A Thought and a Prayer

for America250

A Thought

I woke up this morning thinking about the Pledge of Allegiance. I don’t know why. I’m not sure when I last said the Pledge. Still, as I sat still on my yoga mat, the last line kept running through my head: “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

This part of the pledge has always bothered me—legally, civically, and theologically. Legally, “indivisible” is inaccurate. We were designed to divide powers so they cannot be consolidated and abused. Civically, “one nation” is off. The word “nation” connotes shared culture, creed, or tribe. We’re a country built of laws, not shared backgrounds. And theologically…oof.

I think I believe both that God is in all things and that God is deeply disinterested in borders and governments.

I think I believe that I can participate in the wholeness of God and in the specificity of nations, laws, and cultures. I think that, at its best, that specificity can bring about greater wholeness for all beings, everywhere.

But I don’t really know.

I’m celebrating America250 and Independence Day from this place of real admiration for the American project and true identification with it. This is my place, where my people live, with laws that I believe imperfectly but progressively bring about greater equality through liberty. In that respect, I can say “God bless America” and mean it.

But in a deeper way, I believe that God blesses America no more or less than the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thailand, Venezuela, Iceland, Mars or anywhere else.

This has always confused me, the way that God, as I understand God, is wholeness and also loves variety. But that is what I understand about God. So, this week, I’m embracing my specificity with baseball, fireworks, apple pie, and barbecue. And I’m praying for wholeness for all people, in all places, for all time.

A Prayer

Let me love the world as the one who created it loves it

Let my ears hear music in all languages

Let my eyes see art in all forms

Let me experience difference not as a rejection but as an embrace of this rich life

In a vast universe of emptiness, let me love the vitality that surrounds me here