I spent much of my childhood overseas, on or around Air Force bases where my Dad was stationed.
That made for an interesting formation of American identity.
I knew our American-ness determined our placement in foreign locales, but I didn’t really experience that American-ness except as a sense of being “other.”
American in Japan
When I was a little child in Japan, going on a shopping expedition into Tokyo meant attracting admiring attention everywhere because I was a blue-eyed, curly-headed blondie in a sea of folks with straight black hair and brown eyes.
It was a shock to my system when we returned to the States for a brief stint during my kindergarten year: when out and about, I was un-remarked. Un-adored. No more celebrity princess treatment!
American in Holland
In Holland, where we lived for all my elementary school years, I looked similar to the Dutch kids in my neighborhood. But my clothes (from the JCPenney catalogue) and my fluency (in one language only, as opposed to their trilingual norm) set me apart, nonetheless.
There were none of the ego-boosting looks and exclamations of the Japan years; in its place, I received affectionate toleration. The Dutch kids with whom I played made allowances for me, because I was American. In a weird, unspoken way, I was not required to be as smart as they were – my American-ness made up for my ignorance with “cool.”
Throughout my childhood, however, every 4th of July made being American something that mattered.
Wherever we were stationed, the military base would sponsor a Big Thing – fireworks, for sure, but sometimes also country-fair accoutrements, too.
My first pony ride was at a Bicentennial 4th of July event sponsored by Allied Forces Central Europe. I remember that I was eating a chocolate ice cream cone, which dripped into the pony’s mane during our whole plodding circuit. I remember that I was devastated to have wasted the ice cream, and also to have made a mess of my new t-shirt with the Stars and Stripes. (The costs of multi-tasking made a lasting impression on my eight-year-old self.)
That was a bittersweet – but obviously impactful – Independence Day.
As a twenty-two-year-Texan now, I experience Independence Day as an insider.
There are no Japanese fans, Dutch playmates, or British buddies to provide the illumination of contrast for me. I am just one more American, celebrating America.
Just one more American, celebrating America
Thoughts on that:
I am grateful – so grateful! – for the freedoms and privileges that American-ness provides me, daily.
Freedom of speech means I can write this blog without fear of reprisal.
Freedom of worship means I can write my Sunday School lesson for tomorrow with the same confidence.
Teaching one daughter to drive and listening to the other daughter plot her trajectory to the Presidency are privileges of citizenship, too… I think of mothers in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and I am humbled by the casualness with which my girls can assume their equality, their opportunity.
A strange freedom, omnipresent in our time, is Anti-American sentiment articulated by Americans.
Hearing Americans bashing America always makes me reflect on this irony: Freedom in America means freedom to deny the reality of freedom in America.
Recent tragedies at the southern border remind us that people are literally willing to risk their lives for the freedoms some so cavalierly mock.
We may debate the merits of building a wall to keep people out of America, but nobody thinks we need a wall to keep people in.
But Americans are free to speak hatefully about America under the covering of the freedom that protects them as they do. Unique and marvelous, indeed.
So many freedoms. So many freedoms!
There’s an inevitable pivot point for me, though, thinking about these American freedoms and about Independence Day, the quintessential American holiday.
That pivot point comes when I take my eyes off of the Grand Old Flag and direct them to the Cross of Christ.
Turning toward the Cross
Thoughts on that:
Independence ranks as an American virtue… perhaps even THE American virtue.
This nation was founded, we remember every July 4th, with an audacious and singular “declaration” of independence from an older, larger, richer nation.
American heroes from George Washington to John Wayne, from Sojourner Truth to Sally Ride, embody the “do-it-myself / don’t tell me can’t” ethic of self-determinism.
Of independence.
But… Christians are definitively dependent – on Christ.
Christ is not just the template for Christianity, not just the Leader – Christ is the ongoing source and supply.
Christ is the life-blood.
Jesus spells it out in John 15:
Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
(4 – 5)
Abiding, the way Jesus defines it here, constitutes the ultimate dependence:
Branches separated from the vine die; branches abiding in the vine live and bear fruit.
The summary outcome contradicts every declaration of independence a Christian may be tempted to make, because Christians, apart from Jesus, can do NOTHING.
Indeed, Christians, apart from Jesus, ARE nothing.
American + Christian = Privileged Steward
As a Christian who has been blessed by God with American citizenship, I am accountable for the way I steward my American freedoms – my American independence.
Every gift that comes with American citizenship comes to me from God (just like every other gift does).
My exercise of my rights – my voting record – my service to my community – my witness to my neighbors – the Lord will make a reckoning of how I’ve used these gifts from His hand.
Even more significantly, as a Christian I live today with the certainty that America will not last forever, but I will live forever.
Therefore, my citizenship in Heaven is not just more important than my American citizenship, it is infinitely more important.
So… my patriotism should always be flavored with humility, and my national pride should be subservient to my desire to serve in Jesus’s name.
I should interpret events – historic and present-day – through the lens of scripture, not through whatever political prism happens to be fashionable in any given season.
And as I celebrate this 4th of July, I should do so as one who knows herself free – fully and forever.
Happy Independence Day!
And, the blessing of eternal dependence on Christ to you!
