Vets, Families and Independence Day

"I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray,
became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the
ship and the high dim-starred sky!

I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity
and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or
the life of Man, Woman, to Life itself!

To God, if you want to put it that way."

- Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night

The 235th anniversary of the United States of America marks its independence this Fourth of July.

We may anoint American exceptionalism, a doctrine we have come to embrace - I have assumed to be true - that has us believing that the USA is better, even greater, more superior to other lands.

Content of character and a courtesy and care and compassion dimming within the soul of each of us, the call to commitment and accountability and "workhorsing beyond showhorsing" for sure once more challenges citizens to rise again in this land given to us by the Maker.

For veterans and the families and friends, for my 1968 Vietnam-murdered brother, Specialist Four Lukas J. Ventline, US Army, and the Purple Heart for wounds received, this day is bitter
sweet.

It is a holiday and holy day yearning for wholeness and healing in a fractured globe drunk with battle and conflict as battles brew to beat and become "top" of the heap in God's land.

This land is your land, this land is my land. . .

Yet, mending and morphing is the menu's agenda for families of veterans today.

We think we are free, yet we are held hostage by more drug addicted people, or as many as Mexico, our partner in attachment disorders due to the cartel of a failed President Richard Nixon's war on drugs countless dollars later, admitted authorities who seem to know we lost.

Character and compassion with a dimmed courtliness and courtesy of Francis of Assissi, Italy,
define the USA.

We can do better without being bitter.

The bar can be raised.

It better be.

We will get what we deserve.

And, we deserve to stand taller for each other even as we stoop low to lift and serve life that
falters in schools, society, business, religion, and neighborhoods.

America can be great again.