Yesterday people posted upside-down flags, the DJ on the radio talked about what color you could wear to show your dissent, and people got shot at a 4th of July parade.

Disturbing!

And not because there were shootings on the 4th of July; Americans shoot Americans daily. So that part’s not surprising (sadly).

But the girls, Alex, and I wore our red, white, and blue–not to protest but to show our love for our country.

It’s easy to say, “What planet do you live on, Stephanie?” How dare you be patriotic when our country’s going to pot.”

And I’d like to say (but I don’t) that there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with people’s behavior and the state of affairs. The feuding within our own family (Romeo and Juliet style–Shakespeare lives on) has got to go. Are things so bad that we must forsake one another and our own country?

We’ve become so individualistic; we no longer believe in one nation, just one person or group versus another. We’re throwing the word rights around like little kids having temper tantrums. Remember the iconic kid line, “You’re not the boss of me.” Only we’re grown adults saying the same thing. “You have no right to tell me what to do.”

Great. Get it. Now can we learn to disagree like kids? Even bickering’s a step up from killing one another.

As long as there’s hatred in our hearts, there’s no room for one nation. There’s simply no love.

But I still believe in one nation under God. I still hold onto the dream of the fabric of life within us all and the steps we take to move forward (and sometimes backward) as a country. We’re making those mistakes, and that progress together. I believe.

Which reminds me, I wrote a muse last year, Can “I Believe” Too?. I featured a brief mention of a girl who sang a song, “It’s Okay,” and it became a huge hit. She had a 2% chance of surviving cancer. I reread that muse and had to know what happened to her, and I quickly found out she withdrew from “America’s Got Talent” in August and died in February 2022.

That’s so sad, we think. God took her when she was only 31 years old. She had her whole life ahead of her.

Yet is it that sad? She died after an incredible fight to live. She didn’t fall victim to her disease or society or a gunshot; she did everything possible to overcome her obstacles. And she had no doubts when she died that it was her time to go.

She did more with her 31 years of life than we do now. We’re fighting, killing people, and carrying on like only some of us are privileged to be here, like there’s no family code.

You know the family code; you stick by your family through thick and thin till death do us part.

But I like that old muse of mine for another reason. It reminds me of the story of a poem written on the walls of a Nazi concentration camp.

“I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining; I believe in love even when no one is there; I believe in God even when He is silent.” – Anonymous (one translation of many).

Alexandra came up with her tune to the existing lyrics, and the girls published it on YouTube when they were still doing that.

Alexandra sang it again at the family mass before graduation. And it reminded me: let’s see the sun again. It’s there; if Nazi prisoners could believe, so can we.

Wear red, white, blue, or any shade of dissent. It’s okay. Let’s start by learning to disagree without killing people. If we believe the American dream still exists, even when it feels long gone, we’re one step closer to realizing the love that unites us all into one nation under God.