Independence Day

Happy Independence Day! I wanted to take a few moments this 4th of July to talk about why I'm unabashedly, unreservedly and apologetically in love with this country even though I'm not sure that's altogether a popular sentiment these days. Don't get me wrong, I think the vast majority of Americans are patriotic and love their country. But that love is often distant and removed, more passive than active. Well most of his will wave a flag on occasion and sing the national anthem at baseball games, I'm not sure that many of us are in love with our country in a way is passionate and involved.

It seems so passe, naive even, in our globalized age to talk like that. After all, America isn't a perfect country. Our past and our present have deep flaws. We mustn't forget that there are many other fine and wonderful countries in the world and we therefore ought to guard ourselves against international arrogance.

Those things are true but the conclusion we draw from them is not. America has real problems, but those problems aren't really her. America is Thomas Jefferson's immortal words that all men are created equal. The past evil of slavery and the modern evil of abortion aren't America, and when we fight against them we are not seeking to change America but to recover her.

As for other nations, I agree there are many that are fine and wonderful. I am not in love with America because she comes out first in some contest. I am in love with her because of what she is. When I see my wife in a crowded room she is the most beautiful to me not because of what the other women aren't but because of what she is.

Up until recently I've found that, even though I've always tried to wear my patriotism on my sleeve, I'd also fallen in this trap of loving without being in love. Theodore Roosevelt, a man who is a hero to me and one of the finest leaders America has ever had, changed my mind. Throughout his life he was passionately in love with his country. At first glance in his diaries it comes across as arrogant elitism. But the more you get to know the man, the more you realize that's not even close to the truth. His love didn't grow from something ugly and evil, it grew from a childlike wonder and a fiery passion that refused to die long after life had done its best to make old and callous. To use a biblical analogy, it was faith like a child.

And that's how I choose to be in love with my country.

So what is America? America is the belief that God has given us the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that those rights are worth dying for.

America is George Washington arriving at the First Continental Congress dressed in uniform and ready to go to war for freedom.

America is fifty-six men on July 4, 1776 signing their names to a document that was a death sentence should the war be lost.

America is the Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware River, one last desperate attempt at freedom in a cause that was starting to look doomed to fail.

America is thirteen wildly diverse colonies coming together as states to form a single nation.

America is Abraham Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and setting the slaves free.

America is the soldiers landing on Normandy Beach on D-Day to fight the evil of Nazism and keep tyranny at bay.

America is a forty year struggle against Communism and Ronald Reagan calling for the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

America is New York's firemen standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center and hoisting a flag in defiance of a new wave of tyranny.

America is our brave men and women fighting in Iraq to spread freedom and democracy and to defend our country.

America is waking up every morning and knowing you're free from tyranny.

America is passing on this history and these traditions to every child and thanking God they're there to carry the promise of freedom to a new generation.

America is the day (and I pray it is not too distant) when every unborn child will not live in the shadow of legalized abortion.

I am in love with America for all of this and more. God has blessed this country and her people beyond anything the Founders could have imagined. Men and women have spent nearly two and half centuries spilling their blood to fulfill and prolong the promise of the Revolution, of the fifty-six men who on this day committed treason to one nation and pledged allegiance to another. From 1776 to 2008 their sacrifices have always been worth it. And that's something that's not only worth loving but being in love with.