Having had to fight for certain rights for my children, and often not with complete success, yet talking to parents around the country and the world about the same issues, I have come to be very grateful for the right to fight. We are very fortunate to have certain principles and structures in place to enable us to even mount those efforts. So I love our country because of that, not because it doesn’t have problems, and in several ways, big ones.
In some countries and even states here in the USA, the game is over before it’s even begun. Remembering how we got here, even though it’s violent, and having grown up hanging out on the Green where several men died so long ago over what are now our ideals, strikes me deeply. The First Parish Unitarian Church in Lexington overlooks the Green and before that the Meeting House that stood where the statue of Captain Parker stands now. Peaceful revolutions are the best—the Beatles “Revolution” is one of my favorite songs. Maybe remembering where we came from, and many of the principles of this country were derived from those of the Six Nations here before us, can help us create a kind of rolling revolution—peaceful battles on so many fronts—hopefully arcing in the direction of good. (See Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature and Enlightenment Now for more ideas and actual research on that topic.)
We should celebrate our freedom today, as much as is available. Running could be one way, but…do something you really want to do, something that matters.
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