Happy 4th of July

 

Last night I went to hear the Minneapolis Pop Orchestra at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. I have been doing a lot of reflection about our 250th Anniversary lately. I figured I'd sit in my chair, enjoy the music, and keep my complicated feelings to myself.

Then the conductor asked veterans to stand when their branch's song was played. One by one, a handful of people rose humbly, almost shy about it. Watching them stand did something the music alone couldn’t. It softened the places in me where life had left its harshest scars, and I found a fierce, unreasonable appreciation for the people of our nation.

Throughout our country’s history, people have stood up to unfairness, cruelty, pain, and suffering. Each time one person stands up, they stand for all of us. Our struggles have not weakened us; they have strengthened us. We accomplished the most daring task: to look into the recesses of our own fear and find hope, meaning, and greater truth. That is not a footnote to the fabric of this country. That is the fabric.

Two hundred fifty years give us a choice about what we do with our history. We can let it be one more chance for inequity and authoritarianism to harden. Or we can let it be what it's actually asking to be a healing. A becoming. A course correction that only happens when enough people refuse to look away.

If we hold our hearts open through that and stop demanding every answer before taking the next step, something starts to shift. We begin living in the moment instead of bracing against it. We start seeing this country for what it is unfinished and still worth finishing.

That's what cracked open in me last night. Not a closed heart softening on its own but softened by people willing to stand up in a park and be seen.

On this Fourth of July, I'm grateful not for the struggle, but for everyone who gave so freely to move us through it.

We keep growing. We keep evolving.

That's democracy at work.