The Minnesota Orchestra concert in Soweto, South Africa, opened with the South African national anthem: “Nkosi Sikelelel’ iAfrica,”—“ God Bless Africa.” With different verses, voices shifted between official languages—Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Afrikaans, and English.
Then a drum roll, and the orchestra started to play The Star Spangled Banner. Voices: “Oh, say can you see?”
The words caught me. “Oh, say can you see?” For the first time I heard the words opening our national anthem as a question. And a downright relevant one.
Can you, can I, see that symbol of liberty? Just as Francis Scott Key squinted through the clearing smoke to see who had won the day, we scan the blinding fog of lies and fear-mongering, desperate to see how resilient our democracy is.
In a column entitled “Full-Spectrum Corruption,” evangelical Republican Peter Wehner writes of the damage being done to our politics and culture, with growing “corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right. Dehumanizing others is fashionable, and truth is relative,” moving politics away from “its high purpose and nobility.” (New York Times, Sunday, August 26, 2018)
“Oh, say can you see?” We should all be asking that question.
Maybe that’s the question players who “take the knee” are asking. With the number of African Americans shot by police, crammed into prisons, and suffering from poor educational opportunities, the noblest response to the chasm between those realities and what “so proudly we hail” pushes them (and should drive us) to “take the knee,” look up and wonder, “Oh, say can you see?”
Most of us know that real love doesn’t mean unquestioning support— for a friend, a child, or an institution. Real love questions and pushes for the best.
There’s been too much unquestioning loyalty— to churches that are still uncovering the drastic evil of sexual abuse covered up by misplaced allegiance to the church. Too much unquestioning loyalty by people willing to overlook lack of moral stature in a leader to get their way. Unquestioning support like that which characterized Nicolas Chauvin’s loyalty to Napoleon: from him we get the word “chauvinism,” a word meaning unquestioning loyalty, which has become synonymous with bigotry.
As Christians (not to mention rational human beings) we are not meant to have unquestioning loyalty to any human institution— be it the church or the government. The first Christ followers refused military service because they would be asked to pledge allegiance to another power. Many went to their deaths because they refused to offer a pinch of incense to the emperor and say, “Caesar is Lord.” They knew it was only to Christ that their unquestioning loyalty belonged, and they were willing to die for that.
Many people today seem to have forgotten where our loyalty belongs.
“Oh, say can you see?” Turning from our misplaced loyalties, we may better be able to scan the sky to see if we can spot what “so proudly we hail.” We may realize, along with Howard Zinn, that, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
I celebrate some extraordinary good – worth “proudly hailing” – in grassroots work on behalf of the most vulnerable, in demands to re-unite families, in work to increase gun control, in increased voter registrations. Even the honor given to a person like John McCain across political parties, for being a person of integrity, seems a glimmer in the gloom.
“Oh, say, can you see?” Join me in asking that question, in working for goods worth “proudly hailing,” in praying for a turn around, and daring to hope.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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