I came across a Ken Burns PBS documentary on Thomas Jefferson.
It got me thinking on where we are as a country. An idea. An experiment in freedom.
We are about to celebrate our 260th anniversary as a country. Our “Semiquicentennial.” Now, that’s a word. Try typing it. Spell check didn’t even try and help me.
With that big, messy word, where are we really? I think a big, messy country.
I this what Thomas Jefferson and John Adams intended? I think, maybe.
As messy as it all seems today, I think it might be what our Founding Fathers hoped it would be.
A big, messy, glorious experiment
Here we are. 260 years later. Some might say we are at our end. I don’t believe that. I believe that, while we are at a place we haven’t seen in in a long time, maybe ever, we are at a place that will propel us onward.
I choose to believe that Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and all those others knew that we were going to be better.
Better than what had come before us. The tyranny of a king that wanted us to forever be at his beck and call.
I want to believe that Thomas Jefferson was the idyllic American. Brilliant. Patriotic. Flawed. American.
American.
We are celebrating our 260th anniversary as a country. I’m spending the next year celebrating those that got us here. Thomas Jefferson. John Adams. George Washington. Benjamin Franklin. Franklin Roosevelt. There are others, but that’s where I am right now.
I’m not giving up on this idea of America. Not yet. The Founding Fathers believed this great experiment was worth the trouble.
Let’s give it another chance. I believe we succeed.
Our great experiment. America.