El 4 de Julio

So I'm still, after ... uh ... wow ... 30 years (more or less) of living here, working out how I feel about how Independence Day is celebrated in the USA.

I DO love this country ... but I have to say, it's more a love of the people, and the principles, and the ... potential ... I don't "love it or leave it", I'm not a "my country right or wrong" type of person, because my ultimate allegiance is not to the USA, nor is it to Chile, or any given earthly nation.

We have NOT ALWAYS BEEN that "shining beacon of light and hope" that we'd like to think we are.

We have not always stood for the right, the just, the fair, and if we think that we have an unblemished record of doing that, then we are in a heap of trouble.  

I don't see us (and I do, have to, on some level, consider myself a part of the greater whole) as having always done the right thing, or the best thing, or the most noble thing.  I think in our best moments we've faced up to those horrible mistakes we've made.  I believe it is a measure of the strength of character of a nation to be able to acknowledge and admit it's mistakes AS A NATION.  It is more difficult to do that in the present than in the past - I mean, it's easier - though no less important - for the Southern Baptist Convention, to give an example, to apologize for supporting slavery ... how many, 150 or more years after the fact, than it is for it to recognize that in allowing itself to be co-opted by the political power structures of our country we have lost sight of what it means to be a prophetic voice of truth TO power, calling this nation to behave as a member of the world of nations, and not as one that does not depend on MOST of the OTHER nations of the world to sustain ... an unsustainable society...  we have lost our sense of humility in the quest to reassert some lost sense of righteousness that I believe was misapplied to begin with.

There's been very little standing up and saying "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

I haven't seen a lot of that over the last 30 years, either from the SBC or the USA.

I hope to see more of it before I "slip the surly bonds".

Just sayin'.