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Star-spangled dreams

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

We sat around the family room after a delicious meal, glasses of wine in our hands and political discussion flowing--a familiar scene, no doubt, in an election year. What made this conversation unique, however, was that we were two of three U.S. citizens in the room, in addition to one dual citizen and two Canadians.

In my dreams, I romanticize Canada as the place to which I can escape if this country proceeds to the level of power-abuse that I fear. Canada becomes the land of no hypocrisy, no hatred, no sickness, where everyone loves his or her neighbor, drives sensible cars, and uses guns strictly for hunting (overpopulated) animals.

Fortunately, our conversation and our stay in the Vancouver suburbs--where sprawl and SUV's are rampant--gave me a new perspective and a deeper appreciation for the United States. Though I was falling asleep after three full days of driving across the country, I was cognizant enough to hear, repeated in various ways, the theme that the U.S. has got some good things going for it. While the Canadians I spoke with still wouldn't trade minimal national healthcare for consumer-conscious privatized healthcare, they certainly wouldn't mind having our high standards for new construction and more opportunities to vote directly for the laws that will affect them most.

In day-to-day conversation, I complain a lot about the direction of our country. Probably too much. However, one thing I have learned about desiring change is that one has to have a deep love for the thing she wishes to reform. In the beginning, my husband Rob and I had a bad attitude about the church, but we soon realized that the most effective change would emerge from a desire to make it better out of a love, because real love produces a tenacious hope.

And hope is in direct opposition to despair. In an interview that appeared in Utne magazine, playwright Tony Kushner talks about our obligation to find hope in our current cultural context:

You can take a psychological view [of our tendency to despair] that we're creations of trauma and we don't do loss very well and it deforms us, it diminishes us. But when you get to the point that you can really worry about that, you've created a society of immense luxury....You look at [hope] as a feeling state; you look at it as an ethical obligation. You look at it as a thing you generate in yourself by recognizing that despair is a luxury....We have an ethical obligation to look for hope and find it. It isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. In fact, if it were easy, it would be less valuable. It's like the Jewish search for God. One of the Talmudic ideas for why it's so hard is that you create its value by the difficulty of the search. We all do it. That's what our struggle is. We wouldn't get out of bed otherwise.

While Kushner does acknowledge that for some, despair is an inevitable byproduct of a desperate situation or a chemical imbalance, he calls those who don't suffer from those limitations to quit whining and do something.

 

And so, in my effort to reject the luxury of despair and be more hopeful about the United States of America, here is the beginning of a list of things already in existence that, for me, make this country worth loving and worth being hopeful about. I hope you'll hit the discuss button and add your own ideas--and then join me in the effort to propagate what we love.

• The National Park system that preserves some of our most beautiful lands
• The efficient network of highways that allow for inexpensive travel
• The freedom to worship as we choose and the legal protection of that ability
• The number and variety of small towns
• The ability of dissenters to speak freely through a variety of outlets without fear
• The diversity of cultures, land forms and climates contained within our borders
• The desire of many, both inside and outside of government, to use our power as a world leader for positive change around the world
• The ability to freely shape the lives of the various communities of which we are a part (church, family, neighborhood, etc.)

 

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Discussion: I love the U.S.A.

A lot of us complain about the state of the union, especially around election time. But the most effective change is motivated by love. What do you love about the United States? What inspires you to work for positive change?