Stewarding the American Ideal

A reflection on preserving our country's special distinctives

I watched my first fourth-of-July parade when I was eight years old. It was 1979 and I had only been a full-time resident of the United States for ten months. My parent’s pending divorce had caused us to leave our home (and our dad) in Ontario, Canada and move in with my mom’s folks in West Milton, a small blue-collar town in southwest Ohio. There, from the edge of my grandparent’s front porch, I watched the Independence Day parade march by with all its fanfare and glory and make its way down the main street.

And I loved it!

I loved it all! The fire trucks with flashing lights and whirring sirens, the school band marching in unison to the beat of the drums, the engine roar of classic cars, the kids on bicycles decked out with red, white, and blue streamers, and, of course, the uniformed veterans proudly carrying the Stars and Stripes. If this wasn’t the moment that I fell in love with America, it was close to it.

Even when I was young, I could feel the difference between the country of my birth and that of my new home. When I would travel back to Ontario to see my dad I felt like I was in a place without a clear identity. The images on their money showed honor to England and its royal family, but they weren’t truly British. The area was heavily influenced by its southern neighbor (the U.S.), but the culture wasn’t fully American. And it did not seem to have a defined culture of its own.

America does not have that problem. America has a strong, unmistakable identity that is known around the world. America knows who it is, where it came from, and what it stands for - or at least it did when I was younger.

Today, the country I fell in love with as a boy seems to be losing touch with its distinctives, the things that have drawn eager immigrants to its shores for generations.

I call these distinctives, ideals. They may not be specifically listed in our founding documents, but they are woven deep into the fabric of our storied history. They make this country what it is and its citizens who we are.

We are patriots and pioneers, innovators and inventors, entrepreneurs and explorers. We are a people who lift up the downtrodden, who deliver the oppressed, who defeat evil and alleviate suffering. We lay down our lives, not just for our friends, but for strangers and foreigners and future generations.

We value honor, bravery, sacrifice, faithfulness, hard work, respect, resolve, resilience, fairness, thankfulness, and faith in God. We uphold justice, freedom, and opportunity for all and we work together for the common good.

This is what I’ve understood that it means to be an American.

These American ideals have been refined in the crucible of war, forged in seasons of suffering and hardship, secured by the blood and sweat of those who came before us, and they have been given to us as a priceless gift to steward and faithfully deliver, intact, to the next generation.

We all bear this solemn responsibility.

Some claim that the United States of America will not live to see its 250th birthday. They highlight its imperfections and condemn this ‘great experiment’ to certain failure. I have a much more optimistic view. I still hold dear the American ideals that won me over forty-five years ago. For sure, I lament that they are diminished and downtrodden, overlooked and demonized. I recognize that our country is far from perfect - we have much need for repentance and reformation.

And there are some who exploit and pervert these ideals for personal gain or for evil. But that doesn’t mean that we should throw the Constitution out with the Congressman. The American ideal is worthy of a fight waged valiantly in the ballot box and on the battlefield of ideas; with each small victory guiding our nation further back toward its founding standards.

We should do everything we can in our families and in our communities to uphold these ideals and preserve them for the next generation. There are easy things to do like flying the Stars and Stripes proudly, taking off our hats for the anthem at the ball game, educating ourselves on America’s founding, and standing to honor the soldiers and first responders at the Independence Day parade in your hometown. And, of course, there are more challenging things like serving on local boards and running for office.

The one thing we must not do is give up. For if we do, other (less than ideal) ideologies will rush into the vacuum created by our indifference, leaving an unrecognizable and undesirable nation to our grandchildren’s children.

But, if we are faithful stewards, we’ll leave behind an America where eight year olds feel like the life ahead of them is filled with opportunity, where they’re deeply thankful for their citizenship, and where they’ll grow up to love, embody, and steward the ideals of their great country.