I will be putting up my flag today, as I usually do on major holidays (if it’s not raining). I’m weird this way. Memorial Day is not Veterans Day, nor is it Armed Forces Day. Those are something different. This is a remembrance of those who paid the ultimate price. Those who know me, though, should know that I pray that God blesses America…and Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola…to Zimbabwe. I don’t believe in American exceptionalism, even though I love this country and appreciate the advantages of living here. The old saw, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a cross,” may be apocryphal in its origins, but it is also a statement of real fear. But this is something that predates this century. As a kid, the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” stirred me, and now it makes me cringe. Religious militarism is even more distasteful than the two components separated, it seems to me. 

We remember those who have died protecting our freedoms, but also remember that war is never the first option. We must remember that powers we cannot conceive endorse violence as solutions to world problems, while peace is the ideal. Reconciliation, love, understanding, championing the oppressed, compassion: those things should be our goals as Americans. We deceive ourselves when we become convinced that all our wars are in the name of justice.

“The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.” ~ William Sloane Coffin