We will be marking the 4th of July quietly this week, camping up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Hopefully we’ll get a break from the week’s murderous heat wave, do a little bit of hiking perhaps, take a drive up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and perhaps watch the sunset from the summit of Stone Mountain.  (I mean the REAL stone mountain here in North Carolina, not that confederate blasphemy just east of Atlanta.)

There’s one thing we will NOT be doing later this week:  We won’t be participating in the ongoing nonsense of proving our patriotism by… flying more (or larger) flags than anyone else, parroting the ever-increasing hate speech coming out of Washington anymore, where the only way to “prove” you are a good, Patriotic American is to show how you hate every thing outside the cultic boundaries of the MAGA universe, or succumbing to the ludicrous notion that the only way to be truly “American” anymore is by swallowing whole whatever the Republican party and Donald Trump are selling us at any given moment.  (Which, it should be noted, no one can really keep track of without a score card since it changes with almost every news cycle.)  And of course, undoubtedly, there will some of the same, shrill voices, picking up the by now monotonous refrain yet again – that since I’m one of those “Libs” that are “ruining OUR country” then I cannot, must not be, never was a “true” American.

Which kind of reinforces the thoughts I had a few years back when I put together this slide show to Ken Medema’s powerful song, “I See America.”  It’s a repost, but one I think perhaps appropriate to help us keep a proper, truly “patriotic” perspective on America as we celebrate Independence Day.   Wanna show you love America as much as others do?  Then show American love – not the hate that’s become some kind of new, pernicious, and ugly normal.  Once upon a time we were better than this.  Here’s hoping we can be that again.

Happy, safe, and blessed 4th everyone.