The United States is now 250 years old and we will, as John Adams predicted, enjoy “Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other.”  

Yet, somehow, it seems a curiously joyless celebration.  

No doubt some of the blame belongs to Donald Trump. Among the most divisive presidents ever, he has hijacked many of the festivities and, as is his narcissistic wont, made them about himself rather than the country. This predictably has made his opponents effectively pick up their ball and go home. Thus, what should be a unifying event has become one more partisan bone of contention.

In addition, the anniversary comes at a time when many Americans are struggling. There is a war going on. Inflation is rampant and kicking the stuffing out of low- and moderate income Americans. AI is causing all sorts of economic disruptions and both founded and unfounded fears. Both major political parties seem headed to crazyland. Hard times do not a celebratory spirit make.  

But I think there is something more profound going on as well. How, after all, does one celebrate a nation that began by proclaiming transformational ideals, but all too often failed to live up to them? One need only read Frederick Douglas’s “What to the Slave is the 4^th of July?” to understand the ambivalence that many Americans, especially those who are not wealthy, white, heterosexual, Christian, men, feel.

Add the genocide of Native Americans, the subjugation and disenfranchisement of women, the mistreatment of LGBTQ Americans, and the often callous abandonment of the poor and struggling, and there is much of our past and present that we should be ashamed of.  And it only makes things worse when our political leaders try to deny or hide the evils perpetuated in our names.  

But this is not the whole of the story. Not even close. For, however imperfect we have been, we have never stopped trying to be better.

Perhaps Abraham Lincoln expressed it best, when he said of the Founders and the ideal of equality they espoused:

“They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them … They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society … constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated.”

          The truth of the ideals that undergird our nation do not depend on the moral perfection of the Founders, nor those who followed, including our political leaders today. In the classic Broadway musical 1776, the character of Ben Franklin responds to criticism of the Declaration (for failing to condemn slavery), by asking “What will posterity think we were? Demi-Gods? We’re men, no more, no less.” We try. We fail. We try again.

Is this nation’s history flawed? Without a doubt. Are we still imperfect today? Of course. But uniquely among nations, America is not just an ethnicity or a geographic location. Nor is it any particular president or political party. It is not even our prosperity and the opportunities for advancement that we offer. Rather, it is a promise, an aspiration, and a challenge.

With each generation we are called upon to prove that we really believe that all men (and women) have equal moral worth regardless of race, gender, wealth, or where their family came from. And, faced with such a challenge, we have responded. Abolition, suffrage, the civil rights movement, and many more such liberation movements were all steps on that road to a more perfect and more inclusive union. We have not yet achieved – and may never achieve—that promise, but we still strive toward it. Compare America to Utopia and we will always fall short. Compare us to real countries in the real world, and there’s no one doing better.

Moreover, America is not just, or even primarily, about government. It is about the people and communities that make up this country.  The civil society that binds us together and makes us who we are: neighbors helping neighbors, welcoming strangers, healing the earth, and creating an abundance not just for ourselves but for the entire world. There is a reason beyond simple economic opportunity – although that matters too – why people from around the world are willing to face all manner of hardships to come here. And once here, they become yet another addition to the American mosaic. 

We don’t need to “make America great again.” We never stopped being great. That’s because even during the bad times, even when we let ourselves down, we never stopped being America.   

That is why I still love my country – warts and all. And that is why I will be celebrating this and every 4^th of July. Happy 250^th Birthday!