In my earliest memories of July 4th, I am waking up with a sense of excitement that today is a bit like Christmas. Something special is going to happen. Unlike Christmas, this something special is happening to our neighborhood, our community. At some point, our family will walk to the end of the street with our neighbors and soon a parade of floats and scouts and bands will march past. Candy is flying through the air.
As the final float passes by, our family and our neighbors join in the procession that marches down to the heart of the town. It was a small town in New Jersey with a large Jewish community. So large in fact, that two days a week buses lined up outside of school to take most of the students to Hebrew lessons. The rest of us stayed behind and learned other languages like French. I forgot the language but remember the bonbons.
That detail was important because as we gathered in the middle of town, we weren’t divided by faith or race or political stripe. It was a mixture of cultures and people, gathering to picnic, play games, hear music, watch a movie, and even see fireworks. As a child, July 4th was about family and community and picnicking and playing. We waved the flag and stood for the anthem, but this all stood for something about the underlying bond between us and our neighbors. This bond was bigger than the ethnicities and political issues exploding in the 60s. I was too young to understand the arguments at work in the culture, but I was not too young to value the joy of gathering with the community. Yes, there was a distant memory behind this gathering of the founding of the nation, but for me it was a celebration of the people I could see around me.
As I remember these simple events today, I am thinking about the gift of that little town and those people who vanished from my memory when we moved away. Somehow thinking of that little town today in light of July 4th, seems to be tied with the wonder of being born. GK Chesterton writes, “The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap… When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.”
At any point in history, people are born into a world plagued with pain and struggle but also wonder and light. Celebrating this national holiday for me is like celebrating my birthday, my family, my town, my nation. In each of those areas, there are problems and challenges, and yet this is wonder, potential for love, the gift of life, and the opportunity to give back to family, to town, and to nation. I remember the historical moment and forming a statement of belief, of intent in the words of the Declaration of Independence, but I also remember how this moment is bound up with smaller moments, smaller places, and smaller groups of people who learn to relate as friend, as neighbor, as fellow American. I would hope that I might celebrate the larger vision while honoring a smaller path: that I might be a blessing to my neighbor, my fellow citizen, and that together, we might be a blessing to the world.
