The American “Child” - An Essay in Hope
by Mike Haskins
Birthdays change with us.
When we are young, we measure our years in halves because we are so eager to reach the next number. Then, almost without noticing, we arrive at an age when another birthday becomes something we greet with a little less enthusiasm.
Our country, the United States of America, is still very much in that first stage.
It is easy to think of our history as long and storied. We picture the Founding Fathers in powdered wigs and speak of centuries past as though they belong to another age. Yet in the company of civilizations, America is remarkably young.
We are still a bear cub of a nation.
What makes a nation young is not the number of birthdays it has celebrated. It is the number of possibilities still waiting to be discovered.
At two hundred and fifty years old, we are only beginning to discover what we may become.
A two hundred and fiftieth birthday deserves more than fireworks and parades. It is an opportunity to look backward, not to live in the past, but to understand how far we have come and to gather the hope to continue forward. For all we have accomplished, our story is still being written.
Our young nation has proven to be an unusually gifted child. In just ten generations we have traveled from the Wright brothers’ fragile airplane to footprints on the moon. We stood with free nations against tyranny in two world wars and helped preserve the cause of liberty. We transformed medicine, agriculture, communications, technology, and commerce in ways that have touched nearly every corner of the globe. The twentieth century became known as the American Century because no nation shaped it more profoundly.
Birthdays should also invite reflection.
If we hope to remain worthy of leadership, we must be humble enough to recognize our shortcomings as well as our successes. Great influence brings great responsibility. We should never stop striving toward that more perfect union, admitting where we have fallen short while refusing to stop believing we can become better.
Perspective has always fascinated me.
In 1838, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln gave an address in which he observed, “The field of glory is harvested.” Looking back at George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the other fathers of our nation, he believed they had already accomplished the great work of history. They had fought a revolution, created a nation, and written a Constitution. Lincoln lamented that he had been born too late. Surely, he thought, all the great deeds had already been done.
The irony is extraordinary.
History would call Lincoln to preserve the Union itself, making him, in many respects, our nation’s second father. Yet even that remarkable man could not imagine what lay beyond his own horizon.
That should give all of us pause.
The builders of the railroads could not imagine commercial flight. The Wright brothers could not imagine astronauts walking on the moon. The generation that watched those moon landings on grainy television screens could not imagine carrying the world’s knowledge in a device that fits in a pocket.
Every generation mistakes the edge of its own imagination for the edge of possibility.
Perhaps we should be cautious before declaring that America’s greatest achievements are already behind her.
The fuel of liberty has never been certainty. It has always been hope. Hope to dream. Hope to risk failure. Hope to rise after disappointment and try again.
There is no known limit to what free people can accomplish when they are willing to imagine what does not yet exist.
Our nation has endured difficult seasons before. We have survived wars that united us and wars that divided us. We endured the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Women fought for generations before finally securing the right to vote. Americans of every race challenged our nation to live up to its own promises, often at tremendous personal cost. Progress has rarely come easily, but it has come because ordinary people refused to believe that yesterday’s limits had to become tomorrow’s.
That may be one of America’s greatest strengths.
Self government is not automatic. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is perhaps humanity’s most ambitious civic experiment. Like any child, it is strong only if it is nurtured. It must be protected, guided, taught, preserved, challenged, and loved. When it fails, it must be corrected. When it succeeds, it should inspire gratitude. We hold high expectations only for the things we truly cherish.
The United States has never been a museum piece. America is alive. Always changing. Always growing. Always becoming. We honor our traditions, but we have never believed the past should become a prison. We remember yesterday because it gives us hope for tomorrow.
Travel across this remarkable country and its diversity becomes almost impossible to comprehend. How does Ketchikan, Alaska have anything in common with Kissimmee, Florida?
Perhaps the better question is this.
What do I share with my neighbor who was not born where I was born, who worships differently than I do, who carries different traditions, who speaks with a different accent, or whose family arrived here by a different path?
The answer is the very heart of America.
As Ronald Reagan observed in his Farewell Address, the final major speech of his presidency:
“You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
E Pluribus Unum.
Out of many, one.
Many stories.
Many opinions.
Many traditions.
Many memories.
Still we strive toward one shared hope. That every child may choose his or her own path. That every family may live in freedom. That every generation may leave this nation stronger than it found it.
Two hundred and fifty years is a remarkable birthday. Old enough to have changed the course of history. Young enough to have scarcely begun writing it.
History reminds us that every generation believes the greatest chapters have already been written until another generation proves them wrong. Lincoln believed the field of glory had already been harvested. His own life became proof that history always has room for another harvest.
We should be humble enough to learn from our failures, grateful enough to celebrate our blessings, and bold enough to believe that the horizon is always farther away than we imagine.
We are still a bear cub of a nation.
Still growing.
Still learning.
Still becoming.
At two hundred and fifty years old, America is not a finished masterpiece. It is a work still under construction, entrusted to every generation that calls it home.
Of thee I sing.
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