A warning – this post is both political and spiritual, things we are not supposed to talk about in polite company. So if you’d rather not listen, you can pass this one today. But every once and a while, the pastor in me leaks out.

I drive an old jeep. I did not spend a lot of money on it. There’s some rust. It will never get noticed in a crowd. But it is a box on wheels, and in my life, I have need of a box on wheels with some regularity.

Last week when getting some routine brake work done, it came out that the rear wheel bearings were starting to grind. Sooner or later this would be the kind of problem that would grind the old jeep to a jarring halt. I thought about it and in the end, went on and had them replaced. It’s not something I wanted to spend money on, but it beats replacing the box on wheels or having it come crashing to a halt.

This morning in a strange diner (my favorite diner is closed for the holiday) I found myself in a political conversation with strangers. That’s something I avoid. Political discourse has become so venomous. Different opinions are so demonized and polarized that those kinds of conversations. (And I was raised on conversations with a conservative father and more liberal mother, so I know it does not have to be that way.) often decend to name calling.

Once a conversation descends to that, no one is learning. Humanity and understanding is gone. It becomes a matter of who can beat the other person into shutting up. But I was dragged into this one. The others in the conversation must have seen something on my face as they talked. The gist of the conversation was that people who did not like the country should just leave. By the time my new set of conversationalists were done with me I got plastered with that one myself. That I should just leave.

It’s an argument you hear a lot from some people, and I have a fair amount of them in my little corner of the country. And it is an argument that I have never understood.

I love this country we live in. I have been blessed to have traveled much of it. I have spent time in the deep south, in the midwest, the west and after being raised in Virginia, I have landed in New England and have made it home. I love and live in rural areas. But I love to visit our great cities – New York City and Boston in particular. So many place that are so different and that is part of what I love. We are this cauldron of ideas and cultures and beliefs and we have made it work for us.

That is what I was taught – that there was power in diversity. There was strength and resilience, and that diversity was the engine that created growth – personal, economic, and political. Even my father, who early in his life was bogoted (He outgrew it.), would have told you the same thing.

I love this country we live in. I love the history of struggle we have grown into – the struggle of making “All men are created equal” a real thing. It’s not been easy.

But at the same time, we have a lot of things broken. Particularly now. People are struggling and we are spending too much time on the wrong things. There is little going on that actually solves the real problems we all face. The cost of living, for instance, is high. In the past two years, food has gone up. Gas has gone up. Our health insurance has more than doubled. My real estate assessment (and thus taxes) has doubled. Health care is getting worse. Education is struggling to keep up with the world and people end up paying for both with loans and often bankruptcy. The homeless and poor populations are growing. I am not rich. I have cobbled together a decent life, but the possibilities of that life are closing in on me. I am not something special. It’s happening to all of us.

I recently traveled on some money I had squirreled away a decade ago. My wife and I went to Italy, and then to Spain to see my son. They have their own issues there, but… no one goes bankrupt for health care. I fell ill and health care was quick, efficient and cheap. No one goes into debt for their education, leaving them to live a life that is productive and good right out of the gate. I spent a fair amount of time talking to my son, who lives in Spain, about the differences. I came home wondering why we can’t solve our problems when others have.

I think I got my answer this morning in my unexpected diner conversation. I said that very thing – how is it that others can solve these problems and we can’t? I did not blame (I wanted to, but decided that was a bad idea.). I just asked that question, thoughtfully.

And I got the “You should just leave.” thing. The conversation pretty much ended there.

But driving home, I thought about all that is wrong with that attitude. What if those who hated slavery had just decided to leave instead of fighting and working to end it? What if those immigrants who came here had just turned around and left? How poor and dull would our lives be without the Irish, Polish, Jews, Hispanics and Italians. I love the parts of our culture that they brought. Food. Music. Art. Ideas. Because they stayed and fought for their place and because others took on their cause. What if those who believed women should have the vote, be able to get education and take part in the fabric of life work and politics had said, “I’ll just leave and find a place where women are valued.” But they did not. What if Martin Luther King and that whole generation of men and women who fought for civil rights had just said “Screw this. Let’s go somewhere else.”?

What would we be then, if people just left? We’d be a pretty terrible place to live. That’s what we’d be.

You don’t just leave when things get hard, or need work. You go to work. You struggle with it at times. Many of us live in marriages, or in jobs or churches or families that have had struggles. They did not leave. They struggled. They did the work of fixing.

No, “You can leave.” is the wrong response on every level. Don’t tell me things can’t get better. Our whole history as a nation has been a progression of struggle towards inclusiveness – which is where the solutions and growth come from. Yes, it may make you who would send me and my ilk packing, this struggle. But it is the struggle, together that has made our country great.

That is the country I love, messy as it gets.

For me, late in life preacher than I am, it is also a matter of faith. In the Christian faith, we believe Jesus was sent to save us, sinful lot that we are. Jesus’ view of faith included loving enemies and the marginalized, caring for the poor, forgiveness, and grace. Of caring for people more than rules and structure.

That was NOT a mainstream view at the time. And he was often at odds with the people in power who were less interested in making life better than in keeping their power. In the end, they killed him.

He could have stayed gone. I think I might have been tempted to. But no, he came back. My faith teaches that his spirit stays to fill us and help us live a life that (and this is the center of what I am trying to say) makes things better through love and grace.

So happy Fourth of July. To those of you who would like “my kind.” to leave, to those of you who stay precisely because you love this country. We have work to do. Our wheel bearings are grinding. It’s getting worse. And those of us who stay, who fight to fix, who have the courage and belief that we can be better – you are the ones who will make it happen. I honor all of you.

Be well. Travel wisely.

Tom

PS – The image if by Saul Steinberg, who did illustrations and art for the New Yorker for over 40 years. He’s one of my faves.