by Marge Lindell
Our nation just celebrated its 250th birthday. In the months leading up to the celebration I heard lots of talk about this being the greatest nation, and reclaiming our roots as a Christian nation. What makes us great? What makes us a Christian nation?
This milestone has caused me to spend more than a few moments lately thinking back to the bicentennial in 1976. It was a grand celebration with parades everywhere and extravagant fireworks shows. We had good reason to celebrate, thinking the nation’s struggles – the civil rights marches and race riots of the 1960’s, the Vietnam War and Watergate – were all in our rearview mirror, and this great experiment called democracy was back on track.
In 1976, I was barely an adult but filled with youthful optimism eager to stretch my adult wings. Later that year I would be able to vote in my first presidential election. I had a job, an apartment, a car, and a voice in the leadership of my country. All was right with my world then. Now I look back and can see the many growing pains I experienced in the last fifty years.
Fifty years later, it seems as though our relatively young nation is still experiencing its own growing pains. My idealized vision of our nation in my youth frequently confronted the reality of lived experience. Despite the Founding Fathers’ assertion that certain truths were self-evident, we seem to struggle to agree who among us are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Despite our Founding Fathers’ dream to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, . . . promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty” together with our own efforts over the past 250 years, we have not yet achieved those high ideals. An honest look at our history reveals more than a few examples of how often we have fallen short of those ideals.
Recently, I was reminded of these ideals by a song I have heard several times before. Perhaps it was the confluence of events that caused me to hear it in a way I had not before. It is titled “Nothing More” by The Alternate Routes. It was written and released following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. The lyrics are a challenge to all of us to be better, to live up to those ideals of liberty and justice for all.
Our nation is more than words on a parchment written 250 years ago; it is a reflection of its citizens. Pope Leo, in his address to the National Constitutional Center on July 3, reminded us “the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to support, protect and cherish the lives of all, especially the most vulnerable and those whose worth is questioned.” How we treat one another, both within and without our borders, matters and defines who we are as a nation. The “greatness” of our nation is better judged by “how we treat each other and nothing more” rather than by military strength or economic power. Likewise, our Christianity is measured by “how we treat each other when the day is done” rather than by the words we say or the faith communities we belong to.
The good news is, even after 250 years, we are still a relatively young nation. We still have the ability to strive for those high ideals set forth 250 years ago. Will there be more growing pains? Almost certainly. But we won’t reach those ideals if we don’t try each and every day, one person at a time, . . .
To be humble, to be kind,
It is the giving of the peace in your mind
To a stranger, to a friend…
To give in such a way that has no end.
Listen to “Nothing More” at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFto5Pgr8CM
Hear Pope Leo’s address at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPJzlklQ0vE