In all my time at my current job I have enjoyed my various paid holidays, but never, until now have I enjoyed the holiday because of the break from work. I am coming in to this Thanksgiving weekend tired from some heavy work projects and also from some things outside of work (which is why posting has been so inconsistent lately) and so I actually feel like I need the break from work. I guess we call that good timing.
Last year I decided to write about my perspective on the major holidays of the year. I got the idea before Halloween but decided to wait rather than start on a negative note. It may be a good thing that I did because my perspective has changed regarding Halloween since last year. A year ago I would have written that it was a waste of a holiday that should be ignored. That was before I had my first Halloween in my current neighborhood (we moved in soon after Halloween two years ago). Now I have decided that Halloween is tolerable because I have a neighbor who has a tradition of making homemade doughnuts on Halloween – that’s worth celebrating.
I don’t mind the cute kids costumes now that my kids are enjoying it more – but I still don’t go for the dark stuff like bloody knives and characters from horror films. I can also pass on the annoying things like walking through ridiculous tangles of fake spider webs.
It doesn’t take much thought to realize that a hot, dry summer does not mix well with fireworks. Governor Hunstman called on cities to ban personal fireworks because of our conditions this year. The Deseret News Editorial on the idea notes that legal fireworks seldom create problems. The fact that we make laws which we don’t enforce encourages unlawful behavior. We should not be waiting for the government to tell us what is smart.
This situation, and my personal feelings leave me in a bind. Tomorrow all the cousins are getting together to celebrate and the families decided that we would purchase fireworks jointly instead of individually. None of us take the time to purchase illegal fireworks (which are expensive and pale in comparison to the professional displays anyway) but with the extreme fire season we are having this year I believe that it is irresponsible to act as if personal fireworks are some inalienable right. If it were not for the fact that our family has already agreed to do fireworks together I would choose not to do any personal fireworks this year – I’d just stick to the professional displays.
Let it be known openly that the Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love this country. I love what it stands for. I love the way that we celebrate it (family, fireworks, and food). I think my love for the country stems from my youth as I participated in Boy Scouts (which is a very patriotic organization) and studied history, government, and our constitution.
I love the sentiments of American by Choice. (thanks to Scott for linking there)
The idea of being an American by choice points to an important, and perhaps unintended truth: being American is not simply reducible to the happy accident of birth. Americans, both natural and naturalized, must be trained–they must be made.
Peter Schramm asked his father when they were moving to American why the family chose America. The reply:
“Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place.”
Dad, in his way, was saying that he understood America to be both a place and an idea at the same time. Fundamentally, it is a place that would embrace us if we could prove that we shared in the idea.
He continues:
Because America is more than just a place, being an American citizen is different than being the citizen of any other country on earth.
Because ours is a bond of principle and not of blood, true American citizens are made and not born. This is why, odd as it may seem, we must all learn–those who are born here, and those who come here by choice–what it means to be an American.
In recent weeks, there has been much talk about immigration, but very little informed discussion about what it means to be an American–about what is necessary to make Americans. . . . I hear frequent conversations about failures in integration and assimilation, even among recent legal immigrants. This is not new. What is new is that America’s own natural citizens increasingly have forgotten what it means to be American. . . . If we no longer understand or believe in that which makes us Americans, then there is nothing substantive to assimilate into. We become many and diverse people who share a common place, rather than E Pluribus Unum.
. . . If government “of the people, by the people and for the people” is to endure, its endurance can only come from the devotion of Americans–born here and away–who have been so made.
The question remains – how can we make Americans? Dennis Prager talks about “the mother of American holidays, July Fourth, the day America was born” and suggests that we learn from the Jews who have transmitted their culture across millenia while we struggle to maintain ours over mere centuries.
His suggestion:
Our national holidays were established to commemorate the most significant national events and individuals in our history; they now exist primarily to provide us with a day off. . . . National memory dies without national ritual. And without a national memory, a nation dies. That is the secret at the heart of the Jewish people’s survival that the American people must learn if they are to survive.
