What flag will we plant in an empire of death?

Quick family meeting in the kitchen for the American Christians.

Ideally, this would be an essay that inspires you in the face of the news onslaught we’ve encountered this week.

In a perfect world, there would somehow be the ultimate combination of assembled letters and words to encourage you in the face of a Supreme Court criminalizing the economic misfortune of not having a place to sleep.

If Substacks could fix all our problems, someone on this website would mix up the proper alchemy of “this is hard” and “I know you are tired” and “but we can do hard things” to motivate you not to give up and fall back into your bed with a carton of Blue Bell and your microwavable footie socks after that incredibly depressing debate.

If the inevitable is going to happen, which is that men will always revert to kings and kings will always claim a divine right to rule, wouldn’t it stand to reason we could precipitate toppling that false claim with what’s always worked: telling the people the truth?

Photo by Brandon Mowinkel on Unsplash

I don’t know if it’s natural for the scales to fall off your eyes about this country as you get older, or if we live in unnatural times when this country has overstayed its welcome. Because it’s not like it hasn’t been bad. Do you remember the moment you realized you weren’t sure there were adults in the room? That there wasn’t necessarily a steady hand at the wheel? Is it just the gradual awareness of what Kurt Vonnegut talks about when he describes the true terror that is “to wake up one morning and realize your high school class is running the country.” Is this what adulthood is? Coming to terms with the fact that empires, on average, make it about 250 years, and America is two days away from celebrating its 248th birthday? The marketing sheen has worn off. The fireworks are a distraction. Who is free? Who is brave?