Which, after one more long slog should mean independence from the car. As in, we get to get out of the car and then not get back in it for a really long time. Walking. That’s what we’ll take up. We’ll walk whole steps and not get back in the car.
Thought a little bit about the idea of Independence as we passed one town after another, the highways joining themselves seamlessly together, the voice of GPS Siri retreating into a baffled silence when I failed to do her will. This is a huge country, vast, as some have noticed. It stretches from sea to shining sea. If you came and you couldn’t make a go of if on your own, way back when, you were very likely done for. You had to survive the winter and the summer and other people.
But Independence isn’t exactly a Christian value. The Can Do spirit (which is actually the name of a town in North Dakota–Cando) can’t ever take you into the arms of Jesus, to whom we are called to say, “I can’t do it” and “I need you”. The real miracle is when any single one of us, even for a minute, stops being independent from God.
What’s so charming to me, as I consider American Independence, is that at the bottom of the document that rends America asunder from Brexit, sorry, Britain, there are the names of ordinary men who joined themselves irrevocably together, pledging their lives and their honor. Independence on one side, Union on the other.
To celebrate this important day we will climb back in the car and drive another nine hours. But at the end there awaits us the dogs, the angry cats, friends, the garden, useful and interesting work, and……a new house. But I’ll say more about that tomorrow.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In