Today has been Independence Day. I started out with no fixed plan for what I would do in the evening, when the time came for festivities, but I did go help Leigh pack up most of what stuff remained in her condo, so that she and Dalton could move it easily when they came for it. Sarah B. was there, as was Katie, who was the happiest moving-out roommate I have seen. It was probably because she 1)has a nice living situation lined up and 2)is a very sweet and helpful person anyway. The four of us worked on it a while, Leigh and I went to coffee, and then I stopped by her new place where she’s moved in with Dalton and the boys since the wedding. Came home for a little while and then headed over to Gasworks, to wait with Sara J, the Blomburgs & co. for the show at 10. They’d gotten there around 3 I think, and so had a pretty good spot, near the top of the hill facing the water. We hung out and chilled for about 5 hours, saw people, ate, read, whatever. The proceedings finally started at 10 o’clock.

There was the national anthem sung by a very impressive soprano, and then the flag was flown by, hung from a military helicopter around lake Union, with a spotlight on it from the top of our hill. They had introduced it “to the music of Ray Charles” which caused me and Sara to look at each other somewhat askance; I said “—and they will be throwing apple pies!” But what he was singing was America The Beautiful, begun on a later and less-often heard verse. The shadow of the flag was immense on the background behind it, of trees and hotels.

Now, we had been walking around gasworks seeing people and their outfits and preferences and behavior, for several hours before this. Those of us who were brought up “decently” and who then went to collage and there received a dose of snobbery can sometimes have a hard time in crowds. Sara had said to me, while we strolled, “Who can be unhappy on Independence Day??” I said something tactful and non-committal, instead of providing the answer, “Me.” In spite of what I had just said to her, that it was wonderful how everyone there had friends, and that everywhere we looked we saw People Together, that everyone here was liked by someone else here, I was not happy myself. What did we know about Independence Day? We were the unwashed masses wandering around eating corn on the cob and listening to top 40’s hits on a day off from work. Normally I would have been on Capital Hill on a Tuesday. I see all the unhappy, angry bumper stickers, the band posters, the angry political signs, and I don’t love America. I am embarrassed to be associated with the red states, and consider the blue sections to be misguided and angry. I pretty much cringe at all messages, keep my head down and my mouth shut, and hope that nobody else in the military proves how far our honor has fallen since the 40’s by killing any other innocent people in more gruesome ways.

“—who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life!” Sara is singing along. “Mercy?” I ask her. She nods. I hadn’t thought that that was the word there.

I would love America, but I would be afraid to tell anyone that I did. To say that, I would have to follow up either with a painfully tactless country song about killing terrorists, or by saying “but that’s why I voted for Kerry.” Those were the options.

The huge flag is being flown around Lake Union. Ray Charles sings, “God mend thy every flaw!”

On my breaks from work I read on-line back issues of Credenda Agenda; the Christian Reformed Evangelical position seems to be a post-millennial one. Far from being (as I’d thought) a large word that meant “we will argue hatefully with people about the endtimes” (see also pre-millennial, pre-trib, post-trib, etc), it actually means that God will eventually have His kingdom on this earth, which means that he will win, which means that no, things are not doomed and yes we should work on saving it. It means that the environment is not a lost cause, that politicians can’t actually destroy the world, and all kinds of other hopeful things. Reading this magazine, I have been confronted with this idea and it has been new to me.

I am standing in the twilight with the unwashed masses. “May God thy gold refine.” “Oh”, I think, “this means He actually can and will!!” This idea, that America might actually be save-able, hits me pretty hard. I had had my hand on my heart; now my fingers are over my mouth. He could save it, Seattle might not be doomed, these people might all someday know Him, imagine if this were possible, look at it as if it might happen; suppose God saved America? I am looking at the richly colored flag, and I’m beginning to cry. When I lose hope it is quietly, sometimes gracefully, but when it comes back it hits me hard. Suppose God really were to refine us? Suppose we were saved? That it was safe to love America, because we aren’t only misguided megalomaniacs (even those of us who complain about the misguided megalomaniacs), but would clean up, rise again, and stand for what we used to? It might not be that we are saved, even, but that in the end things actually will work out, well, in this world and on this earth. Imagine that, Natalie.

The flag is flying towards us, the shadow thin against the trees instead of a black rectangle, and I’ve un-tucked my hair from behind my ears so that my face won’t show, because I am crying. The people around me are all cheering. Ray is singing the first verse, the one that we all know. I do love this country. It might even be safe to, because we might be worth saving.