July 4th, I suppose that’s the time to offer thoughts on the 250th birthday of the United States. It seems that’s what people do.

Well, let’s just start with saying that I’ve been an activist in some way all of my adult life. Recently, I was looking back at some of my writing as a teenager in the 1980’s and found that I was already getting active and voicing my thoughts on quite a bit. So, I suppose that I could say that my activism goes back even further. I don’t know how relevant that is in the moment other than to say that I’ve always cared and always questioned.

It all goes back to a pair of Chucks. You all who grew up with Chuck Taylor hightops may remember that not only were they super cool shoes, but they were also a place to make a statement. Maybe they still are, but these days I go for shoes with a bit more arch support. Anyway, my shoes were covered with my artistic creations, most notably a peace symbol and the word peace. It spoke to who I was and who I am. I believe that acting in peace encourages peace, acting in hate and war only brings more hate and war.

A quick search tells me that if we look at peace in the US, we’ll find over 80 years in which we weren’t engaged in any formally declared war. Then if we look a little deeper, we’ll find that the longest time in whch we weren’t engaged in conflict or combat was only 5 years and well, at that time we were pretty internally focused trying to simply get people fed and homed here as it was from 1935 to 1940. However, if I think on it a bit more I question even if we could say we were at peace at that time or any of the other shorter interludes in which we weren’t at war. I’m guessing that many of the People of Color, those with disabilities, women, and members of the LGBTQ community, and labor would suggest that we weren’t fully at peace. We were just aiming the guns, both real and symbolic, inward.

So, what am I thinking on this July 4th? It’s time to change our thinking and time to change our response, both individually and as a community. It does us nothing to act with hate. We must look at those with whom we disagree and see where they are coming from, recognize their humanity even when it seems hidden behind their own hate-filled acts. As the Quakers might say, it’s time to take those feelings and that anger and “hold it in the light.”

I don’t know if peace is ever possible within our personal relationships, within our country, much less within the world, but I can see what war and hate has done and not want that for the future. Who will we be in the year 2276? We are creating that time today in our thoughts and and actions. I hope that we are creating that space in our most beautiful dreams.