God Bless America?

Why is there a question mark in the post title? Oh, because this is a Sunday God Blog Theology post, and because the purpose of theology is all about the questions, the seeking, the etc etc.? Okay, I guess that's a reasonable reason to put a question mark up there. On such a straightforward statement.

Or, it could be looked at as a plea! God, Bless America? Pleeeeease?

God knows what I'm talking about, let none of you doubt it. God knows God's fully authorized to interpret any and every one of my blog posts as a heartfelt prayer of praise, or hymn of supplication.

Anyway. You'd think I could do a bit better justice to a meaty concept like "God Bless America?" Especially on this! The day that vigorously anniverses the nativity of a nation that some might call (in humble homage to Jesus of course, and with all due deference) the "Messiah of Nations!" The nation who shewed us all (the world, that is) that only by a firm founding upon and subsequent pounding home of the permanent, central, fundamental importance of human rights, can a nation set itself free and its populace up, to reap from all and for all, the benefits of the best of humankind's altruistic virtues, while also diminishing the negative impact of our own more selfish instincts by harnessing those drives to lift the level of the common weal.

We can't lose our way on those, because only that high standard can light our whole way forward into a free future! And by "our whole way" I don't mean just the U.S.A.! The more other nations take up the cue to found their whole stance upon free speech, free press, freedom of worship (by which I mean freedom from government establishment of religion as well), and respect for rights to property and privacy - the more other nations step forth and say "yes. We believe in human rights!" - the more the world can come together, the more tyrants can't get away with their shit, because while evil people will always worm their way in and wage a war of attrition via abuse, against what the system itself stands for, AT LEAST if the system is very plain and loud about what it stands for, then an abuser can be held up and judged against that standard!

All in all we made a pretty good start, here with the right idea - the rights idea. It is the light of that one simple idea that has dragged us inexorably forward, headlong out of all kinds of bigotry and inequity such as even America was steeped in, couple hundred some years ago. At the outset, we stepped up and made some bold statements. As time went by, we found that the statements were SO bold and SO clear, that we kept having to call ourselves and each other even on our own bullshit! We had left ourselves with no room for prevarication: "Well wait, if we really mean this, then it applies to everyone." "What, women too? Blacks?"

It wasn't a case of humanity discovering new virtue or enlightenment. It wasn't a march of new ideas. No: it was just the ever-expanding implications that dawned on and on, as we kept our hold on that same old idea. As people kept their minds and eyes fixed on human rights. Rights as we had laid them out clear - so clear. Clearer than we had even at first understood! We laid them out so clear that we were forced to grow in our understanding, as we contemplated those truths. We had left ourselves no choice! We were forced forward by the clean, clear, bold, precision truth and simplicity of our founding ideals. They are so good, and so right, that they have pulled us clear out of miasmas the founders didn't even see as particularly miasmatic.

Those rights and principles are by no means obsolete. We do not now and we never will need to progress "beyond" human rights. They remain: so good, and so right. They are a permanent standard by which a government can be judged. Judged by what it upholds. Judged by the power it refuses to take up (i.e. abuse). As far as progress goes, we've still got a ways to go, yet. We've got miasmas of our own. And we have and always have had the way forward out of them.

So, what's all this got to do with God, anyway? Well heck. America's the best we could do so far, and so we ask God to bless it. It's that simple. God didn't set this thing up. We did. America's kind of our problem. Which is fine! God's not overly worried by what goes on down here. God knows there will be eternity for God to help us deal with the repercussions of this little blip.

But as we observe our little holiday, each in the manner that seems most fit to us, I'll say this, God: if there aren't any hot dogs in heaven, there dang well better be something better than hot dogs.