Identity

Unlike most red-blood Americans, I adhere less to the patriotic mantra of “God Bless America” than I do to the Dickensian ideal of “God bless us, every one.”

That does not mean that I’m not proud and immensely grateful to have been born an American citizen. I am, as John Fogerty sings, a “Fortunate Son,” as are we all who call this nation home. What we cannot forget, however, is that none of us who were born and bred here had ANYTHING to do with that.

Whatever you believe; be it God, fate, random order or complete disorder, any one of us could have just as easily been born somewhere else. You can argue that everything has a purpose and every person and thing has a place, and that may be, but neither you nor I had any choice in where or how we came into this world. We could have just as easily opened our eyes the first time to a view of a jungle clearing deep in the Amazon rain forest, or on frozen tundra.

We could have been born in a back room of a densely populated city in India, or a village in war torn Bosnia. We could have been born in a country where a third of the children do not live past the age of five. We could have been born into a life where starvation and disease are as natural as having a cup of morning coffee is to us.

I was blessed to be born in a hospital in the state of Kentucky in the United States of America…and I had two parents who loved me….and a warm, safe home to be raised in. I have to wonder how I deserved that incredible privilege over any other person born that day in any other place in the world.

I have to wonder if I have earned that incredible privilege since.

In a way, I think we are sort of like sports fans who wear their team’s colors as a way of proclaiming their identity. We watch the Tennessee Volunteers or the Kentucky Wildcats play and we yell at the screen, both in celebration and frustration. While most of us have never played college football, we expect perfection from our players, and destruction for their opponents. Meanwhile, the most energy we expel is to get off the couch at half time to re-fill our nacho platter.

We’re full of arrogance when our teams win, as if we had anything to do with it. When they lose, we’re just as quick to turn our backs. The quarterback stinks, the defense is lame, and the coach should be fired. I am as guilty of these things as anyone.

We are the same with America. Most of us are as uninvolved as we are with any spectator sport. We watch from the sidelines. Most don’t even vote.

It’s only when something effects us personally that we get involved. We are dominated by our own selfish motives. We don’t worry much about taxes until ours goes up. We don’t worry about roads until ours are full of potholes. We don’t worry much about healthcare until we lose our job and don’t have insurance.

We recognize the ugliness of poverty, but it’s easy to ignore from the safe bubble of our own modest fortunes. We feel sorry for the have-nots, but we are adamantly opposed to a hand-out.

We are a nation full of folks who solemnly nod and say, “There but for the grace of God,” yet we offer no grace ourselves. While our neighbors are losing their homes in record numbers, we are more concerned with the politics of name-calling and grandstanding, not solutions. You can have a more heated argument today over the right to bear arms than over the right to proper medical care. What does that say about us as a nation? What does that say about our character?

I’ve run through quite the gamut of emotions this year regarding the direction our nation is going. I’ve alternated between anger, denial, frustration, bemusement, disbelief and fear. Like most people, I’m concerned about the economy and unemployment. I worry about the national debt. I am more than a little terrified about the world we may be leaving for our children and grandchildren.

I was cautiously hopeful after the election of Barack Obama. He said things I wanted to hear about change and making the world a better place. Contrary to what many in America seemed to believe, we are not an island unto ourselves. We are a part of a world that has grown increasingly more dependent upon each other.

Regardless of that (and what will eventually boil down to self-preservation), we should be concerned about the citizenry of the world out of basic common decency. It should never be “God Bless America…and no one else.” We must look out for each other, both in our local communities, our states, our country and our planet.

Right now Americans are identified by our incredible selfishness and overwhelming arrogance. We are spoiled little brats who can’t believe we aren’t getting everything we want, because that is what we expect. We have clamped our teeth down hard on the silver spoon in our mouth…and God help anyone who dares to try and remove it.

Is this truly who we want to be? Do we want to be the chest-thumpers who throw tantrums when we don’t get our way? Or do we want to be peacemakers? Do we want to be the ones who take and take until we have no more room to store our treasures, or do we want to be the one who gives with sincere charity in their heart?

What makes a person special is not where they are born. Having the good fortune to be born on American soil only makes the expectations higher. It’s not about being proud to be an American…it’s about making America proud to have you as a citizen.