Did you know that the Statue of Liberty gets hit by lightning bolts 600 times a year, and that the torch sways 5 inches side to side.
That doesn’t happen to us. Or does it? How many times a year, or a week even, do we feel like we are getting hit by something, at work or at home, that’s knocking us more than 5 inches off our mark.
Here in the US, we struggle on so many fronts—justice, education, election, immigration, infrastructure, prison, jobs, housing, climate—and there is no telling when we will get hit, as individuals or as a nation, with a major destabilizing crisis on any one of these fronts.
We struggle with each other on the best ways to approach any or all of it, based on our core values as individuals. Then we struggle as the groups we clump ourselves into, where we are not 100% alike, but enough so to pit ourselves against the others who are not.
Do we think that conflicting core values will ever disappear? Probably not.
Do we think people will continue to clump together with those they think are more like them? Probably so.
The more things change the more they stay the same in these ways. I’m guessing yes.
But Lady Liberty is still standing and as a nation so are we—thanks to our military men and women who spend their lives and have given their lives to keeping us safe—while we struggle within and between ourselves to figure it all out.
And…so we could enjoy ourselves and each other in whatever way possible this 2021 Memorial Day Weekend. Bless their hearts a million times.
Warmest holiday wishes to all,
Madelaine
Photo by Florian Cordillot on Unsplash
Thank you for your kind comments, which I take personally since I am a veteran. I don’t usually take Memorial Day off but I will this year just to acknowledge those who really did give all!
Bless your heart, Bill. My dad, in the garment industry, was in charge of the parachutes in Normandy. Feeling it more this year than ever for some reason. The book? The pandemic? Whatever…God Bless America, and all of you who serve(d).
The number of times annually that the Status if Liberty is struck by lightening is certainly for me now a truly apt metaphor for the struggles of a country declaring it worthwhile to face the perpetual ongoing controversies of the sort you mention through a representative democracy form of governance without being torn asunder. I gather that was the inspiration for Decoration Day after the Civil War that has become our Memorial Day holiday of remembrance for all those who sacrificed their lives in military service. I appreciate the reminder that enduring is a “monumental” commitment of and for humankind.
Monumental…Good play on words. i feel like i remember it being called decoration day. Is that possible?