I lift my lamp (long-form wip)

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Thenarius
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Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:38 pm
Location: E'er entwined in shimm'ring wings.

I lift my lamp (long-form wip)

Post by Thenarius »

For a long time now, I’ve been trying to find a way to put this feeling into words. The events of the last week have convinced me of its necessity and pushed me to try harder.

I grew up in a curious place, straddling the border between north and south, left and right, the Church and the world. My family never took me to church, but God was the most important thing in my life, and I found my way there. My school and community gave me a respect for the military; my family and media gave me a respect for personal liberty; my church gave me a respect for the life and needs of the poor. I grew up liberal, I rebelled in various ways, but I have always loved my country.

From elementary school I took away the understanding that the United States of America was a special place, where each citizen was blessed with the freedom to live and worship according to their conscience. I saw it, at its foundation, as a beacon of light in a world of darkness, a bastion of democracy amidst monarchies. It was a bold new attempt at making a better world for those trampled by the powerful. I was delighted to learn the words “majority rule, minority protected”. America has always been, to me, a place where the voiceless were given power to speak.

We did not perfectly realize that ideal. We were slavers. We rectified that wrong. We have not yet fixed all of our flaws; we have not righted every injustice that we have committed, nor those that we continue to perpetuate. But the foundation of America has always been those rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, to me: … that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. As I grew, I better understood how America was failing to live out its promise, but I cherish that promise. We read that Declaration, and the Constitution, in middle school. I treasured those documents.

Something touched me even more directly, though, in middle school. It was no legal document, no philosophical treatise. It was a poem. Our teacher taught us that it was inscribed on a plaque within the Statue of Liberty. I read the final stanza, and was changed:
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The Wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

In elementary school, I learned that we were a nation of immigrants. I learned that America offered herself, with open doors, to those in need from all nations. Regardless of color or creed, she was ready to receive them.
Wedjat Iaret, Ra no Omezu