Memorial Day
Lincoln at Gettysburg.
There is no better way to honor Memorial Day than to reread the address that President Lincoln gave at Gettysburg.
He did not belittle the ultimate sacrifice of those who died on the plains of Gettysburg. It is a debt that none can pay. He said, though, that we can honor their deaths by serving our country.
He asked for “dedication.” A commitment to that “for which they gave their lives.” We do no honor to their memory by scribbling social media attacks. Posting yard signs. Or weaponizing our society. That is not dedication. That is not who we are.
To fight for freedom in our time means to do the hard work of citizenship. We need to work at understanding the complex issues that face our government, show understanding and compassion for those who disagree with us, and work and vote for people who in our judgment will be able to meet the challenges of today's world.
The task “remaining before us,” is nothing less than the survival of a nation that still, even in this time of conflict and bitterness, seeks to become “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We are bound to each other; we are brother and sister through the sacrifice of those who fought and died for the belief that all are equal.
Their sacrifice demands of us “a new birth of freedom.”
But what are we offering them? Mean spirited attacks? Dated and lazy conventional thinking? Self-satisfying nationalism? Self-importance and gated separations? Growing inequality?
I was taught in elementary school to change the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In the 1860s they sang we shall “die to make men free.” At my school we sang “we shall live to make men free.”