America isn’t easy

I attended the “Celtic Woman” concert in the gorgeous Red Rocks Amphitheater last night. Their music is hauntingly beautiful. I could almost see the sound waves flowing up and around the giant rock formations and pouring across the green hills beyond. Theirs is the kind of music that creates an exquisite ache in my heart. I pondered that as our little group laughed and joked together under the dimming Colorado sky and I sipped wine from a carton that looked like a juicey juice box.

Celtic music seems to carry an ancient voice within its chords. I sometimes envy those who come from old traditions. Sure, old things can become hardened and brittle and lose their usefulness over time. However wisdom is gathered and preserved through time, and when carefully tended  it can mature within us like fine wine. It gives us a baptism of sorts – we are immersed into the wisdom gleaned of the ages and we grow up a bit more into our truest selves.

In comparison to the Celts, our American life is relatively new. Sometimes it seems that we are the adolescents of the world – full of enthusiasm and good intentions and convinced that we know way more than we actually do. We are somewhat disconnected from the world’s wisdom, recollecting mostly what happens within our insulated shores. As we have focused on keeping our way of life, the stories of risk, hope and gratitude collected by this nation of immigrants have become far less often our shaping stories.

The Celtic Woman group sang a song about Ellis Island, the Isle of Hope. And as they did the histories of my own family and friends played upon the stage. There was the hopeful young Englishman full of inventions and ideas and hoping for possibilities, the Armenian teen who narrowly escaped the genocide of the Ottoman Turks, the starving Irishman hoping to find a way to feed his family, the Jews who barely escaped war torn Europe and worse. The Celts were singing our stories back to us. They sang of the America our ancestors saw:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Now I know that the land of opportunity can be turned to the land of opportunistic ways, the pursuit of happiness to gluttony, freedom from to an entitled freedom to. We can’t forget that our history contains much darkness as we stepped on and crushed the backs of some to rise higher. We’ve suffered and will continue to feel the consequences of all that. May we grow up good, as my southern friends say, by the grace of God. May life continue to rise from those ashes.

I thought the longing in my heart was for another time or place, and perhaps it was. After all, our deepest longings cannot be met in this place. But the memories stirred that evening brought to remembrance that there exists on earth a government which, for all its imperfections, seeks to keep the checks and balances in place that prevent tyranny,  remains committed to the rule of law,  created a middle class to soften the extremes of privilege and poverty that rules in so many places, and that still believes in freedom and dignity for all human beings. The songs of the Celtic Woman group reflected back our own beauty to me.

In the movie The American President, President Shepherd says, “America isn’t easy. You’ve got to want it bad.” We have ginormous problems to deal with and we are deeply polarized on many issues. And of course, America is not the Kingdom of God. But our gift to the world is the hope that what we all long for could actually be true. Our own sacred texts say yes, you are created for dignity and freedom and human rights and equity – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Justice for all. Simple things, like gathering for any purpose we want, whether it be political, religious or simply a concert under the stars with friends and good cheap wine.  Standing for these things for all is really hard. Let’s want it really bad.

At the end, the Celtic Woman group sang a love song to America that reflected the wonderful truth that we have won true friends amidst our struggles. That says something good about us too.

Happy Birthday America. I am grateful for you.

O America

O, America you’re calling,
I can hear you calling me:
You are calling me to be true to thee,
True to thee… I will be.

O, America no weeping,
Let me heal your wounded heart:
I will keep you in my keeping,
Till there be… a new start.

And I will answer you, and I will take your hand,
And lead you… to the sun:
And I will stand by you…do all that I can do,
And we will be… as one.

O, America I hear you,
From your prairies to the sea,
From your mountains grand,
and all through this land,
You are beautiful to me.

And… O, America you’re calling,
I can hear you calling me:
You are calling me to be true to thee,
True to thee… I will be.

And I will answer you, and I will take your hand,
And lead you… to the sun:
And I will stand by you… do all that I can do,
And we will be…as one.

Music: William Joseph
Words: Brendan Graham