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May.27,2019I would have liked to have shared video of the Rolling Thunder ride from yesterday, but phone battery didn‘t hold up for it.
But maybe that‘s ok, because I now have to tell you what it was like through the filter of my perception, which I don‘t have a lens for on my camera yet.
One thing stands out head and shoulders above the rest. People – real people – are still very excited to be American. In response to their excitement, I waved. I high-fived. I first-bumped. I saluted. I even photobombed a group of Asians trying to get a picture, one guy in front of them with taking a picture over his head with all of them facing so the riders would be behind them. I snuck (I don‘t believe I‘ve ever snuck on a Harley before, especially with this one, but well… opportunity struck) up behind them and stopped just as he snapped the group photo. We all laughed, there was hugging, handshaking – you‘d have thought I was the returning prodigal son. it was a highlight of the 20-minute ride.
There were People of all shapes, sizes, colors, and backgrounds. It is peculiar to sit in a parking lot full of bikers, who largely fit a visual stereotype, and then ride through a crowd of people who normally treat that stereotype with a certain protective distance. Those people and we become, for a few moments, One.
The way I interpret my chosen Canonical spiritual writings, that brings God into our midst. Our language and cultural differences may use different names for God, but the God I believe in knows all our languages just fine.
The ride‘s route takes us through the heart of the DC Monuments, a place from where many of the iconic images can be seen up close and personal. Of particular interest to me always is the Lincoln and Washington memorials. And there are large spaces where, in any other city, would be a solid mass of buildings with businesses. But this space, in the nation‘s Capitol, is reserved for The People. People that are maybe not involved with Politics, but are certainly very, very involved with being American.
I say this because Americans do their political thing every four years. By design, we decide on someone to represent us in that messy forum. We do it because we have lives to live. We have crops to plant, houses to build, children to raise, And once in a while, that living we do must involve standing for a moment, and drinking in the courage it has taken over the history of our country to win and defend the one thing we stand for – Freedom.
It is no perfect Freedom we enjoy. At every turn there is someone trying to bend us to their will and benefit. Businesses do it. Ideological groups do it. Neighbors do it. Foreign enemies do it. From every angle, one man seeks to subjugate others.
Freedom does not rest in some sacred temple, impervious to the elements in its vault. It is a small thin egg, filled from within with life, and protected from the outside by the fragile shell of our written Constitution, incubated by nurturers and defended fiercely by the blood, sweat, and tears of its parents.
And who are it‘s parents?
It is us. We have not inherited a relic. Each generation must give birth to its own Freedom, must nurture, defend, and teach the next how to live. Or it dies.
Idols are quickly forgotten as a people assume the idols can take care of themselves. We pray in vain for idols to protect us, believing them to possess supernatural powers.
Freedom is not – cannot be – an idol. It is a living, perpetually reborn infant. And it must be treated that way.
Today we‘ll celebrate one of the greatest sacrifices made since the Revolution. But we don‘t do it to worship them. We call it Memorial Day because remembering is critical to our future. We will have to defend it again, and that defense is not some fantasy of future glory. It is today. Freedom cannot protect itself. It cannot raise itself.
And if we cannot love it enough to get excited about it, we do not deserve to be its parents. So today, in remembrance of those who sacrificed their life for freedom, we celebrate this infant‘s life in somber wonderment. We boggle at the dedication of the men and women who are gone from us, and honor the scarred and broken survivors of that debacle. And we do it in the one way we can that brings us together. Those who know and cherish freedom come to be filled with a song. And they take that song home in their hearts, filling this country with the overpowering sound of Rolling Thunder.
