The story of America: Still Being Written

 The Work of Christmas

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman

It may seem odd to begin an essay about America with a Christmas poem written by Howard Thurman. Thurman is reminding us that the work of Christmas begins on Christmas morning and continues long after the presents are put away and the decorations are returned to their respective storage places. Christmas isn’t a season.

The work of Christmas, or the story of Christmas, is written in our everyday lives as we work to treat each other with dignity, as we work to honor the Divine in all of humanity, as we work to care for the child of Jesus in our midst. Even though Christmas is a Christian holiday, it represents the knowledge that God is with us. That knowledge, story, and narrative can be found in all faith traditions, even if it may be expressed in different ways, with different symbols and deities, and different understandings.

The story of America is still being written.

Long after the playlist is paused,

Long after the parades are over

When the fireworks cease their boom,

When the 4th turns to the 5th,

When summer becomes back to school,

The story of America continues:

I wonder if most of us feel that America is settled. By that I mean that America is done being built. America is a final finished product. Instead, it may help us to think of America as an idea and even a story still being written. America is a story in perpetual rewriting and editing.

America ain’t America yet.

On a cold winter day or a rainy summer day it can feel good to cuddle in with a good book and relax into the day. In a good novel there is tension, characters, good and evil, plot twists, and an emotional buy in on the part of the reader. In some books it may feel like a many progressive steps forward followed by a few frustrating steps back.

America is a story that began with a group of men who wanted to live free and dictate their own way of life and government. These men declared themselves free from the king. That is the beginning of our mythical story of our founding.

Some don’t want to offer any true historical context to the beginning of America. Some have written our story and left out the most difficult parts. Kind of like a family that doesn’t want its most embarrassing pieces told. So, over the course of the retelling of that story, the ancestors who may have embarrassed the family name have been forgotten or rewritten out. The family history becomes a narrative, a myth instead of a true historical story.

What we are truly wrestling with is the question of who gets to tell the story of America? Who’s experience counts when talking about the honest history of America? Whose voice is heard? Who gets to edit the book before it’s published and who will be called upon to ensure its honesty as we continue to write the story of America.

I think this may help us to understand what’s going on currently in our country. America isn’t done yet. This nation has always been a developing idea. Some may even declare that it was never meant for them. America was meant for white land-owning men and the founding documents reflect this fact, especially when read through the eyes of those who were left out, indigenous first nations people and African slaves, of the Freedom this country is said to celebrate. No matter how difficult the past may be, true as it may be the horrific experiences of those who were thought of as less than, we are all here now.

We are all authors in the American story.

It comes down to what story are we going to write? What is America going to be? History may be in the past, but the human predicament is endless, and we are all caught up in this human community. The story of humanity is a historical document reaching as far back as our collective memories will allow us to go. Our country is but one tiny blip on this space time continuum. This may help to understand the notion that America is situated within this human predicament with all its history, good and bad. 

The story of America continues.

We tend to think of developing countries in economic or technological terms. Our country can’t still be developing because we are economically and technologically advanced. Some may say the most advanced nation in the world. If America began as an idea yet to be fulfilled, if America is a continually developing story, then our story isn’t over yet.

No matter what some may think, do, legislate, or defend with politics, policy, and violence, each one of our voices are vitally important in the telling of our past along with the current one we are writing.

As we look back on our history and think currently, we can find heroes and villains both. Can we look back on our history and allow it to inform our future? Can we face up to the worst we have done, learn from those atrocities, and continue to write the story of America that truly lives into its idea of We The People, free to be who are, each and every one of us.

Some want to silence the voices who don’t agree with the historically inaccurate narrative, the myth of America. We are still wrestling with our white supremacist, racist past. No matter how tight we close the door of our closet with barricades and deadbolts, the white robes and hoods keep falling out.

No matter how we like to look to Hitler, as just one example, as the evil one in history, we have our own violent past filled with human atrocities, bloodied bodies, and genocide. If we listen to the voices of the first nations people and the ancestors of slaves, we can hear an honest telling of our history. It is those voices that can offer the wisdom of the past that can help us forge a better future for our nation. If we will listen instead of silence the voices of truth we’d rather ignore.

It is us, we the people, all the people, every voice, who write this ever expanding, ever being rewritten, story of America.

I know that for myself I want the story to be done. I want to get to the end of our story to the happily ever after part. I want to flip the pages and peak at the ending to make sure everything turns out ok. I want to know that in the end all relationships are healed, all characters are made whole again, and the message of hope is secured for all time for everyone. I want to know that this country will be a beacon of freedom for everyone in the coming generations of our children and their children.

Unfortunately, the story of America is a long-complicated novel.

There are villains who are trying to take ownership of our country and our story. A group who wants us all to ignore the reality of the lived experiences of those who have been historically voiceless and left out of the supposed freedom proclaimed over two hundred years ago.

There are those who feel it is their story to tell, they want to own the narrative. These folks want it all. The trees, the land, the paper mill, the printing press, the publishing house, the artist and so on. They want to own the story of America.

As Maya Angelou stated, Still I Rise.

We all need to stand, raise our voices so that the story of America that is being written is one that expresses our deepest desire that all of humanity, each one who calls America home, can live in true freedom and thriving. If we are a nation gathered under the protective umbrella of the Divine, it is the Their wish that all of humanity lives in freedom.

If America is an idea, it is an idea yet to be fully realized. If our founding was based on freedom for all of humankind, it has yet to live up to its founding proclamations that all who call America home can live in true, lived freedom everyday, in every circumstances no matter location, physically and culturally.

America ain’t America yet.

What story do you want to tell?

What America do you want to create?

Our story of America is still being written.

Rest up.

Speak up.

We all have work to do.

We all have a story to tell.  

Every voice matters.