The heat of the summer is upon us. Arriving home yesterday after a few days at the family cabin in northern Wisconsin, we were confronted with a wall of heat in our house that seemed impenetrable. Time was spent turning on air conditioning and moving fans from place to place as we tried to get the air cooled down in a house that had been shut up creating a sponge for the temperatures high outside. Doing this I thought of all the places around the world where this kind of heat is the norm for much of the year and how their relief from the scorching temperatures is not fueled by such luxuries as air conditioning or even fans powered by electricity. I also thought of those within our own country, my own city and neighborhood who do not have the privilege of escaping the heat in the ways that I do. So much to think about….so much for which to be thankful.
Today is the 4th of July, a holiday in which our country celebrates its independence from another country that once ruled it. In this celebration we often speak of freedom and liberty and proudly wave the flag we have come to call our own. This celebration is now often overshadowed by picnics and fireworks and leisure activities that have little to do with focusing on this independence which most Americans like to count as a core value. The 4th of July can be a time when we lift up our patriotic heart or it can be another day to have a bit of rest and relaxation at the height of the summer, in the midst of the heat that accompanies July. Most often it is a bit of both.
In the email reflection I receive daily came this quote from Pablo Casals:”The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” I don’t know anything about the people who choose what reflection appears on a particular day, I just know that I almost always connect with what is chosen. Today was no exception. I thought of all the ways in which I love this country into which I was born, the many ways its core values and beliefs have been woven into the fabric of who I am in ways that were intentional and often unspoken on the part of my parents, my teachers and those who shaped me. This love of my country for all it has given me is a splendid thing, a splendid thing indeed.
But I am also acutely aware that in the time in which I live there is the great need to allow this splendid love to pour out across borders, to let it freely enfold countries that are similar, like the one from which we originally won our independence, and others that are drastically different. This global world in which we now live calls upon us to do and be something our founders never imagined. We are being called upon to be world citizens as well as citizens of any one particular country. This has happened through the creation of such devices as the one on which I am writing these words and through which I will publish these words for people worldwide to read. It is a humbling and splendid thing. It has happened through our ability to travel to foreign lands in ways generations before us would have found miraculous. It has happened as we trade goods and services with countries half a world away from the place we call home.
In no other time in history have we been so aware of the ways in which we are not only countries, beloved countries, but also traveling on a planet on which we are intricately woven together, one country unto the next. This tapestry is woven with threads of water and air, with soil and the food it produces. We are living at a time when a great sharing is called for if we are to live as responsible citizens of the world, a generation that desperately wants to offer at least as a good if not a better world for their children.
Today as we celebrate our independence, my prayer is that we allow the love, the splendid love, which we have for these United States to spill over to all the countries of the world. May we see our future and theirs in new ways, ways that depend upon one another. For our own healing and the healing and hope of the world.
Wow! Thank You doesn’t quite seem like enough–but Thank You!
Lovely. It reminded me of “This is my song.” Thanks, Sally.