To Achieve a "More Perfect Union" We Have to Love All of Her

Our complexity and diversity can make us stronger instead of dividing us

In Embracing Curiosity, I step away from writing about travel to comment on the bigger journey of life, exploring my faith and politics with curiosity and nuance.

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It had been nine years since my husband and I had stood on the fields of Gettysburg. We remembered the 150th anniversary of a battle that was a significant turning point in the preservation of a union that had been severely broken by America’s original sin, slavery. We listened to the short documentary playing in the visitor center, Sam Waterston reciting the Gettysburg Address. We stopped by the cemetery but didn’t really spend time there. We were struck by the vast scope of the place and the human cost of a three-day battle. But it was 2013. We were in the second half of the Obama administration, the first Black family still sitting in the White House. There was continued talk of finally getting out of two wars. And the housing crisis appeared to be corrected. The future for our country looked bright.

Standing on the fields of Gettysburg felt different during our 2022 family vacation. The smattering of Confederate flags stuck in the ground of Southern monuments served as a testament to a subculture that refuses to move on. Quotes in the museum that highlighted tensions and even hatred towards fellow citizens mirrored those I have heard in the last seven years. The stories of hubris which gave the North the edge in the final hours of the three-day battle showed just how close the Union was from being permanently severed. This time, listening to the same recording of the Gettysburg Address reminded me of just how far we still have to go as a country. It reminded me that the post-Civil War era did not heal divisions, but bandaged up still festering wounds. It felt like Abraham Lincoln was reaching across the decades to talk to 21st century American citizens.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

On the Eve of his assassination two years later, he dreamed of a reunited country. He hoped for healing. He mourned the human cost of a war that destroyed the South, killed a generation of young men, and did not completely answer the question of what to do in the aftermath of slavery. As with all of our presidents, he was a flawed human being. He wanted slaves freed but he did not see those of African ancestery as his equals. He fought to preserve the Union while allowing for further genocide of indigenous tribes in order to expand that Union west. Like all of us, he was a product of his home and experiences, but despite those flaws, I believe he would grieve at the America he would see today.

Because, four years before the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we are a nation severely divided.

We have Americans who still believe that the 2020 election was stolen and refuse to see the dangers presented by the previous administration and the insurrection that took place on January 6, 2021. Still others see the dangers but cling to the idea that the ends justified the means and that it was, and still is, worth the risk to democracy.

On Twitter, I’ve seen far-left liberals proclaim glee at the apparent death of church membership, eager for a godless society that worships reason instead of a higher power, and I grieve because I am a Christian who both loves God and takes reasonable pride in my intellect.

This summer I’ve driven across the country from Indiana to Texas and then all the way to Philadelphia and I’ve seen more “Let’s Go Brandon” and Confederate flags and anti-Democrat rhetoric than I care to recount, and I have to wonder if the people in those houses hate me too, just because I see their political rhetoric and policy position as dangerous to the whole country.

I’ve seen people joke about the Texas GOP platform, challenging them to go ahead with secession because they would love to see Texas try to do it on their own. As a former Texas resident, I am torn because all I can think about is the people who I know and love who really are trying to turn Texas away from extremes and will continue to be hurt by an increasingly extremist political party solely focused on “owning the libs.” I think about the millions (including us) who were deeply affected by a deep freeze while cut off from the rest of the country. I think about the friends, like us, who felt like we had no choice but to leave. And then I want to weep.

We are nation so focused on the individual “us” that we continually fail to see “U.S".”

American citizens live in a large, incredibly diverse country. We don’t know each other, we don’t appreciate our differences, and we do not seek to understand how those differences impact the laws we want passed, the policies we believe need to be changed, and the future we want for our children.

In David French’s latest piece for July 4th, he writes about the Red, Blue, and tired. So many of us are tired. Tired of the anger and vitriol directed at us and our fellow citizens. Tired of being accused of being something we are not. Tired of being told that an insistence on a nuanced understanding of all of the issues that plague us is to be soft and indecisive. Tired of being told that a change of perspective means that we’ve given up on our previous morals and we cannot be trusted. Just plain tired.

The closing words of Lincoln’s short address hits even harder on this Fourth of July.

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. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

American love to say that “freedom isn’t free,” but they forget that the sentiment applies to everyday life, not just the military. Yes, some have had to pay the ultimate price to keep our nation free. Over the course of ten days we looked over a field where forty brave souls took down a plane to protect our nation’s capitol and farmland where thousands of men died to preserve a relatively young country. But there are other costs to freedom as well. Committing to the concept of “freedom” means committing to that freedom for everyone and ensuring that our “freedoms” do not prevent our neighbors from also being free. Freedom isn’t really free. True freedom starts when we also care for the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” for all of our fellow citizens, not just those we like and trust.

On this Fourth of July, I feel more tired than I do celebratory. I feel more apprehensive than I do hopeful. But I still believe in the promise of the Declaration of Independence. I still believe that we have more in common that we have differences. And I believe that we can continue to work towards a “more perfect union.”

We just have to get out of our own way.

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