America's Promise
Thoughts on our promise and how days add up to fulfillment.
I wrote this piece about fifteen years ago. It’s a bit rough, but I like the reminder of hope and the renewed determination it gives me.
It’s been many years since I last set my eyes upon the legendary amber waves of grain. Years made of days that have left their indelible mark on my face and my heart. Some of those days were, as with so many other Americans, filled with great joy. Others with stunning heartbreak. Some American days passed in the quiet majesty of a baby’s first breath. Other American days tore deeply into the fabric of my soul, changing me in ways both grand and tiny.
American days pass like any other nation’s, but they mean something different because of America’s promise. A promise that is increasingly buried under our national competition of who can virtue signal the most and fabricated crises and interminable political theater.
What does the American promise mean today? Does it mean anything to anyone beyond me, here at this dinner table? I don’t hear echoes of my family’s last dinner, but I do see the final, fading shadows of my daughter’s perfect joy as she pushes her chair out, eager for the busy playing. My cherub-son’s rosy cheeked shadow joins her in noisy life.
Her hug, tight and fragile. She had a bad dream.
My privilege, precious and divine. A father. Living American days. And out beyond the walls of my house, countless other women and men living American days of beautiful, binding love and whispers that we can make our lives and this world better. So much better.
What do these American days mean? A president both worshipped and despised. Movements growing; fading. Anger, rapture, tears of fear and joy. All of these happen each day—and these American days continue. No war; no secession. We pray that those American days have passed. We pray that we can hold true to the promise that we know is available in this nation.
The American promise that will never die.
So what will we do to make America’s today and tomorrow better?
America’s today must stand on the shoulders of America’s yesterday - using that perspective to fulfill the uniquely American promise. America’s promise means we must never let go of the determination to nurture potential. It means love of God, country, and family. It still means strength, moral authority, the holding up of a light - even if we fall so far short every day. America’s today determines America’s bright tomorrow, if we will live true to duty, honor, and the capacity to choose a prosperous, righteous destiny.
America’s promise will never come to pass if we shift values to match modern attitudes, because American values are universal, self-evident truths of liberty, the pursuit of happiness, individuals who are empowered to choose when to work together.
I have had the remarkable privilege of residing in twelve of the fifty states in the United States of America. I have been exposed to countless religions, philosophies and moralities. I have had the opportunity to spend significant time immersed in the language and culture of Brazil, England, Japan and Taiwan. Throughout these journeys, I still lived American days, because I was and am American.
I now believe that every country is filled with potential, based entirely on the good people of each individual nation. But I refuse to fight the feeling that the United States of America is closer to fulfilling the measure of its potential than any other country. Even in our modern American days, this nation is better equipped to reach that ultimate potential as well.
I feel like the American promise pleads with me to become more than myself, to seek the good for shining seas and a banner that yet waves.
I think about the early whisperings of the American promise, in the days of change—those of John and Abigail Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and all of their colleagues. What did those days mean to those men and women whom I see as great Americans? I have read about them and seen their flawed humanity. I have felt their fear but also their courage and regretted their necessary compromises. I have watered pages as I walked with them down the road of righteous treason for the love of their God, family and country.
I have felt to raise the torch of independence and freedom, to join with these men and women in revolution against injustice and tyranny. Sometimes I wish my American days were theirs.
What of good have I done with my American promise? I’m American and I can make and fulfill promises - so I have I done what I should? I have loved my God, my family, and my nation. I have read and taught declaration and highest law. I have shaken with simmering anger at American days that seem determined to become—other days.
I do not accept a fundamental shift in our American promise. The bedrock of my nation is faith founded in firm principle, morality, and hope. Hope for better. Hope for solutions. Hope for American days that stretch forward into prosperity.
I plead with my keyboard that this nation not abandon its bedrock promise and turn to convenient philosophies that will not save our future. I shake myself from a stupor, determined to not blindly follow partisan days or special interest empty promises.
I believe in the American promise and I am not alone. Though I felt alone as a child, I am not alone in America’s today. When I was young I lived without a family or love, but I lived American days, like millions of others. As a young adult, the American promise lay within me as I lived days and weeks and months teaching in foreign lands, fighting against the entropy of laziness. Now I sit at my family table, basking in the joy of blessings and peace, worried about bills and accounts, wishing I could make my voice louder. I love today. I want to love tomorrow.
We’ve seen American days where a president went from beloved to hated in short years, and later presidents appealed only to the base, not the heights. Yet I love these days.
Now I see American days filled with media misrepresentations on all sides, and yet I love these days and the potential and promise that has become too dormant.
Now I see American days where money like sand is spent on entertainment and filming anteaters in Borneo, while people suffer from hunger and the miasma of entitlement. Yet I still love these days and wonder how I can wake the American promise from what seems a long, cold hibernation.
Now I see American days where highest law is forgotten by convenience, power and status quo. I fear for our days, but I still hope. And look for alarm clocks for a nation.
Now I see American days filled with people who cannot argue with respect, cannot see the other side, cannot get off their horse—and yet we are still here and so many still believe. And I will not give up. Nor will my fellow Americans.
Now I see American days where the divide between people is preached as an intractable ocean, but this is false. We are still here—we are still living American days in relative peace. I love the people who make up these days.
Now I see American days where I can sit in a bus station, watching people of all sizes, shapes and colors—and in their faces and resilience and variety I see the American promise. Lord, how I love these days.
I love an American day that, when parades are done, hot band uniforms removed, and charcoal is cooling, allow for reflection. I celebrate my American day.
I love these American days. I admit that I fear for future American days.
But my hope is stronger than my fear.