Thoughts on the 4th

It was the 4th of July, 2014; Rhoda and I left some friends off at the BWI airport.   Deciding to make it a vacation day, we took 695 to the east instead of the west to explore coast line of the Chesapeake Bay.  Crossing a bridge we turned right into a small community called Edgemore and then onto North Point State Park.  We enjoyed our picnic lunch among many minority groups who have come to celebrate this holiday of their recent country of choice.   As we hiked the beach we saw so many people in white shirts several hundred feet off the shore line.   When we heard their singing we soon realized this was a baptism class for a Spanish Pentecostal congregation from Baltimore.  The large Trolley station which had supported a popular amusement park from 1920 to 1940 was closed years ago and now it became the site of several cooks grilling corn, sausage, and hamburger patties preparing for their fellowship meal following this baptism service.  

After a hike around the park we ended up in the visitor’s museum.   We soon learned we were on another site of our country’s war riddled history.   Two months shy of 200 years this was a site where more than 4000 British soldiers landed on route to take Baltimore as they had taken Washington DC a few months before.   This time however the Royal forces ran into Continental snipers who shot their famous General Ross on horseback.  While the English may have prevailed in the battle they were demoralized and retreated.   The War of 1812 soon sputtered to an end with the Independent Colonies still intact.   

This little visit along with so many verbal statements of thanksgiving for a country where “we can worship as we please”, brought to my mind again the difficulties we have as a church committed to the way of peace and political nonalignment.   We are bombarded by continual references to quotations from our founding fathers that would lead one to believe that if we had not fought these so many wars we would be ruled by some bigoted despot who would have all Christians living in fear of the midnight knock on the door taking us all off to jail.  

Thankfully we have our neighbor to the north as a reference point to give us an honest comparison of a country which did not fight a revolutionary war, a war of 1812, a civil war, Mexican wars, Indian wars, or a Spanish American war.   Yet they are every bit as free and independent as we are in this country.   I often wonder, if we would not have fought the revolutionary war, certainly we would not have fought the War of 1812 as that was kind of a repeat, then as part of the British Empire our slaves would have been freed in 1830 instead 1864 which means the Civil war would not have been fought either.    Maybe we would have had more favorable relations with our indigenous people; both the Native Americans and the Mexicans.   Our borders would be much more porous and friendly.   Would WW1 have been fought?  I don’t know.   Canada was drawn into WW1 because of their alliance with Great Britain before US, so my “what if’s” do break down here a bit.     But the point remains that Canadian character has been shaped by a history that is far less militant, even resisting our involvements in Vietnam in the 60’s, Central America in the 80's,  Iraq and Afganistan since 2001.   We could fly from Canada to Cuba and Vietnam though out these past many years we called the Cold War.

It may seem almost heretical to grieve our war of independence as firework’s are bursting in the air and we listen to leaders honor “those who gave their lives for our freedom”.   We need to remember the convictions of so many who did not share in the rebellion of those tax resisters of the 1770’s.   It was a scary time for our ancestors from the Historic Peace Churches here in Pennsylvania.  I am told more than 500 families from our Lancaster area fled to Canada during this time to remain under the Queen.   The Queen had been very good to us, allowing William Penn opportunity to invite the persecuted pacifist people to settle this land.   They did not trust the tempers of those willing, even eager, to go to war with their own motherland over what seemed to them as a proper obligation of “giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and giving to God what is God’s”.   

But grieving the revolution I must, particularly because I walk with more than 150 displaced refugees from Burma in our congregation at Habecker Mennonite Church.   Their people have fought a revolution for 60 years seeking independence from the dominate people of Burma.   Their struggle has not been successful.  Thousands have died, more than a million displaced, so many villages have been burned, and the battle continues in their minds even as they settle in this country to start life again.   If I encourage them to give up their war for independence, I certainly cannot celebrate our own.

So as I walked this park at North Point 200 years after 80 people lost their lives, 500 wounded on this small patch of land seeking to maintain who would dominate this peaceful countryside, it is nice to celebrate the present rather than the past; Two hundred recent immigrants gathered together to celebrate their commitment to the Prince of Peace and Lord of Lords.