{"id":840,"date":"2011-07-04T12:43:07","date_gmt":"2011-07-04T16:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=840"},"modified":"2011-07-04T12:43:07","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T16:43:07","slug":"fireworks-patriotism-the-fourth-of-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/07\/fireworks-patriotism-the-fourth-of-july.html","title":{"rendered":"fireworks, patriotism &amp; the Fourth of July ~"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a shameful confession, for an eco-nut (a friend&#8217;s husband once called me an &#8216;eco-terrorist&#8217; because I&#8217;ve supported Green Peace since the get-go :)). I love fireworks. Yes, they&#8217;re probably horrible for the environment. Yes, they&#8217;re totally ephemeral. (I think of them as a kind of Buddha board art &#8212; see below :)) <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Zen Board - Nicholas Simmons\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zYYEPN-ksDc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But they&#8217;re so lovely &#8212; the perfect dandelions of colour, exploding against the hot summer sky. The neon colours that almost defy naming &#8212; sear and tang and bright and fire :). <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2011\/07\/fireworks1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-850\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2011\/07\/fireworks1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>And while I know <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fireworks\" target=\"_blank\">the origins of fireworks<\/a> &#8212;\u00a0 Chinese through &amp; through; they still dominate the business &#8212; they seem quintessentially American to me. A fitting celebration of the country&#8217;s birth. Pyrotechnics, colour, loud noise and beauty that goes up in smoke :).<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the entire idea of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/07\/01\/july-4-republicans-harvard_n_888659.html\">July 4<\/a> celebrations has become a politicized issue, research shows. Republicans see themselves as &#8216;more patriotic,&#8217; and flag-waving is the way to show it. <\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t mean that to sound unpatriotic or cynical. Much of my life has been spent outside the US and I have always been glad to be able to &#8216;come home.&#8217; When we had other options, my husband &amp; I made the choice to return to the USA to bring up our two sons. We didn&#8217;t want them to be, as I am in many ways, expat brats :). We wanted them to be firmly rooted in America, with all its complexities.<\/p>\n<p>As the Fourth looms, I wonder why we define patriotism so narrowly. A neighbour flies a large American flag, but brags about stiffing the nursing homes where he does medical care. I doubt George Washington would find that laudable. A family member truly believes that only Christians should be allowed to vote. That lets out <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jefferson_Bible\">Thomas Jefferson,<\/a> a deist but not a Christian. Another advocates mandatory birth control for welfare recipients. None of these seem to me to resonate w\/ what I think <a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2011\/07\/we-the-people.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-855\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/239\/2011\/07\/we-the-people.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"141\" height=\"94\" \/><\/a>of as real American virtues: hard work for fair wages, a reasonable profit for quality goods, freedom of religion and freedom from governmental mandates. Ironically, the more people I know tout &#8216;patriotism,&#8217; the more likely they are to limit American rights to people who look and act and believe as they do.<\/p>\n<p>So I offer you my ultimate American patriotic icon: the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States_Bill_of_Rights\" target=\"_blank\">Bill of Rights<\/a>. Freedom of religion, freedom of press, due process&#8230; For me, that&#8217;s what it&#8217;s all about: I may not agree w\/ what you do w\/ your rights, but I will celebrate them joyfully with you this hot Oklahoma Monday. After all, three generations of my family have fought to uphold them&#8230;:) So celebrate our glorious right to disagree ~ Happy Fourth!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a shameful confession, for an eco-nut (a friend&#8217;s husband once called me an &#8216;eco-terrorist&#8217; because I&#8217;ve supported Green Peace since the get-go :)). I love fireworks. Yes, they&#8217;re probably horrible for the environment. Yes, they&#8217;re totally ephemeral. (I think of them as a kind of Buddha board art &#8212; see below :)) But they&#8217;re&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,52],"tags":[11,93,1181,94],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-of-religion","category-freedom-of-speech","tag-beginners-heart","tag-bill-of-rights","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-july-4"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>fireworks, patriotism &amp; the Fourth of July ~ - Beginner&#039;s Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It&#039;s a shameful confession, for an eco-nut (a friend&#039;s husband once called me an &#039;eco-terrorist&#039; because I&#039;ve supported Green Peace since the get-go :)).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/07\/fireworks-patriotism-the-fourth-of-july.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"fireworks, patriotism &amp; 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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