This Land

This photo speaks to me on so many levels. As I think about what September 11th means to us as a nation and to me personally, my mind roams to the beauty of the American people in the days and weeks and months following that awful tragedy. My heart fills with more of the joy of solidarity than with the remembrances of grief. Perhaps I have that luxury because I did not lose anyone close to me on that day. Or perhaps I have that remembrance because we are so often a nation divided, but in the aftermath of that tragedy we were so much more a nation unified...unified in supporting each other and helping each other, and in many ways appreciating each other more.

Perhaps I have the luxury of that sentiment because I am not a Muslim American and did not experience the suspicions and backlash of that day.

Our world is very complex and there is much I cannot fathom.

The photo above is of Montgomery playing in the street at our neighborhood's 4th of July bike parade this summer. At the end of the bike parade, our local fire station opens the hose in a primary neighborhood intersection while the kids dance and play in the spray, and a local church on that corner hands out free red/white/blue ice pops to the crowd. Usually the hose is mounted on top of the fire truck (just out of view on the left of the photo) and sprays in the air at varying intensities, creating showers that sprinkle or drench. The kids love it!

This year, however, something wasn't working properly on the truck's mounted sprayer, so the firefighters took turns on the ground holding the hose for the spray action. This is by far not my best photo of that day, but it is the one that compels me to linger for a moment. When I look at this photo, I almost don't even see Montgomery in the foreground, because the scene in the background always captures me.

For African Americans, fire hoses hold many disparate memories, but often the first one that leaps to mind is negative. The horrible images, and for some, the horrible memories, of fire hoses, created to protect and defend, but so often in the 1950's and 60's used to inflict pain and preserve a way of life that desecrated the ideals of our unique nation, are what instantly leap to mind. As a native of South Carolina, that is often the case for me.

So this photo, of an African American firefighter, holding a hose on (at that particular moment) Caucasian young people, always gives me pause. And then my eyes roam to the other firefighters and the easy camaraderie their body language displays, and the relaxed crowd all around, and the mother squatting in the lower right corner to take a photo of her children...and my daughter Montgomery, happily oblivious to anything but the fun of this particular day. There are no mixed messages in her mind when she turns to see the fire hose. She is living the dream of the dreamer, and doesn't even know it: "I have a dream that one day... little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Of course, one day I will have to show her the photos and footage from the Civil Rights movement, and plant that awful fire hose imagery in her mind. I will have to do this because a people who forget their history are doomed to repeat it, and in my motherly love and protection for her, I never want her to experience a fire hose turned in her direction for anything other than protection...or a little 4th of July fun. I need her, we all need her, as part of our nation's future, to know and remember all aspects of our country's history, both the wonderful and the awful, so that hopefully, we, as a nation, will never be doomed to willfully repeat the awful.

But...

...not that day...

...and not today...

...and not this year.

There will be time enough yet for her to know the uglies of the human heart.

And, so, on this September 11th, I choose the remembrance of the unification of the American people. I choose to see the silver lining. I choose to hear over and over again in my mind the lyrics of Woody Guthrie's old folk song...

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

While all around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me.

And I choose to delight in a photo that speaks to me something of how far our nation has come. We have much road yet to travel...but we have progressed.

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord..." Psalm 33:12a

Much Love. Take Care.