What Love of Country Means to Me by Jenn Webb
Maybe it’s just me, but as a child of the 80s, patriotism felt easy. It was the era of Reagan and the Brat Pack, the dying gasp of the Cold War, and the superiority of NASA. Life was still American Pie even in the feral underpinnings of the Gen X latchkey kids. Our grandparents came from the age of Americana. Our parents survived their own tumultuous childhoods of the 60s and 70s and rolled right into “God Bless the USA.” (Sorry, I’ll need a moment as I let my tears flow “across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea”)
My veteran-heavy family and my elementary teachers all instilled me a great love for the Founding Fathers (hello to my first literary movie crush, Johnny Tremaine), Abraham Lincoln, and the Rev. Dr. King Jr., and the superhuman sacrifices they made to give us the freedom we enjoyed. There was nowhere else like America! We were the greatest country on earth.
It seems like a different world now.
The world of Go Team USA!, staring in confusion as the Challenger exploded in midair just after cheering its blast off, loudly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school started to fade into the teenage 90s, grunge rock, 90210 era of global citizenship and silence during the Pledge. If you want to survive in the jungles of public schooling with minimal scarring, it’s important that you, like the British aristocracy of bygone ages, adopt an aloofness towards things you actually love and feigned enthusiasm for what Hollywood deemed “cool.” And we did it until it became second nature.
Until, for me at least, came the oh so lovely 2020 Summer of Love. My worldview shifted from disinterest to very much interest. From the deep recesses of my 80s red, white and blue kid heart, I began to care about my country and what happens to it. Like my Founding Fathers, I finally understood I must stand for something in life.
As I've simultaneously grown in my faith with my reemerging sense of participation in community, I’ve come to understand that loving one’s country is more than calling out hypocrisy and injustice. It means more than cheering on your Olympic team or crying your eyeballs out during the National Anthem. It means taking control of the basic functions of a successful family life, a thriving community. It means clapping for the kid who survives cancer and mourning with the families of those who are called to God. It means shoveling snow off your neighbor’s driveway while their military spouse is overseas. It means taking soup and some cold medicine to your sick friend. It’s ensuring our elderly and children are safe.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16
Our nation’s founding was meant to be a biblical shift. We were the place that people risked everything for to make a better future for themselves and their families. We functioned as communities and family units that would help each other to grow and be successful, just as Jesus taught us to help one another and God commanded us to love our neighbors. Somewhere along the way we decided that we should turn that responsibility over to the government.
But we are not a nation of the helpless. We are a nation of people who strive for independence. We are the nation of ‘charity begins in the home.’
During the flooding in western North Carolina, I searched posts for hours looking for news. At first it was scarce and horrific, but then slowly the horrific images of devastation gave way to help. Convoys of trucks from individuals, from communities, from churches, from companies, from organizations began to pile in. They brought food and basic necessities for the people to survive the winter. They built homes and roads. They brought hope.
That is who we are: people who, when our neighbors need us, we are there. We don’t ask someone else to take care of it, we get up and we go to them. That is what love of country is.
Jenn Webb is a sometime author: sometimes she thinks about becoming one and sometimes she finds excuses to avoid doing so. Growing up on the Chattahoochie River, she learned the art of self-deprecating wit that has devolved into “weird” humor since her divorce and relocation to Texas many moons ago. She’s a resident and teacher in Johnson-Somervell County area where she shares a home with her mom and pack of wild, knee high, freeloading dogs who like to pretend being an alarm clock equates to treat-worthiness.
Despite her winding road to faith in Jesus, she now proudly declares that He is her Lord and Savior