One unique feature of my particular personality type is the ability to see both sides of most situations and conflicts. It is a blessing and a curse.
I’ve been processing thoughts and feelings and words about the the American flag and the National Anthem for maybe a year or more. I don’t even know if the controversy is still as front and center as it once was, but I know it still stings and divides from time to time. Honestly, I haven’t thought about it for a while. That’s part of my privilege I guess. I don’t have to think about issues of race and bigotry if I don’t want to.
So I was surprised at a recent reaction I had about the flag and the national anthem. It happened at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the place that inspired the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner.
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A few dozen people milled around on the lawn inside of Fort McHenry waiting for the flag changing ceremony. As we had approached the fort minutes earlier, a small flag flew over the fort, and I kind of wondered what the big deal was about this ceremony. During the ranger’s presentation, I learned that Fort McHenry is the only shrine in the National Parks system, and that word holds meaning. It is a sacred site, then. It was as if we were standing on holy ground.
Let me be clear that I do not worship the flag nor our country. That shouldn’t feel like a shocking statement but I fear someone will take it as an offensive one. Worship, in my life, is reserved for a Higher Power and even then, the word often makes me uncomfortable.
But the word “shrine” helped me appreciate what was happening. The ranger vividly recounted the events that led to Fort McHenry being such an important landmark in our nation, and toward the end of his presentation, he said, “That is why we stand for the National Anthem.” I bristled because I know that this, too, is a point of controversy and contention. Some people do not stand for the flag, and I can understand why. I don’t believe in blind or forced allegiance to anyone or anything. But his words did not feel like propaganda or manipulation.
Then he asked us all to participate. We arranged ourselves in a loose rectangle and as he unfolded the flag, he asked us all to grab on as soon as we had a place to hold it because we didn’t want the flag touching the ground. It was a holy moment, akin to communion, as I stood shoulder to shoulder and across from strangers who no doubt had different life views, political affiliations and voting records from me. As we stretched the flag to its full size–I don’t remember the dimensions and this photo of it flying doesn’t do it justice–I gripped the blue material tighter, unwilling to be the one to drop the flag.
A couple of rangers and a couple of active-duty military helped with the raising of the flag. The ranger told us to hang on to the flag as long as we could but to let go when it pulled up and away. Because I was holding at the top of the flag, it yanked out of my hands pretty quickly, but as I watched this symbol rise to the top of the pole, I felt tears in the corners of my eyes. It was a moving moment to participate in the raising of a flag on the site where our national anthem was born.
The moment was made more powerful by the realization that it took all of us to raise that flag.
A larger group could have helped raised the site’s largest flag, but a smaller group would not have been sufficient for this one. We all had a hand in it, literally.
It was the second time this summer I cried at a national park site. Maybe this is just what I’m going to do now.
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It takes all of us.
That is my takeaway from this visit. It takes all of us who call ourselves Americans to make this country rise to its potential. I know this is more complicated than it sounds. I know that it isn’t that easy when there is so much division. I know that my own heart can be divided and hardened by all the shouting and finger pointing and noise.
I was grateful, then, to visit the source of our national anthem’s and flag’s history. The closer to the source, the more truth can be found. For instance, when he wrote “and the home of the brave,” Francis Scott Key was thinking of the ordinary citizens of Baltimore who bravely defended their city from British attack, as well as the soldiers who fought from inside the fort.
When we sing the words today, I feel like we attribute them to the men and women in uniform, past and present, who have fought for our country in places around the world. Could “the home of the brave” also include those who fight for justice and equality on their home turf?
Some things can only be learned by going straight to the source.
This display within the fort also caught my attention.
During the Civil War, the American flag represented opposing ideals depending on your worldview. To the Southerners, it was a symbol of tyranny. To the slaves, it was symbol of freedom. Could not the same be said today, that the flag means different things to different people? When I think the problems we face today are new, I’m relieved in a way to be reminded that they are as old as the country itself.
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I have complicated feelings about my country and its symbols, and with words like “traitor,” “patriot” and “nationalist” fired like cannonballs these days, I’m not sure I can adequately explain what I mean. But I’ll try.
I love my country like I love my children or my favorite sports team–with a full range of emotions and with understanding that some things are out of my control. To love my country unconditionally is not to love it blindly. I can be disappointed, sad and angry about the choices we make as a nation, just as I would a child who is choosing a destructive path, and hope for better days, just as I would a struggling sports team. (I’m a lifelong Cubs’ fan, for crying out loud. I never thought about not being one, even when watching a baseball game was painful and hopeless.)
Love shows itself in different ways. Sometimes it’s in the fight for justice. Sometimes it’s in the tears shed in remembrance. Sometimes it’s in the salute. Sometimes it’s in the kneeling.
Sometimes we have to look a little harder to find it.
Is it possible we can love our country in ways that feel foreign to others?
“O say, can you see …”
