STRANGE THING . . .

HOW WITH ITS BEING CRITICIZED, THE FLAG HAS BECOME MORE PRECIOUS TO ME

From when I was a little kid, I said the Pledge of Allegiance, stood up to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and respected the flag. We were taught to respect our country in these ways just as those from other countries are taught respect for their countries. As someone said recently, it's not because you approve of everything your country has done, or all of its laws, or all of its politicians. It's because it is your country, just as your family is your family. It's similar in a way to what we enlisted men were told in the US Army: you salute the lieutenant because of his position, not how he has personally performed. Of course it helps to have known role models one can admire.

For the most part, saying the Pledge, singing the national anthem and respecting the flag have been things I have done by rote—with some appreciation for them, of course. But I've found a strange thing happening in me lately: as criticisms have been heaped upon America as a nation, it has caused me to reflect all the more on the greatness and the good of this nation. There has never been a country like America—a melting pot of immigrants from other nations, the first true democracy since the partial democracy of ancient Greece, a nation more generous than any in history. What nation ever helped its just-defeated enemies recover as the U.S. did with its Marshall Plan?

Perhaps it's the "Law of Opposites" at work. Soft is only known in contrast to  hard. We say a person is patient only in circumstances when a normal person would be impatient. (Therefore you must experience impatience in order to appreciate patience.) I don't LIKE it when our very flag, symbol of the nation itself, is desecrated. The unjustness of it, however, seems to have caused something to rise up in me that is more appreciative than ever for America.

It is as if I am seeing our precious flag with new, appreciative, honoring eyes. And I'm thankful for that.