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Image credit: Independence Day, Andrew Wyeth, shamelessly pinched from here.
The first post-Roe Independence Day, and I'm feeling more hopeful than I have in a while. Not optimistic, mind you, but hopeful! If that great and wicked spell can be broken, so can others.
I'm not sure why I'm telling you this because I don't expect anyone to understand, but yesterday at Mass, our genuinely beautiful choir sang America the Beautiful as one of the post-communion hymns. As I've confessed previously, I can't sing that song, especially the later verses, without tearing up, so when it happened it didn't take me by surprise.
But I was completely overcome with unexpected weeping when we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic as our recessional hymn. I'm not positive this meaning was intended (though knowing the choir director I think it was), but it felt like a comment on the Dobbs decision, and in an instant, every bit of joy at finally attaining the long-awaited destruction of that wicked legal fiction, every bittersweet memory of all the heroes of the movement who didn't live to see the day, all the sense of alienation from pastors and erstwhile pro-lifers who couldn't muster a bit of happiness or gratitude for the decision came pouring out. I couldn't stop. It was embarrassing! But cathartic.
But I was completely overcome with unexpected weeping when we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic as our recessional hymn. I'm not positive this meaning was intended (though knowing the choir director I think it was), but it felt like a comment on the Dobbs decision, and in an instant, every bit of joy at finally attaining the long-awaited destruction of that wicked legal fiction, every bittersweet memory of all the heroes of the movement who didn't live to see the day, all the sense of alienation from pastors and erstwhile pro-lifers who couldn't muster a bit of happiness or gratitude for the decision came pouring out. I couldn't stop. It was embarrassing! But cathartic.
Spent yesterday with some old political philosophers and patriots in a small town on the water where they had a great parade and fireworks, and that was also good for the soul.
For your Independence Day reading:
For your Independence Day reading:
Patriotism as A Virtue. "John Adams calls us to celebrate our country by prayer, parades, and pyrotechnics. I’m with Adams."
My now-perennial posting of Peter Schramm's Born American, but in the Wrong Place.
Oh, and: the first tomato of summer! Just a cherry tomato, but the promise of things to come!
