Life is exhausting these days for lots of us, and I think I’ve figured out why. I think it’s having to sit through the pretending.
You see, it’s bad enough watching over a third of our nation becoming fully indoctrinated into a sycophantic cult of personality of the very worst kind of person, to see once reasonable people abandon any semblance of benevolence toward diverse humanity.
It’s rightly heartbreaking to see those we love so seduced by power, addled by racism, and deluded by tribalism that they’ve declared war on immigrants and, vaccines and gay kids and the electoral process.
And yes, it’s infuriating witnessing tens of millions of Americans having their minds slowly poisoned by Fox News and Franklin Graham to the point they defend a domestic act of terror on our Capitol or take the side of a murderous regime’s genocide or celebrate their neighbors being thrown into concentration camps.
As wearying as all that is, it’s so much worse having them invoke love of God and country in the process.
That’s what makes these days so difficult for so many of us: not merely coming to terms with the beliefs and prejudices and phobias of those we are daily surrounded by here, but having to contend with their constant projection about us and their refusal to simply own who they are. It’s the nonstop, hypocritical, farcical performance art.
Good people are so tired of traitors masquerading as patriots, of the treasonous continually waving the flag, of hateful people peddling a God of love.
They’re tired of human beings with no empathy pretending they care about the sanctity of life, of the loudest prophets of America First having the least regard for so many Americans, of the self-righteous sermonizers defending a predator.
Where are the selflessness, generosity, and hospitality that were supposed to mark the lovers of God and country?
Where are the lives that replicate the embrace of the poor, huddled masses affixed to the foundation of Liberty?
Where are those who emulate the love of disparate neighbors at the heart of the Gospels?
Patriot. Christian. American.
These words have all lost their meaning: words that used to cost something to claim, labels that once came with even a modicum of transformation, and self-identifiers that had previously required a measure of evidence displayed in one’s life.
The flag and the cross that used to hold such meaning to so many of us are now just stolen iconography wielded by the immigrant-hating wall-builders and the violent anti-abortion zealots.
Using these words and wearing these symbols has become more and more difficult for us, as they now align us with the very antithesis of our moral convictions and guiding principles.
People who truly love this country, those who earnestly seek a faith expressed in love, human beings who are burdened to make America worthy of the speeches and anthems—we find ourselves branded heretics and traitors and apostates, forcefully displaced from religion and country by these angry squatters who have taken up residence in them.
True patriots should want all Americans to vote, they should oppose would-be dictators, they should yield to the Constitution, and they should demand a nation that is offered to everyone equally.
Actual followers of Jesus should defend the vulnerable, they should give comfort to the sick, food to the hungry, welcome to the immigrant, and love to the least among us.
And while the masqueraders and pretenders parade around in grand performative acts of love of God and country while willfully betraying both—the rest of us are going to have to fight to hold on to our nation and our religion, and to care for a world that needs desperately authentic people of faith, morality, and conscience who simply live a love that doesn’t need to declare itself loving.
As far as patriotism and faith go, this nation needs the real thing again.
0 comments