On a beach waiting to witness works of fire thundering forth for the Fourth of July, sparklers burst against a cloudy sunset— the flames of liberty burning out fast.
Darkness descends and the main event announces itself with flash-bangs against the firmament: Declarations of incandescence, self-evident in their light, loudness, and pursuit of happy viewers.
United they fall, a coterie of combusted paper— explosive evidence of cheap dreams.
Yet after the rockets’ rainbow glare burst in the air, what was still there?
This Fourth of July, the words that are echoing in my mind more than any others are the lyrics of “We Americans” by The Avett Brothers, from their recent album Closer Than Together. They beautifully capture the cognitive dissonance I feel about being an American, and even made me tear up the first time I heard them.
Here they are in full. Happy Fourth of July.
I grew up with reverence for the red white and blue Spoke of God and liberty, reciting the pledge of allegiance Learned love of country from my own family Some shivered and prayed approaching the beaches of Normandy The flag waves high and that’s how it should be So many lives given and taken in the name of freedom But the story’s complicated and hard to read Pages of the book obscured or torn out completely
I am a son of Uncle Sam And I struggle to understand the good and evil But I’m doing the best I can In a place built on stolen land with stolen people
Blood in the soil with the cotton and tobacco Blood in the soil with the cotton and tobacco Blood in the soil with the cotton and tobacco
A misnamed people and a kidnapped race Laws may change but we can’t erase the scars of a nation Of children devalued and disavowed Displaced by greed and the arrogance of manifest destiny Short-sighted to say it was a long time ago Not even two lifetimes have past since the days of Lincoln The sins of Andrew Jackson, the shame of Jim Crow And time moves slow when the tragedies are beyond description
I am a son of Uncle Sam And I struggle to understand the good and evil But I’m doing the best I can In a place built on stolen land with stolen people
We are more than the sum of our parts All these broken homes and broken hearts God will you keep us wherever we go Will you forgive us for where we’ve been We Americans
Blood on the table with the coffee and the sugar Blood on the table with the coffee and the sugar Blood on the table with the coffee and the sugar
I’ve been to every state, seen shore to shore The still open wounds of the civil war Watched blind hatred bounce back and forth Seen vile prejudice both in the south and the north And accountability is hard to impose On ghosts of ancestors haunting the halls of our conscience But the path of grace and goodwill is still here, For those of us who may be considered among the living
I am a son of God and man And I may never understand the good and evil But I dearly love this land Because of, and in spite of we the people
We are more than the sum of our parts All these broken bones and broken hearts God will you keep us wherever we go Can you forgive us for where we’ve been We Americans We Americans
Love in our hearts with the pain and the memory Love in our hearts with the pain and the memory Love in our hearts with the pain and the memory
We stayed at a beach community in Michigan for the Fourth of July extended weekend and went to the chapel service they had on Sunday. One of the pastors began with a quote from Erma Bombeck:
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
I get nervous in churches around the Fourth of July. Celebrating a secular holiday within a religious environment can lead to grotesque displays of nationalistic idolatry, or it can produce something more appropriate for a church that celebrates its country while respecting the benefits of separating church and state. Luckily this was the latter. We sang hymns, heard a good message, and that was that.
What was more powerful to me happened the next evening, when the whole community gathered on the beach to watch a fireworks display, as they do every year. We brought beach chairs and set up facing southward along the beach, where the fireworks would be. Slowly more people congregated and added to the festival-like atmosphere. Families took pictures against the amber sunset, teens tossed a frisbee, kids twirled sparklers, and I read The Iliad until it got too dark to read.
Then we all sat and waited for the twilight to fade to black enough to allow the fireworks to be that much vibranter. When they began, I remembered once again what it was like to share something with a group of people that wasn’t on a screen. I didn’t notice many if any devices out. The rows of heads I saw when I looked behind me were only tilted upward, not downward as they would be with a smartphone in hand.
Many of these families had been partaking in this tradition for decades. I only recently married into it, yet it still impressed upon me the power of ritual, and how, when combined with the spirit of a place, it can foster an acute state of grace. I was grateful for Lake Michigan. I was grateful for the opportunity to look at the stars and contemplate my place in the universe and my nation while watching the fireworks burst before me. I was grateful to lie back with my fellow Americans and enjoy a celebration that didn’t involve guns, tanks, and soldiers.
The scene, like the fireworks themselves, dissipated as quickly as it materialized. We folded chairs, shook off sand, filed off the beach en masse, and trundled to our beds to begin another American year.
Hey all, we’ve been in Antigua for the week helping Hector and wandering the town. We connected with Gerber, mom’s friend down here whom I will hopefully be accompanying to the jungle in northern Guatemala sometime during this trip.
Yesterday we visited a school where Gerber’s sister is the principal. Elise and I sat in on a math class for a few minutes. We were both brought back to the good ol’ days of learning how to add fractions. Well, for Elise it was more like reliving a nightmare…in Spanish. It was cool, though, because we met a team from California there who was painting and building stuff for the school.
That meeting turned out to be a great thing because we were able to tag along with them today to the Pacaya Volcano. The first part of the climb was a pretty leisurely incline, but once we hit the lava part, it became more interesting. It’s an active volcano, but the ground we were walking on was all old, crumbly lava. Elise and I enjoyed the fact that we were pretty much the only ones in the group who were not huffing and puffing and opting for horses that were provided for weary hikers. We trekked the whole way up and down. Take that, Californians!
Some John Denver would have been appropriate right about then.
The view was spectacular. We weren’t allowed to go to the very top of the volcano, but we stopped at the next highest portion where the rocks were hot from the active insides of the volcano. The mountains in the background are also volcanoes–some active and some not.
Mmm, lava marshmallows…
People were roasting marshmallows over some pits that exuded some very hot air. They roasted crisp in a few seconds. It was very windy up there, but I wholly enjoyed the stunning view once the clouds cleared. And since today is Independence Day, Elise and I sang our own a capella version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” when we reached the peak. Here’s to you, America.
We were thoroughly nuked but refreshed from the hike, so afterward we did some laundry and visited a cool little bookstore/cafe called the Cafe Rainbow. Tomorrow hopefully we’ll be going to church with Irma, another one of mom’s Guatemalan friends. After that, who knows what will happen…
