Stirred by Winston Marshall, Mumford and Sons’ former banjo player, and his grace under fire I felt compelled to reflect on the state of my fear in advance of Independence Day.
I fear the day that each and every human soul be held to impossible standards of purity, a moral litmus test literally no one could pass.
That we will continually change ourselves and our hearts in order to be deemed worthy by a collective, albeit a dysfunctional one…In doing so, we’ll edit ourselves until we are unrecognizable.
I fear that in an attempt to ensure absolute perfection of word and deed, that we become the very forces that we loathe. The same forces we purport to stand up against in supposed service of eradicating the world of its ills.
I fear when words and their meaning become so altered that they become diluted and useless. Words can move mountains, until they don’t.
I fear the end of personal accountability and responsibility. The end of resilience, the end of nuance.
I fear the end of the possibility that our immutable characteristics are the least important, least interesting things about us.
I fear a compulsion to assess every single thing that we have done and said in the past with such ferocity, that we no longer have the courage to err and atone in the present.
Our predecessors, my husband among them, fought and bear scars for our unequivocal right to despise this country if we so choose. And to do so without fear of mistreatment or reprisal. Think what you will of America, its origin story, and its people, I still find that to be an extraordinary state of affairs.
Fears aside, I'd be remiss not to say I'm fortunate to have the freedom to be afraid and share what stirs me in the night. I’m thankful for the freedom to choose to live not by lies, at least for now. I’m thankful for this land, its trials and its triumphs, its beauty and its promise.
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Recipe for the Italian American Berry Shortcake pictured is available here.
Listen to Winston Marshall on Bari Weiss’ podcast, Honestly, here and read his essay, here.