Americana
I totally wept through the 4th of July parade that passed my sister’s house this morning. We all gathered there early, so we could park before the street closed, and get the lawn chairs out, and celebrate her birthday with egg casserole. I didn’t cry for any of that, though it was wonderful seeing my older daughter decked out in her red, white, and blue, and my younger daughter in her little bonnet and flowered dress, actually looking like the character in Little House on the Prairie she likes to play, and my nephew being adorable and four generations hanging out eating Grandma Mack’s famous coffee cake, still with us though she is now gone.
I was okay at the beginning, as we took our seats, and left our seats a moment later to follow the toddler around, greeting all the dogs (“Dog! Dog! Dog! Dog!”). I was unmoved as Cal, the little one, climbed in my lap. I was practical and slightly put out as we applied sunscreen and got bags in which to collect the girls’ candy haul. But I first felt the tears when the fire department came by, thinking of the 19 who died so suddenly fighting the forest fire in Arizona this week. Then came the UMC-hosted boy scout troop, which hopefully is delighting in the Boy Scouts of America decision to allow gay scouts to continue to participate. Then the senior living place, whose representatives all wore bright blue shirts emblazoned with a call to reject cuts to medicare and social security. (The theme of the parade was “the Spirit of Invention,” and the social safety net is one of the greatest inventions of the last century, in this girl’s humble opinion… this, I think, was the inspiration for their parade entry). We saw the extremely awesome Jesse White Tumblers, and several cheerleading and dance squads which my children immediately aspired to join. I sniffled about city kids given opportunities, and needing opportunities to succeed; I sniffled about the diversity of body types, genders and ethnicities in the cheerleading troop.
We made a point to clap for the Islamic Community Center, and my husband accepted a Qu’ran, which I was grateful for, since I have spent very little time with it; I also clapped for all the little churches, including the Lutheran church doing the Group VBS, because I love VBS and little churches even as I loathe Group Publishing. (My husband Josh responded to my quiet griping, “Everyone get a pass in the parade.” He is often more gracious than I.) We clapped for the Salvation Army and noted that everyone representing that group was Latino, which got me thinking about the interesting ways ethnicity, class and religion intersect in this country and this city. We cheered for the UMC, especially because it has both an English speaking and Spanish speaking congregation housed in the building, and in spite of the fact that the English speaking float contained a curious mix of symbols. We treasured the multiple invitations to Catholic parish August-fests and school registrations.
I rolled my eyes covertly when the requisite evangelical praise band came by in matching, stylishly neutral, shirts, singing through a strange medley which included some worship song and that David Guetta Top 40 hit “Titanium.” I felt moderately guilty for that, but only later, when I actually read their flyer, which invited single moms with new babies to breakfast once a month, and to an open grocery day, when folks can come pick food.
I did cry when the pantry came by, declaring that “Hunger knows no season,” as well as when the Center of Concern and the Relay for Life and the Maryville Academy for Youth marched by. I cried for the little kids and the librarians dressed up as books, and the park district display.
I cried, as one former parishioner guessed on my facebook feed, out of gratitude, at least in a way. I am so moved by the ways in which people come together to provide for one another, by the continued existence of our communities, and by the ways in which they are increasingly capable of recognizing and adapting to diversity. I am grateful that there are people who continue to “do the right thing”, to contribute to the ongoing fabric of our society, by offering their time and their efforts and gifts to build something together.
I am grateful for the freedoms we have, but I am very aware of how they are limited, and at what cost they are offered or protected. This morning I sat next to my grandfather, who served in both Korea and Vietnam, who does not care to speak of those times, who stood and saluted every time a flag went past. I am grateful to him, but not just for his service — though as a field hospital administrator, he was responsible for the saving of countless lives. I am grateful for his sense of humor, for his contributions to my daughters’ college funds, for sending me overseas as a teenager, for talking church with me as we tread water in the ocean each summer. I am grateful for him, and for what the military gave him — a college education, a masters degree, a vocation, a bootstrap — but I continue to wish our government were more responsible about starting, running, and concluding wars, both for the moral injuries endured by our own troops and for the horrific loss and death around the world.
Watching the parade, I was so grateful for the ties that bind us together, for the opportunities we provide for one another to learn and grow and live and thrive, and yet so mindful of the ways we continue to fail to do so. The “Taxpayers’ advocate” marched by and gave me a sticker, and I took it, because my kid was on my lap and I want to model civility, but I fumed. This guy has built his career on the idea that our property taxes must be lowered at all costs — this platform affects teachers I love, schools I value, libraries I use, resources we all need, the gallons of floodwater periodically in my basement, and the diversity which moves me to tears. This platform is antithetical to all that is celebrated in the parade, to all that moves me so.
The parade was beautiful. I wept for its beauty. I wept for all we manage to be as a community and as a nation, and for all we have lost, for all we have injured and excluded, in our failures to live out our ideals consistently. If I were preaching this week, I might have picked “Blest be the ties that bind” for worship. If I were preaching, I would have chosen “Let America Be America Again,” the wonderful Langston Hughes poem, as a text.
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!