July is a special month for me; I was born on Independence Day!  This year was a very different day than any previous year.  I have celebrated Independence Day with fireworks and hearing the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance all my life.  Even in Kenya we attended the U.S. Embassy compound as an American celebration for American expatriates. We saw the American flag honored and I was always full of pride, even to tears remembering our great United States and always grateful our country provides freedoms other countries do not.

 

This year I was brought to tears for other reasons; the disrespect for our flag and history of our nation with violence and disregard for one another. Those actions brought me to re-read the Star Spangled Banner and the Pledge of Allegiance I so often recited and sang from childhood up to adulthood.  I realize now those words were said automatically without a lot of thought—I took them for granted.  But I took time this year to think about what they say and it took me to a deep place of lament and prayer for our nation. 

 

This piece emerged from those thoughts, prayers and remembrances.  While I was stitching this work together, my mind wandered to the history of the flag. I spent some time researching and it is far too complex to write here.  Suffice it to say, our flag has evolved from many different designs; Betsy Ross’ flag being one of the first made in Philadelphia in 1776 which didn’t even look like our current flag.  I discovered a second seamstress, Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore flag maker who was commissioned in 1813 to make a garrison flag which is the one known as the Star-Spangled Banner and is about one-fourth the size of a modern basketball court and whose restored remnant currently hangs in the National Museum of American History.  I imagined the women sewing these original flags with their hands, doing the work of a patriot and maybe even praying. Even though the flag emerged from division, war and death, I believe they loved their country and were grateful for the freedoms granted them by the sacrifices of many. Could they have ever dreamed our United States would be so divided again in generations to come?  

 

The other piece of literature I took a closer look at is the Pledge of Allegiance.  As I read this I was humbled and troubled that the words are no longer true for our country; one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We seem to be opposite that statement and the realization caused me to be on my knees in prayer and that is where I’ve been for weeks.

 

To finish this piece I singled out the phrase; under God because our forefathers founded this nation on faith and a commitment to freedom.  The gold shape at the top right is there to remind me of  God’s  presence and the stitching between the shapes and gap is a call for healing and mending the wounds that only God can do. We have fallen short of this pledge and have devised our own way, overlooking the needs of the poor and afflicted. We harbor injustice and have killed the unborn.  We have turned our back on God. Will you join me to call out to the Creator of this nation for repentance and forgiveness? That He would use us for His purposes and bring unity and healing? Ask Him to revive us again and empower His Church to love and respect humanity and be image-bearers of Christ and return us to a nation whose God is the Lord.

 

Psalm 27; Psalm 22:27-28; Psalm 113:6

Lamentations 5:19-21

2 Chronicles 7:13-15

Matthew 24:4-14