The Semiquincentennial - America at 250

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A week or so ago, Scout and I were walking through a campground at Winton Lake and we saw a flag planted in the ground near one RV that said, “America - Freedom for 250 years!” As I saw that, my immediate thought was “yes…for some, but not for all.” But the promise of freedom is part of the promise of what America was to be and still can be - a nation founded on these 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 is the promise of America from 250 years ago but it is not a promise that has been lived out fully in those 250 years. We have taken some steps towards that and we have also taken steps back. In reflecting on these 250 years, I went through my image libraries and looked up all the images of the American flag that I have photographed. As I looked all of these together, what I saw was how these flags represent many things in our history - things to be proud of and things for which we still need to repent. Things that we are doing well and things we need to change. They speak to how I have and do feel about my country. They reflect the fact that I (and all of us) can hold multiple feelings together at the same time.

These are photographed from places as diverse as the heart of Washington DC, sites of remembrance and honor, a sunset boat ride off Hilton Head, SC, a small cemetery in northern Kentucky, a riverboat on the Ohio River, a small pond near my father-in-law’s home, a church cemetery in Cincinnati, and a North Carolina beach. And, acknowledging the oddness that America can be, one was photographed right outside an Elvis-themed AirBNB near Louisville, KY.

Some of the flags look to be in pristine condition while others look far more ragged (notably the one on the ground at the cemetery in northern Kentucky at the end). Some were the subject of the photo while others were more in the background. They were photographed during the presidential terms of George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.

I am grateful for all that this country has given to me but I also long for us to fully live up to the promise our framers wrote — so that a future flag planted at a campsite can say “freedom for all” and mean it.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

A Few Programming Notes

• Just a reminder back to what I shared in my last few posts - if you have a photo blessing you would like me to share with someone, send me a direct message and we’ll be in touch with how to make it happen.

• In July, MaryAnn and I will be doing two Pop Culture Pastor Hour podcasts - both tied to the release of Christopher Nolan’s telling of The Odyssey. The first will be on July 15th - Origin Stories and Epic Tales and the second will be in late July after we’ve both seen the movie.

Finally, Scout when we were in DC…