Let Us Be Patriots - Voices of MWEG

patriot - Mormon Women for Ethical Government

There are visionary ideas that have become symbolic beacons to the American people, directing our gaze toward higher planes, helping to define us while at the same time chiding us to do and be better than we are. Think about the Constitution, the creation and purchase of the Statue of Liberty, the Emancipation Proclamation, “I Have a Dream,” and even the first public library. Embedded in each of these landmark moments was one inspired individual with an idea that would ultimately create an outsized impact, far exceeding anything they could have conjured in their wildest dreams.

While I’m no historian, I imagine few would argue against the Declaration of Independence topping this list. Abraham Lincoln called it “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression,” and it continues to inspire us to fight for freedom and equality with its infamous words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

In light of recent events, the idea that “All men are created equal” clearly remains ahead of its time. Both our understanding and definition of equality, and to whom it refers and in what circumstance, protected by what law and which policy, has been an ever-evolving and painfully expanding process throughout our nation’s history. This long march has been fueled by revolutions and resolutions, human trafficking and human rights, protests and probes, riots and rallies, murders and movements, beatings and martyrs, rapes and “me too’s,” hate crimes and love without boundaries, oppression and liberation, shootings and rescues, attacks and memorials, landmark Supreme Court judgments and perversions of law and order.

Yet over time, we have seen proof that Martin Luther King Jr. was right when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I too believe the broadest swath of voices has and will increasingly rise up against tyranny and injustice and stand for truth and equality, and this, as it always has, will lead us along the messy American paradox to a better version of ourselves. We are seeing hopeful signs of this today as protests erupt across our country. But a protest, albeit critical, is just the beginning. Adventurer Beryl Markham reminds us, “If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.”

As we simultaneously recoil from the triple blows of a global pandemic, a cataclysmic economic recession, and a political system that is failing us, we find ourselves face to face with what is possibly the greatest threat of all: deepening chasms that are further dividing “we the people” along a multitude of lines, lines often drawn in colors of blue, red, black, white, rainbow, green, and pink. In this context, one wonders what we really mean when we say that “all men are created equal”?

A Jewish rabbi named Abraham Joshua Heschel shed some light on this question when he said, “The human is a disclosure of the divine, and all men are one in God’s care for man. Many things on earth are precious, some are holy, humanity is holy of holies.” To me, this idea captures the essence of equality: That in the grand checkout line, we are all worth the same infinitesimal amount. It’s a game-changing vision. But for those of us far from the checkout counter who are just trying to figure out what’s for dinner, the challenge comes in figuring out how to activate this in daily life.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson gives us a clue. She said, “At this crazy, frightening, chaotic moment, it is possible to reach across old lines and create new alliances, to reemphasize that most Americans really do share the same values of economic fairness and equality before the law, and to rebuild a ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’. The old world is certainly dying, but the shape of the new world struggling to be born is not yet determined.”

For many of us, particularly white Americans who stand as allies to our Black brothers and sisters, we wonder how we can better live this ideal moving forward. Adding to the wise voices of many others, might I suggest a next step. Let us each take a fresh look at our circles of influence — our friends, our committees, our workplaces, our schools, our kids’ playdates, our neighborhoods, our police force, our town administrators, our housing authorities, the places where we spend or donate our money, our church communities, our senators and our legislators — and start a conversation. Does the diversity and reverence thereof in these circles reflect your vision of who we are and who we hope to become? If not, do what we Americans do best — come up with an idea to change it.

In his book, “What Unites Us,” Dan Rather said, “We are a nation not only of dreamers, but also of fixers. We have looked at our land and said time and time again this is not good enough. We can do better.” To me, this is the stuff of a patriot. May we seize this rare moment, when it seems that the American ideal is up for grabs, and become true patriots, defining our new world by reaching across the stale old lines in our lives that have kept us from seeing what has been there all along: that we are all, each one of us —and our nation, too — better when we stand shoulder to shoulder, linked by the unbreakable bond of holiness that we call humanity. And may our ideas mingle together, transformed by powers unseen, to shape and color our new America.