When Jews gather at the Passover Seder — and this is the most widely observed Jewish holiday — they recount the exodus from Egypt . . . as if it happened to them. In the words of the Passover Haggadah — the Passover Seder book — “every person is obligated to regard himself as if he himself left Egypt.” . . . That has to be the motto of the July Fourth Seder. We all have to retell the story in as much detail as possible and to regard ourselves as if we, no matter when we or our ancestors came to America — were present at the nation’s founding in 1776.
The Seder achieves the feat not only through detailed recitation of the story, but through engaging the interest of the youngest of those at the table (indeed, they are its primary focus), through special food, through song and through relevant prayer.
I think that the key lies in repetitive recitation. Scott has a personal Annual Liberty Pilgrimage to maintain his patriotic spirit. I have been flying my flag since before Memorial Day and I hope to make that a year-round reminder to my family that our nation is more to us than merely the place we happen to have been born. We must make our celebration of independence mean more than just family, fireworks, and food. Those things should engage the children, but lets make sure to tell them the meaning behind the floats and fireworks.
Can we imagine ourselves at the nations founding? Can we imagine ourselves leaving the old world behind, where nationality was a matter of geography rather than ideology, and coming to America where the ideals that bind us together are thicker than our past allegiance? If we can’t imagine that journey then we should probably work a little harder to make ourselves into true Americans.
Ritual in a community includes parades, holidays, and customs which bind the community together. The rituals of a community help to create a shared identity. Some examples might include the Fourth of July or Christmas. While the entire nation (which is a community) celebrates the Fourth of July we can see the identity of smaller communities in the way they celebrate this national holiday. Some might have a parade while others have fireworks. There may be memorial breakfasts or inspirational speakers.
These rituals help to define the way we see and portray ourselves. They help to give expression to our shared values. This is a useful way of helping newcomers become a part of the shared identity. It is also a useful way to participate and add their unique perspective to the existing community.
I wrote this last week as part of my community series – this morning I found this post about ritual.
No national or cultural identity can survive without ritual, even if the group remains in its own country.
Americans knew this until the era of anti-wisdom was ushered in by the baby boomer generation in the 1960s and ’70s. We always had national holidays that celebrated something meaningful.
. . . Congress made a particularly foolish decision to abolish the two greatest presidents’ birthdays as national holidays and substituted the meaningless Presidents Day. Beyond having a three-day weekend and department store sales, the day means nothing.
Columbus Day is . . . not politically correct.
Christmas has become less nationally meaningful as exemplified by the substitution of “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas.”
Memorial Day . . . fewer and fewer Americans visit military cemeteries just as fewer communities have Memorial Day festivities.
(It also has some nice stuff for my post tomorrow.)
Last night right after I got in bed, Laura and I have a fun little interchange:
Laura: Can I make one last Mother’s Day request?
David: Sure.
L: Can you go shut the window in the girls’ room?
D: Good thing you asked now. (as I get out of bed)
L: How many minutes do I have?
D: Nineteen.
After I was back in bed Laura got up. Soon I hear from the darkness:
L: How many minutes do I have?
D: Six.
L: Can you help me? . . .
I don’t really care about Mother’s Day as an excuse to celebrate. I think of all the comments I heard today about fathers and/or children making breakfast-in-bed for Mom and then I find myself standing at the sink doing the dishes thinking, “this would look like something I do on Mother’s Day as a treat for Laura.” The thing that bugs me is, it’s not. I’m doing the dishes on Mother’s Day because they need to be done, just like I do the dishes on a rather regular basis because it’s a courteous thing to do. I watch the kids on Mother’s Day so that Laura can have some time alone just like I do on other days because it’s nice for her to be relieved of the endless strain of taking care of the kids every second of the day.
So I begin to wonder why we have Mother’s Day, is it just a cheap excuse to fail to honor and appreciate mothers on the other 364 days they are working for us? I would be surprised if there was a mother anywhere who would honestly prefer to sleep in and have breakfast in bed twice a year to pamper her (Mother’s Day and her birthday) rather than have someone step in and help with the dishes, the kids, the laundry, and the cooking multiple times a week just because that’s what it means to be partners in family life.
