Is This Making America Great?

photo by Mooch Cassidy /flickr

One Man said "I am 100% American. I hate Jews, Catholics, N...... and Muslims." His friend said:"I am 200% American I hate everybody."

Sunday morning, getting ready for church I turned on the TV to see what was happening. The scenes from Charlottesville on Saturday were shocking. Ugly, ugly rhetoric. Nazi signs. Nazi? Confederate flags everywhere. Two groups screaming at one another. Bottle throwing. People attacking people. Scary and heart-reaching indeed.

But what really moved me were the black commentators and the fear and pathos you could hear in their voices. They thought that we had moved beyond this kind of hatred.They thought America was a safe place for them and for all those that feel like outsiders today.

I went to school in Birmingham in the fifties. I remember the Montgomery bus boycott. I remember the bombing of four little black girls in Birmingham that terrible Sunday morning.

I remember in Seminary hearing Dr.King speak in our Chapel and how moved I was with his dream of justice for all. I remember the night, sitting in a darkened theatre in Southside Virginia hearing the word that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. I have stood before the monument of Dr. King in Washington. The day I was there I remember seeing a black family--Father, Mother and two little children looking up, up at the huge statue of Dr. King. The children were pointing. I remember the night Barack Obama was elected and the lump in my throat. Deep in my heart I was so proud of all the progress that we had finally achieved. I knew we had a long way to go--but we had moved so far.

And so--when I picked up my Bible and sermon and turned off the TV Sunday morning I thought about our country and how troubled we are as a nation and how divided we still are. Driving down the road seeing the tall green South Carolina pines, the joggers and the bicyclists, passing little black churches and the church that meets in the theatre and the Baptist and Presbyterian churches nearby. I drove on thinking--how did we get to this awful place after the struggles and the sacrifices and tears and bloodshed? Not to speak of all the martyrs in our struggle for peace and justice. 

I prayed during our Prayers of the people for this country, this President who seems so wrong-headed. I prayed for all those black correspondents with fear in their voices. And for all those out there--watching TV and wondering why mostly white folks hate them--Muslim, Immigrants, Blacks and Gays--the transgendered. Anybody that is different. 

It isn't over--our struggles. But we hear a few others raise their voices. And I think, once again those voices are growing. The old prophet longed for a day when justice would roll down like a mighty stream until it touched all. Even after all these years--I guess this is what I still pray.

It doesn't begin by bashing Trump. Though he does not seem to really understand that his base are not just those that voted for him--but we...we the people. All the people. Color, religion or lack--no matter who--rich or poor. All. Everybody. So it is our job reach out in our little ways to make sure that in this strange time and place we shall try our damnedest to pull off some victories small though they may be. It matters--what we do--it always has.

photo by Stephen Melkisethein / flickr

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and heartstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

                                                           --President Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural address

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blgospot.com