Special

I suppose we should prepare for it. When elections go sour for the left the inevitable sneering voices arise decrying the idea of American greatness. Similarly, when they go sour for the right the doomsayers are always there to proclaim the death of America. One group can see us in the twilight of our greatness, while the other insist it never existed to begin with. The elitists imagine that their ability to see the faults and shortcomings of our founding, our history, and our society somehow proves that they are wiser than the rest of us patriotic fools. Only the enlightened are able to see that we are at best an average country, unremarkable in every way, not great, not even good, not exceptional, not special.

Imagine if you will how this “enlightenment” extends to their friends and families. To their children, I suppose, they are brutally honest about how they are no better than other children, stupid, lazy… worthless. To their wife they would have to reveal that she is fat and unattractive, dull and aging. To their husband, that he is a failure, a loser, a slob, and unsatisfying. Their friends, I imagine, are regularly informed of their faults and their general unworthiness; and their parents are no doubt fully aware of how miserable of a childhood they had provided their children, complete with an exhaustive list of every mistake they had ever made. Surely such unclouded vision cannot but help to see, and expose, the commonness of those around them.

It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but when we refer to a “face that only a mother could love” it becomes evident that recognition of beauty often requires more than the eye of the beholder. Every face that God has made is beautiful, if you have the heart to see it, and yes, sometimes it does take a mother’s heart. If you cannot see it, it is you that are deficient. Every part of the world is a special part of God’s creation, and it is not denigrating to the rest of the Earth to recognize how we here in America are exceptional. As with a mother’s heart, love opens the eyes to see, just as hatred closes them. If you deny America’s greatness because you are so focused on her faults, you are not enlightened; you are blinded.

We continually hear about how low American students perform academically. It seems the only place we regularly score at the top is in “self esteem”. Sure, I chuckled when I heard that. It seems so ironic that we could be having such problems and still feel good about ourselves. But maybe that’s what the American spirit is all about. Lady Liberty implores,

“…Keep ancient lands your storied pomp! …Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

We have done well in the Olympics, we’ve had our share of brilliant inventors, forward thinking industrialists, high minded spiritual leaders, scholars, doctors, courageous soldiers… but these are not the heart of America’s greatness, they are the result of it. America’s greatness is hidden in those words etched in New York harbor. We have always understood that potential exists in the soul of every man or woman. We are not easily discouraged from that confidence. We have self esteem, yes, we believe in ourselves, and we believe in each other, even the wretched refuse, the huddled masses. From these voices our forefathers released the imprisoned lightning and brought forth a new nation beginning with the revealing words “We the people…”.

IMHO: Elections often bring forth bitterness and disappointment, and to be honest they sometimes send us in the wrong direction as a society. Let us not quickly abandon our hope in the light of disappointments. We do the nation no favors to deny her greatness when she momentarily loses her way. No one profits from accusers who condemn; who recognize no past glory, no present goodness, no future promise. People and nations require those who can see something in us that we ourselves sometimes cannot see. We are not blind to the mirror; we know we’ve made mistakes, we don’t need them pointed out to us without ceasing. We have done more good. We are far from a perfect nation as our enemies and a few of our so called “friends” are only too glad to spotlight, there are no perfect nations. We have flaws, we are human. But let not our detractors drag us down, nor crush our spirit; and never let the results of any election cause us to join their ranks in condemning our special nation. We are our future, we are the people, we are America; America, the Beautiful.