When I was a kid, I lived in Haiti. My parents were missionaries. I lived in Haiti from the age of two to six and then from eleven to fifteen. I was in Haiti in the early 1990’s and was living there during the 1993 UN arms and oil embargo. It was the UN, but my understanding of it as a young teen, was that it was the United States who was pulling the strings to make the embargo happen.
I watched Haiti be punished by the United States in a way that boggled my young mind. No fuel. No gas for cars and trucks to drive. No way for supplies to get transported to where they needed to be. No food for sale. No electricity. I remember my mother, who worked in the medical field, saying that she could no longer buy the medicines she needed for her patients. The pharmacies simply didn’t have any to sell. I remember our family rationing our fuel so we could turn on our generator every three days for an hour so that our water pump would work so that we could fill up buckets and vessels with clean water to get us through the next three days before we turned our generator on again. I remember riding my bike to school instead of getting a ride from my parents. I remember our food was very limited and we lived off the canned foods that had been sent to us in care packages. I remember knowing that if we, the rich Americans were struggling, there was no word to describe what the average Haitian was going through. I remember how stressed all the adults in my life were. I remember how fragile and precarious it felt to be an American living in a country that was currently being oppressed by the United States.
And I was ashamed to be an American. Not only that, I was angry that I was an American. It felt like a curse. Let me be anything but a rich white American who goes around bullying the world however they please, with no care whatsoever for the people they are affecting.
We came back to the States the summer of 1994, right before Haiti was invaded by the U.S. When we got back to the States we spent a couple of weeks traveling around visiting churches. Our family was not in a good place mentally or emotionally. It was very hard to step from Haiti where people were starving, struggling to survive, suffering; to step from that to middle class America where everyone was healthy looking, well-dressed, well-fed, living in beautiful homes with shiny cars parked outside, and still finding something to complain about.
Then, the Fourth of July showed up, and it was close enough to a Sunday that the church we were visiting planned a Fourth of July themed service, and they asked my Dad to preach. For the Fourth of July service. I was dumbstruck. How on earth was my Dad going to preach a Fourth of July sermon?? My Dad had just lived through the horror that the United States imposed on Haiti. He was just as angry as I was. Probably more.
I always enjoyed hearing my Dad preach, but this time, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what he would say.
My Dad, stood up on the stage and he preached about what our nation was founded on. The goodness that could be found in our country. He did not say one negative thing. Once. I was listening for it, waiting for it, it never came. And my mind boggled. How could he do that??? How could he say positive things about our country? I think, afterwards, when our family was alone, we questioned him on it. And he said that everything he talked about was true. Even if we couldn’t see it at work at that moment, it was still true.
That was one of those defining memories. As a kid everything is black and white, good or bad. No gray areas. And it was the first time I had to grapple with the idea that something could be both. That a country could still be considered good, founded on righteous principles, even when those principles were not always very evident.
I still occasionally struggle with being an American. I’m old enough and have seen enough to know that I don’t desire citizenship in a different country. I’m very comfortable with being an American. I get a lot of benefits from my citizenship. I have come to love my fellow Americans. But there are times when old feelings get stirred up. Elections have a way of doing that to me.
Over the past couple weeks my brain has written and erased hundreds of social media posts. I have mentally written diatribes and stopped myself from typing them. I have thought out replies to other people’s posts and then stopped myself from answering. But I still feel the need to say something. To address this political moment that we have all just lived through.
And so, I am going to take a page from my Dad’s book, and talk about the good in America. I am thankful that I was able to take part in an election. I am thankful that legally as a woman I have equal rights with men. I am thankful for my city and the way that it is run. Every day I see people collecting trash, repairing roads, maintaining electric lines, delivering mail, police and firemen and ambulances responding to emergencies. I am thankful for the generosity of the American people. We are a nation that gives to causes. I am thankful that I can go to whatever church I want, whenever I want, and worship how I want. And I’m thankful that other religions are free to practice in our country as well. I am thankful for how diverse we are as a people, everyone with a unique family history. I am thankful that I can educate my children how I please, whether it’s homeschooling, private school or public school. I am thankful for the beauty of this country and the national and state parks that give us a place where we can enjoy that beauty.
Our country is a gray place. We are founded on righteous principles, but we have yet to reach a time where we are fully walking out all those principles. But I have hope. The good is there, and I will continue to look for it and find it and be thankful for it.
Life With Esther 