The Price of Freedom…
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
~ Thomas Jefferson
We sing of spacious skies,
amber waves, and purple mountains.
We pledge allegiance.
We call this the land of the free.
And yet…
so much of the work remains unfinished.
As we formed this blessed union of states,
we declared these truths to be SELF-evident:
that all men are created equal.
And we meant “men.”
White men.
Rich white men who owned property.
That’s who was equal.
Evidently.
The rest of us?
We were amendments -
hard-won, debated, and delayed.
Not self-evident, it turns out.
But argued over in town squares and courts,
forged in sacrifice and persistence,
with each new birth of freedom
midwifed through chants of,
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
Unprecedented liberties are conceived of
and Born in the USA.
This Land that we Love…
This Home….
Home on the range…
where the deer and the antelope
used to play.
Until we sold the land to the highest bidder
and the fastest wood chipper.
Oh give me a home…
where the buffalo disappeared,
and treaties were broken as fast
as the promises of liberty and justice for all.
This land is your land, this land is my land…
unless you are too poor,
or too brown,
or too inconvenient
for the engines of profit and power.
And yet.
Somehow.
The dream still flickers:
From every mountain side…
Let freedom ring.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
to the oceans white with foam,
rises a stubborn hope:
a conviction that freedom is more
than a flag waved at a parade.
That equality is more
than a line in an old document.
That the unalienable rights
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
are not guaranteed.
Generations of “We the People”
have fought and died to maintain a government
of, by, and for the people.
And every new generation must
preserve, protect, and defend this promise.
In order to form a more perfect union,
let us not just wrap ourselves in the Grand Old Flag,
but let us also unfold honest histories,
and weave a wider belonging -
for the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Our freedom is inextricably bound in theirs.
Let us sing of the sweet land of liberty,
even as we stand in a complicated truth:
This nation was founded on
ideals worth fighting for…
and betrayals worth grieving….
Gratitude and honesty stand firm
as twin pillars of patriotism,
beneath a roof of responsibility,
on a foundation of truth and justice,
upheld by our collective national courage to
stand beside her and guide her
through the night,
with the light, from above.
Does that star-spangled banner still wave
O’er the Home of the brave?
Are we brave enough
to love this country enough
not to lie about its past,
nor to despair of its future?
Because if self-government means anything,
it means the work is always ours:
to keep rising to claim our shared promise,
to keep mending our fragile union,
to keep ringing the bells that still can ring.
With liberty.
And justice.
For all.