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To Be a Nation

Map from Wikipedia
"The Balkans":
Albania                                        Kosovo
Bosnia and Herzegovina             Macedonia
Bulgaria                                       Montenegro
Croatia                                         Romania
Greece                                         Serbia
Italy                                             Slovenia
                                                    Turkey

"Balkanization":  to divide a territory into small, hostile states.


They are families, become clans and tribes, and then states.  They spend a lot of time trying to kill each other.

Once upon another time, I was a Lutheran pastor, in California.  I have often thought and said that some of the best people I have ever known were in that parish.  Our parish began by renting an old Presbyterian church which, at first, we shared with a Seventh Day Adventist congregation.  The Adventists asked us to screen off the altar when they met in the building, on Saturday mornings.  The altar paraphernalia offended them.  Eventually, they went their way, and we ours.  I assume that they thought that some of the best people they had ever known were in their congregation.

The pastor of the Presbyterian church was a nice guy.  He advised me, once, to save 10% of everything I earned, and that someday I would be comfortably rich.  He did not know how little I was being paid, and that I had to cancel my life insurance policy because I could not afford it.

We had a very active association of clergymen (no women).  There were no female pastors or priests.  Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists,  Disciples, Episcopalians.  There were a lot of preachers who preferred not to participate.  They "took issue" with us.

We balkanized the city.  The Lutherans and Baptists, especially, even disagreed with each other.  We divided the territory into small, hostile groups, each of which was comprised of some of the finest people. . . .  You know!

Somehow, nations like ours have found an identity larger than tribes, or religious denominations.  Our constitution specifically states that we may be free to practice almost any kind of religion we wish, but that, as a nation, we will not identify with any of them.  And we are not a tribal nation, either.  We are something larger than that.  We don't appeal to the Old or the New Testament, or to the Koran, and we are not a White Nation, or a Black Nation, or one that requires us to speak only German, or English.  We have a constitution that says who we are.

At least, when we are sensible enough to think about it, that is so.

But today, we are balkanizing ourselves, politically, and religiously, and even demanding that English only be spoken.  We are forming political denominations.  There are people who insist that we must be a Christian nation.  Other people insist that Catholic sexual morality be written into law.  All that crap about Barack Obama being born in Kenya is just anger about a Black man in the White House.  All of us are immigrants, and we are showing hostility toward newer immigrants:  they aren't from Europe, a long time ago.

We are nearly paralyzed, politically, because we cannot say what it is that makes us a nation.  "Leave me alone!", the Libertarians say.  We do not know how to make common cause.  A dismaying number of the people we have elected to public office would rather destroy the nation than cooperate with the people who are not exactly like themselves.  "Damn the Democrats!"  It is something like believing that Catholics, or Mormons, or Unitarians are going to hell, anyway.

Part of it, but only part, is that the economy went to hell in a handbasket a couple of years ago.  People are scared, and scared people often get mean.  But it is more than that.  We need a conversation.  We need to talk about what it is that makes us a nation, and what we must do to achieve that national identity.

That overarching identity, that does not require a single religion, or a white skin, or male dominance.  That tries to find work for almost everyone, and as much education as one can absorb, with health care, and safe streets, and the prospect of a worry-free retirement.

We are a nation.  A nation!










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