America

Let this Independence Day be our independence from fear and our wounded love. Let wisdom shine down upon these United States, and let us be the hands and hearts through which it may be, willfully, and wholeheartedly, made manifest.

May the dirge of doom and gloom be dropped, and may we recognize our fate as a nation. We are no mere joke in the portals of history. We are America.

We are a grand experiment to bring freedom to the Native American. To the Slave to appetites and fear. To the Uneducated and the Poor of heart. To bring hope to the Immigrant, and through her, and the Angels of our better selves, the world.

From sea to shining sea, may we seek out an undiminished nobility, and wipe away our tears; may a soulful cry of affection be born, and long endure, for all those divided nations that gave us wings. And may we learn to see ourselves and the world anew.

It is implied, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, to reach beyond our pained past, and to prove, without a shadow of doubt, that we have the weave and sinew, the tenacity and lifeblood, the broad shoulders of will, to dream, and be reborn, in the fires of our torment.

It is to us that the world looks for favorable winds. We are the confluence of the world as a country, and the pillar of our responsibility lies in shining a fresh light upon it.

When, by the gallows of our self-inflicted pain, we stop, and question: what strength lies in us, a child of hope awakens within. For, if we can land a man on the moon, we can bind up the wounds of earth. We have that potential.

Where there is the awakening of love in the heart, man is good and gentle and in harmony with himself. Where there is fear and deception, there is the contamination of vested interests.

But, where there is the eye of the farmer and the environmentalist and the caring heart, where our labors are brought to the altar of our most compassionate and innovative selves, there is a deeper potential.

It might appear that we are confused, but have we the courage to listen with the fullness of our being! Have we the simplicity and the lack of haste? Can we afford that of ourselves? Can we afford it not! It will bring us all other riches worthy of us.

To undo ill ease, illusion and illness demands that we listen to our deepest faith and our brightest mind. It is incumbent upon us, as a nation, to have that resolve and dignity. Wisdom is not a burden. It is a light in the darkness.

If we are to merit the full mettle of our purpose, we must now embrace this dawn of a new era, and make a thorough peace with ourselves, and with one another.

All of this is possible through the gentle dedication of an awakened attention. We must take flight and rise, like eagles, on the gentle relieved thermals of our liberated selves, to the fullness of wisdom within us.

The eagle, as a young bird, can be reckless and fooled. Yet, by a different grace, it reaches maturity and, we may see, through its tempered and healed flight, the possibility of our own.

Where there is the necessary tender reflection humility brings, there we find our sufferings and come, face to face, with our emancipation. To fully mature means to embrace our pain, and to heal its twin sister, bitterness.

To throw off the crutches of the “ills” we need to find, down by the river of our better selves, a renewed vision of our place in the run of things. If you pause, and listen to Walt Whitman, in the words of a poet, he will scroll to you the vision of America.

“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.”

“I see not America only, not only Liberty’s nation but other nations preparing, I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combination, the solidarity of races.”

— Years of the Modern

I am vast, I contain multitudes. 

He saw an all inclusive race, made of all races, who had the wealth of spirit, in times of need, to become the vanguard of civilization and heal the nation’s wounds.

And then, in so learning, to do it for ourselves, we come to see ourselves unleashed, and the world afresh. He had that great dearness of heart. The same, in us, could rescue America now from her forlorn and intemperate state.

The manifest destiny, of a great and majestic nation, comes forth when we will not settle for the hobgoblins of our inferior selves.

We rise to our most humbled vision of who we are. We learn to see our struggles in the struggles of the world. We come to sew, and reap, the harvest of our fathomless heart.

We refuse to broach, not a moment longer, our residence here in this ignoble moment, and make, steadfastly, to a new resolve, to be free of resistance and greed, so that freedom, through the auspices of imagination and courage, honesty and grit, forgiveness and kindness, may reveal herself again, to each one, and to all, and from that rekindled resolve, we may light a fire of hope in the depths of our hearts.

And in the hearts of all men. For exclusivity is not the way of this nation. We are the child of all nations. We will turn a blind eye, no more, to the least among us.

May this be no idle dream. May, I, America, here highly resolve, that this be us, born anew. This America:

“This nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

With malice toward none. And with charity enough, for all.