We need serious reflection this July 4th

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The Fourth of July. It’s a time people celebrate our country. There are cookouts, parities and fireworks displays across the nation.

There is plenty of flag flying and plenty of speeches about how much people love America. There are red, white and blue hats, blankets, clothes – you name it.

I hope that people take at least a few moments on this special day to think about what this country has always stood for and how it is actually living up to its promise in 2018. Now, I would never tell people what conclusions they should reach, but I do hope they are honest.

I see an America that is struggling and an America that has been struggling for some time. I feel like this country has lost its center.

To me, America is not just some shining light on a hill, although it probably once was and could be that again. I feel like we are searching for our place in an ever-changing world.

At this point in our history, we are challenging long partnerships we have had with other nations, so we are more alone now than I can ever remember us being. We are drawing some that we have always been wary of close, and pushing away those we have long embraced as brothers and sisters in freedom.

We seem confused about what compassion and empathy are, or even if they have a place in modern America. Sure, we wrap ourselves in the ornaments of freedom all the time in America. But do we really know what it is to be free? To be a world leader in 2018?

I’m not convinced we do.

We are more divided than we have ever been in my lifetime. Who is to blame for this? Honestly, that doesn’t matter. This is not about left or right or center. It is about a country full of people who have stopped listening to anyone they don’t agree with.

That one thing is making us weak, not powerful. And in my lifetime, America has never been weak.

Weakness is just not something we understand. We always talk about strength and power and unity. But the reality is division and derision. If we could look at America’s face, it would probably be a scowl right now.

This cannot stand. We must work hard to get our country back to a place of understanding and open discussion and compromise. We are going down a rabbit hole of mean spiritedness that I just don’t recognize.

We are all to blame for this, of course. We are the ones who follow this party line or that. We are the ones who belittle the “opposition” instead of listening and trying to understand, even if we don’t agree.

In short, we, the people, are failing this great nation at this moment in history. America is a powerful promise, but we just aren’t working hard to keep that promise. We are seemingly working hard to shatter it.

To break that promise.

Celebrate our history this week. Wear your patriotic best. Sing your favorite songs about our history.

But then do something about helping this country heal its wounds. Help it move forward as the positive light that this world needs. Help it get back to being the country that we know it can, and should, be.