The best purpose that Mother’s Day should serve is to have an outward celebration of motherhood that our children can recognize while they are too young to notice that Dad is always finding ways to help relieve the burden that Mom carries every day.
I have been surprised to see a number of blog posts related to Easter. I had expected this holiday to go largely unmentioned. As I contemplated the approach of Easter I thought of some interesting comparisons between our treatment of Easter and our treatment of Christmas in society. Especially interesting to me were the comparisons of what is being celebrated with each of these holidays. I had hoped to post this before Easter was past, but that obviously didn’t happen.
Nothing I say should be construed to imply that I have anything against Christmas. I love Christmas and the Christmas season – especially as it adjoins Thanksgiving and stretches to New Years. The Christmas season provides about two months of excitement during a time which can be miserable in other ways (stormy, dark, cold).
The thought that really struck me was that Christmas should be more grandly celebrated than Easter. As I thought about it it makes no sense that the Christian world would find more to celebrate in the birth of Christ than in His resurrection. Without Easter the birth of our Savior would be no better than the birth of Ghandi – it brought a noticeable measure of good to the world, but its impact would still be limited. The miracle of Christmas actually took place months earlier because it was the conception that was miraculous. As far as we are told, the actual birth was not significantly different than any other live birth.
The miracle of the life of Christ was that He promised that death was not the end for mankind. That promise came to fruition with His resurrection, which is what Easter is supposed to commemorate. Even for those who do not believe in the gospel of Christ or that there is life after death, the idea behind this celebration must be compelling.
One of the hallmarks of the Christmas season is the giving of gifts to family, friends, and neighbors. The Christmas season is so busy that we find it hard to give gifts to many who are outside our family during that season so we have decided that we will celebrate Easter by giving gifts to friends and neighbors at Easter rather than during the Christmas rush. This is not to say that we will not include presents in our celebrations of Christmas, but that we have a second season of giving which we will use.
I am excited about our plans to make more of Easter. I hope that this course will make it easier to emphasize the true meaning behind this holiday for our children.
I’m guessing that it will be normal for me to post less often during the holidays. Hopefully 10 day breaks will not be normal.
Besides the obvious Christmas festivities and work, I have been doing very good with my running until this week. Sometime on Christmas day my right ankle began to hurt. I went running on the 26th and, although running was fine, I noticed that my ankle got worse. My Achilles tendon began to swell some so I have been staying off it for the last few days. I don’t know how it happened, but I have to assume that it is related to the running. Hopefully resting it this week will allow me to get back to training sooner than if I pushed harder. I’m going to give it a try with a short run tomorrow.
I’m still trying to find the balance of what I write about here. I was doing lots of candidate endorsements before the break, but I want a better balance. I have found that there are two new candidates who have filed with the FEC since I last wrote. I guess I had better get caught up again because it looks like we are likely to have even more in the coming weeks.
Last night I got a call from my Grandpa and we got to catch up. I had not talked to him for a few months as he has been busy with his new wife trying to keep up with their combined 48 grandchildren. I don’t know about her grandchildren, but I realized that of his 24 grandchildren half of them were married so we’re all getting spread out a bit.
I can only imagine how busy it would get trying to keep up with 48 grandchildren. Anyway, it was nice to catch up with him, that’s why I decided to do a little catching up here.
I must have missed the memo, but all signs point to today being some sort of national holiday where everyone planned things for me all on the same day. I had planned to go to the conference that I mentioned yesterday, which made it necessary to reschedule the play that my wife and I were going to see tonight (so we were even in on this whole conspiracy). After that my scout troop planned a court of honor tonight and I, as the scout committee chair, had to do the paperwork and acquire the awards for the ceremony. On top of that, it is the beginning of school and there was a class I would like to take that starts today. Then with things piling up, I learned that my cousin was getting married today – I’d sure like to go to the wedding.
Well, I got through the day although I have been running like crazy all day. I don’t mind it – just so long as it is not an annual event.