Independence Day is my favorite holiday of the year. The day we declared ourselves a free people. Our efforts were imperfect then, our freedom parsimoniously shared, our efforts remained imperfect through the decades, and they are imperfect now. We have much progress to make. But I relish this day, as I meditate on the courage — born of frustration and injustice — that our forebears showed in collectively saying “enough.” It was treason. Its success was unlikely. I imagine some felt as if they were signing their own death warrants, should the effort have failed.
When I am alone and fearful, in the dark mornings, contemplating some challenge, some task, some call to action that I must answer yet before which I feel cowardly — I think about them, and other pioneers of courage. If they could act, under much harsher conditions than I will ever face, then so must I be able.
And this courage is and has been on display not just on national matters of consequence. My neighbors display it. I see it all around. People quietly, courageously solving the local problems we encounter every day. I believe we are living in times upon which we will look back and say, “there began the rebirth of communities.” And the rebirth will have emerged as a result of national dysfunction. Here, where we live together, we face challenges. No force from on high will intervene. The mechanisms have ground to a halt.
So here we are.
Our nation is not some institution, some complicated mechanism established and set in motion. It grew. It emerged from villages, towns, cities — communities. It remains a land of communities, knit together by a mixture of geography and of ideas.
I am not blind to injustice nor infamy. I am not blind, either, to the precarious place the globe has become. But I feel I cannot afford to be overcome by despair nor by rage.
Today, the anniversary of our declaration of independence, I will spend time with neighbors and with family. And I will reflect on how best to improve my immediate surroundings. From a thousand, nameless, similar small acts, this land of communities might start to heal itself.
That is what I am thinking about today.
