Shall We Overcome? Someday.
Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.
When people ask me what I do for a living I tell them that I am in the hope business. I usually follow that up with that I am in the love-your-neighbor business, too.
It’s easier and less confusing than telling people that I am a priest. Having been ordained an Episcopal priest in 1994, being a woman and not wearing black cassocks or clerical collars, I do not look the stereo-typical part. And along with this, being bipolar, having scaled and tumbled down a few mountains, I have not climbed the ecclesiastical ladder as others have. In these thirty-one years, I’ve reinvented myself and my ministry numerous times.
Little deaths followed by little resurrections.
True too of this nation of ours. Right? These are bipolar times. Death blows followed by redemption.
This July 4th there has been a death. A death of our American hopes and dreams. A death to what many of us grew up to believe were the bedrock values declared in the Declaration of Independence. Was it ever really real? I am no Pollyanna but I choose to believe that though far from perfect, we were always at least trying and striving to become “a more perfect union.” But one can project onto that phrase whatever one wants. It easily loses all its meaning.
Let’s return to Thomas Jefferson’s 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—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
The War of Independence birthed the United States.
The Civil War gave rise to the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Great War ended with the 19th amendment.
World War II banished the Third Reich.
The Jim Crow Era fueled the Civil Rights movement.
The Vietnam War incited protests for peace and demonstrations for human rights.
The counter-cultural years gave rise to the fight for LGBTQ and women’s rights.
Resurrection only happens after a death. Grief is a necessary predecessor to generational change.
Today I am grieving and very likely so are many of you. In the past six months I have sent 105 emails, made 140 calls, and sent God knows how many postcards and snail mail letters to congress.
Quite frankly after the passage of the Big UGLY Bill yesterday, all of the above feels like spitting into the wind.
17 million will be thrown off Medicaid and ACA
Millions of families, veterans, seniors, and school children will lose food assistance
ICE, with 160 billion additional dollars, will become the largest law enforcement agency in the country
It feels utterly hopeless. The bastards want to declare victory. Sacrilegiously those who passed this immoral bill cheered and celebrated on the floor of congress. Like devils dancing on the graves of their constituents.
My gut tells me to wave the white flag and surrender. I feel exhausted, deflated, defeated. But that’s the cowardly way out. Can we still possibly sing “We shall overcome”? I feel like we can when we add the word “someday.” What brought us to this juncture took decades. It will not be overcome in a day, a month, a year, or possibly even decades to come.
So, let me close with some encouragement, a little realistic hope — beautifully voiced in this lament for Independence Day written by Rev. Benjamin R. Cremer.
Grief Is a Form of Patriotism, Too: A Fourth of July Reflection.
Today, some of us won’t be waving flags or watching fireworks.
Not because we hate our country, but because we love it too much to pretend everything is fine.
Grief is a form of patriotism, too.
Lament is an honest form of love.
When we see the powerful wield their influence to harm the poor, when policies are passed that will strip people of healthcare, housing, safety, and dignity, when cruelty is packaged as strength and injustice paraded as victory, our hearts break. And that heartbreak is holy.
We mourn because we believe this country can be better.
We lament because we believe the words “liberty and justice for all” should mean something.
We grieve not because we’ve given up,
but because we still care.
True patriotism isn’t celebration without conscience.
It’s holding our nation accountable to its highest ideals. It’s refusing to settle for freedom for the few while millions are pushed aside, unheard, and unseen.
It’s praying, protesting, speaking, and serving
until justice is no longer the exception, but the norm.
So if today you feel more like weeping than cheering, you are not alone.
There is room at the table of hope for tears, too.
Because our grief is rooted in love.
Because we still believe in a freedom that includes everyone.
And that is its own kind of celebration.
Amen, right? Amen.
P.S. Listen here to the Morehouse College Glee Club sing “We shall overcome.”
