In June 2008, my family travelled from Kingsport to West Point, New York to drop me off for Reception Day at the US Military Academy. There are hinge moments in all our lives where there is a definite ‘before’ and ‘after’. As an 18-year-old kid from Tennessee, I could barely comprehend the way my life was changing in the Summer of 2008. But I think my Dad did. In his paternal wisdom, I think he knew I was slipping from carefree adolescence into the crucible of masculine responsibility.
My Dad, a lover of history and a deeply poetic man, made the decision that we’d spend a few last days together at Gettysburg National Military Park en route to West Point. Our first day at the park, we drove the Battlefield to the words of historian James McPherson’s audio tour guide. At the beginning of the tour, McPherson quoted, in full, President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address given in November 1863. It resonated with me then and often comes back to my mind.
Four months after roughly 50,000 Americans were killed or wounded in three days of fighting at Gettysburg, Lincoln said: “But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
On this Independence Day, I hope we can acknowledge that something calls out to us from these words. While our country is far from perfect, it is an experiment in governance that has gone better than most had hoped. But as Lincoln noted, the work was unfinished. And it remains unfinished to this day. Our national ideals are just that – ideals. But those core, unifying principles of freedom and liberty and justice are profoundly True and Good and, consequently, worth fighting for.
America is not, nor has it ever been, a “Christian nation” in the strictest sense. But the ideals upon which this country was founded are like seeds which germinated in the soil of a Christian worldview. They are echoes of a greater Kingdom - a Kingdom of righteousness, justice, and peace – and a greater King whose name is Faithful and True. It’s my hope that this Independence Day can be a means of grace for all of us, drawing our gaze to that unseen country and attuning our ears to that oft unheard melody of love. May we all come to know the blood-purchased position afforded us in that Eternal Kingdom. And may we proceed with the advancement of that noble work, aiming to enflesh those ideals on Earth as they are in Heaven.
............
This writing first appeared in the print and online editions of the Kingsport Times News on July 4, 2021.
Comments