(My friend and USC faculty colleague, Leah Buturain, calls this "musing" a "Reclamation Proclamation"!)
Very few American flags have waved at the recent protests in defense of black lives. I hope that this changes, and fast! The peaceful protesters for justice are the real patriots in our country today. It's our flag! If we don't use it, we'll lose it. How can we allow people who don't represent its true values claim it exclusively as their symbol? When progressive people wave the flag, we transform it away from being a sign of backward-looking nativism. People vote their identities more than they vote their own economic interests. Turn the symbol of their identity into one that represents inclusion and racial justice, and we begin to shift politics in a hopeful direction.
Today, Confederate flags and statues are coming down. So American flags should go up! Finally, 155 years later, all Americans are winning the Civil War: black, white, northern, southern, and the rest of us. If ever there was a time to wave our flag high and with pride, this is it!
Most countries have some kind of focal point on their flags. But the American flag does not. It has an off-center beauty made up of multiple stars and stripes, none emphasized more than the others. Our flag models our nation. America is not centered in ethnicity. Not united by language. Not bound together by one religion. Our founders united us by a universal human principle, rooted in Nature itself: the principle of the equality of humankind, expressed through democracy. No one of us can claim to lord it over the rest. All of us are humbled before the rule of law and our Constitution that enshrines it. The universal spiritual principle of humility, expressed in religious and secular traditions, is woven seamlessly into the fabric of our nation and of our flag. From this humility, love flows and grows.
To that end, I wrote This Is Our Flag. The tune, Finlandia, was written by Sibelius, a Finnish composer. His words to the hymn were overtly and even obnoxiously nationalistic: it was a time when Finland was threatened with absorption by the Russian Empire. In contrast, an American, Lloyd Stone, wrote lyrics in 1934 that expressed national pride but with deep respect for other nations: This Is My Song. I wrote two versions of This Is Our Flag, one is American and the other is "international" in flavor:
This Is Our Flag
(Tune: Finlandia - Jean Sibelius)
Words: Jim Burklo
This is our flag, inviting every nation
To human freedom and democracy
Red, white, and blue: we sing out our devotion
In harmony from our diversity
Our creeds and tongues and points of view are many
We stand as one defending liberty
This is our flag: its stars and stripes are many
As we have gathered from so many lands
Into this tapestry we're sewn together
Raising our flag, and all for which it stands
Our Constitution binds us all together
Under our flag, in humble unity
This is our flag: it waves for all our people
Who gave their lives extending liberty
It waves for votes in free and fair elections
It welcomes migrants yearning to be free
It stands for truth, the rule of law, and justice
Long may it wave, held high by you and me!
(Ana Gobledale of Worship Words inspired me to offer an "international" version of this song:)
This is our flag, inviting every nation
To human freedom and democracy
We lift it high, and sing out our devotion
In harmony from our diversity
Our creeds and tongues and points of view are many
We stand as one defending liberty
This is our flag: a banner stitched from patches
That we have gathered from so many lands
Into this tapestry we're sewn together
Raising our flag, and all for which it stands
Our loyalty binds us all together
Under our flag, in humble unity
This is our flag: it waves for all our people
Who gave their lives extending liberty
It waves for votes in free and fair elections
It welcomes migrants yearning to be free
It stands for truth, the rule of law, and justice
Long may it wave, held high by you and me!
PS: Ruth Carleton, a peace activist and parishioner from my days as Associate Pastor of First Congregational Church, UCC, in Palo Alto CA, wrote this alternative "pledge of allegiance to the flag. She taught it to her students when she was teaching in an elementary school: