The Glorious 4th

Before sleep takes me, I am compelled to write about the 4th now, rather than tomorrow. I've spent hours this past week looking for brilliant quotes from long dead people that invented and/or led this country, and thought about how I might make some sagacious observation about how those brilliant words still apply to us now, how we should be grateful and blessed because this nation, this idea, exists at all. 

That anyone that is "American", by nature, is really "American" from somewhere else and that the entire notion of an "America" is, unto itself, the most radical idea of the last 244 years. 

But, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to make a suggestion, not pontificate, for I have no axes to grind, political or otherwise, any longer. I'm going to suggest that everyone watch, as I did for perhaps the twentieth time, the Ken Burns series on the American Civil War. It's about 12 hours of time we all have to give and is perhaps as interesting as, say, "Tiger King", or some other brilliant chronicle.

If you choose to watch, it may put into perspective for you, as it has for me, what this "country" is. It's not a country at all. It's a brilliant mosaic of every ideal and passion, good and bad, of every thing that's good and bad about human beings. I celebrate the 4th, I celebrate America not because it's the greatest this or that. I celebrate it because it's the bravest, most tumultuous, grandiose and petty, amalgam of the sacred and profane ever put forth on this planet. It's a glorious mess, just as we have made it so for 244 years.

The tree of liberty, Jefferson once observed, must be watered with the blood of tyrants and perhaps in that instance old Tom went a bit too far. Why not rather observe that the tree of liberty must, despite lightning, fire, floods and drought, remain standing. The tree must remain because the roots are ourselves and, if we destroy them, we destroy our own souls.

Have a happy 4th and be kind.