LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING THIS IS MY COUNTRY

The 4th of July.  We watched it on television this year.  The United States Navy Band virtual choir sang "This is My Country."  The United States Marine Band played Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" remotely during the fireworks over the capital, canons thundering.  Cece Winans reached toward the sky with her version of "Lift Every Voice and Sing."  The New York Philharmonic played "America the Beautiful" from as many different locations as instruments.  The Harlem Gospel Singers sang remotely.  Split-screen to the Empire State all in red, white and blue.  All the pageantry that we love on the Fourth.  Maybe you were watching.

It was a welcome break all of this, against the backdrop of protests and a pandemic.  Most experts think our country has mismanaged the coronavirus, which is increasing in almost every state.   Earlier in the day we had watched the news.  The virus is on a frightening rampage in Florida where my brother lives.  Over 11,000 new cases per day!  Beaches, restaurants and bars are re-closing but not fast enough.  Hospitals are full. When have we had to worry about that before? 

In South Dakota Trump held another rally.  People mingled freely without face masks.  Such a cheap and easy preventative measure.  One doctor compared the lack of care for self and others to a kind of Jonestown mentality. Remember Jonestown? I do.  On November 18, 1978, more than 900 members of an American cult died in a mass suicide-murder under the direction of their leader Jim Jones. They drank kool-aid laced with cyanide because he told them to, and watched each other drop. Children too.  Such is the power of demagoguery.    

The coronavirus task force says we will be living in this pandemic for the foreseeable future.  We did so well shutting down.  But our gains may have been cancelled by now.  Too many reopened too early and too aggressively.  Too much mistaken feeling of invincibility.  Going mask-less as a symbol.  I could go on. . . we all could.

I do believe in America the Beautiful.  I've been in too many national parks to doubt that. It is my country.  And yours.  All of ours. 

I don't want to be a citizen anywhere else.  But on this July 4th there is both pride and some shame.  Perhaps every year should have been like that, and has been for many. But this year everything is heightened.  Pride in the peaceful protesters, with Black Lives Matter already determined to be the largest movement in U.S. history.  Some shame in perhaps having wasted the sacrifices of so many by allowing, and even encouraging, the resurgence of coronavirus cases.  So, as we learned in law school but didn't need law school to know:  everything cuts both ways.  Love, pride, fear, concern. . . .

We go forward.