charles version of America the Beautiful, rather than the bomb-bursting-rocket-red-glaring Star-Spangled Banner.

I love this country, don’t get me wrong. At least I love the idea of this country…or what it might have been. But of late, waving the flag or singing the national anthem feel especially, even absurdly, hypocritical. Not long ago, someone shared with me the story of a family member who said they didn’t feel comfortable putting a flag up on their house anymore, because it would signal support for “the other team.” How sad. There used to be at least an aspiration of unity around common ideals, but I find little evidence of that now.

Each day brings a new affront to what might have stirred the patriotic spirit. The latest vote for the big abominable bill will have lasting, irreversible and devastating impacts on this country and a great majority of its inhabitants. The passage of the bill unabashedly declares the U.S. a country content to rob from the poor to give to the rich and to deprive the generations to come of any possibility of economic stability, environmental protection, or the assurance that their basic needs might be met. It’s hard to wave a flag, put a hand over the heart, or pledge loyalty to that.

How can we keep loving a country that doesn’t love most of its people? How do we fight for an ideal that was never and will never be reached as long as reality is so subjective? How do we keep aspiring toward once shared values that have been desecrated?

I imagine often, what the fall of the Rome might have felt like. Did it feel like this? Or is the moment we find ourselves in more akin to the eve of the Civil War, or the Great Depression, or any number of moments when all seemed lost? I think about those who continued to resist in the rise of the Nazi regime and feel I owe it to them – those brave souls who did to not comply in advance – to hold on, to not surrender my ideals, to not give in to despair.

But forgive me if I don’t wear red, white, and blue today, but instead wear a Black Lives Matter shirt or one from an Indigenous Organization I’ve come to know. Or maybe I’ll wear my “Nasty Woman” shirt again. That year, maybe it was 2017, Senator Tammy Duckworth pointed and smiled at me as she marched passed in the parade and saw my cheeky, feminist patriotism on display.

Being patriotic does not mean fealty to a false wannabe king. It does not mean performative demonstrations of loyalty to a government that is doing everything in its power to dismantle itself and take everyone who relies on its protections down with it. Patriotism, if you feel you can muster it right now, means speaking truth to power. It means showing up for your community, your neighbors, your family and friends. It means celebrating every joy you discover which affirms the fierce persistence of life. It means protecting the vulnerable, continuing to love who you love, doing what you feel called to do with purpose and conviction, and bearing witness boldly to the values of justice, equity, pluralism, generosity, transformation, interdependence, and liberating love. Let’s display that kind of patriotism this Interdependence Day and keep living into it with each new day, each new opportunity to strive for the ideals this country once claimed with integrity.

Yours in faith and in service to our shared mission,

Rev. Eileen