The Tire Swing

The author singing the National Anthem at the Douglasville Military Honor Garden

When I was a little boy we had a tire swing in our backyard hanging from an abnormally large dogwood tree. I guess in actuality it was really an inner tube swing. More like a giant rubber band tied to a rope.

I used to lie inside the inner tube with my chest in the sling facing the ground. Then I would kick myself around so I could fly like a super hero in big circles. Another thing I would do, when I was alone of course, was sing while I was flying around. I would sing in my biggest most grown up voice I could muster, and one of the songs I most often sang was The Star Spangled Banner. I loved that song.

I think I loved the boldness of the melody and the braveness of the lyrics. It was a good super hero song. My Uncle Tom Callahan sang the National Anthem at every home game of the Atlanta Braves during their inaugural season back in 1966, which added much to my inspiration. Uncle Tom had an amazing voice and he was the music director for a large Methodist church in downtown Atlanta. In later years Tom would sing the Lord’s Prayer at many of the weddings in my family. As of today I have sung in a choir in the Episcopal Church for over 20 years, and I can say with confidence Uncle Tom was the single biggest influence on my desire to sing.

I still recall one afternoon, as I swung around in my super hero swing singing the National Anthem in my big grown up voice, my friend Chris Ricthie snuck up on me. I was insanely embarrassed! Fortunately he didn’t make too much fun of me as I did my best Jedi mind trick to make him forget he had ever heard it.

I grew up just like every other kid from my generation saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school. Standing for the National Anthem at every ballgame my dad took me to. I was a Boy Scout. I was raised hunting and fishing by the best father any boy could ever pray for. Then I became the typical American teenage boy who chased girls and drove fast cars. I didn’t pay nearly enough attention in school, but I fell back on my talents as a visual artist that would eventually lead me to a lucrative career in advertising and marketing. America was very good to me.

Many years later I was asked to sing the National Anthem at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Military Honor Garden in Douglas County, Georgia. I was honored and mortified all at the same time. Singing such an important song in front of so many people gave me flashbacks to Chris Ricthie snapping me out of my super hero fantasy all those years ago. I had sung solo many times in the choir, but there was something different about this. This was the National Anthem after all, and I was to sing it in front of a much more diverse crowd along with politicians, soldiers, and their families.

I practiced for the couple of weeks leading up to the event and the thing that worried me the most is I would break down crying every single time I came to the lyrics, “What so proudly we hailed…” That’s right, only three phrases into the song. I could not even get to “at the twilight’s last gleaming.” This happened so often I very nearly called my friend Ralph, who was my contact with the memorial planners, to tell him I could not sing the song after all. It was not the first time I’ve been brought to tears over the Flag. Years back when the Atlanta Braves finally won the World Series, I was standing on Peachtree Street waiting for the victory parade to come by my office. Off in the distance I saw an ocean of American flags waving in the wind at the head of the parade. I actually lost my breath and began to cry. I’m not even sure why, but there was something about that scene that hit me with great profundity.

So there I was, getting ready to sing this sacred song to a crowd of people who were all there to honor our troops. In that crowd was the family of a recently fallen soldier in Afghanistan. The local VFW color guard was there to bring in the flag, and eventually it was my time to step up to the podium to sing. Two things I knew I could not do while I sang this song was look anyone in the eyes, especially the family of the fallen soldier, and not to stare at the flag as I sang. Either of those two things would, without a doubt, cause me to break down. By the grace of God I made it through the song in one piece and did not mess up the words. I’m certain I could have sung it better, but was grateful to get through it without dishonoring myself, the Flag, or anyone else there.

Now, here we are as a country embroiled in this controversy over athletes taking a knee during the National Anthem. I’ve seen and read plenty of the rhetoric on TV and social media. It is, as could be expected, highly inflammatory on both sides. I’ve given much of my account in this essay on where I stand patriotically, but what I have left out so far is what I feel is missing from the whole story as it is unfolding before us. That is, what does my faith tell me about this situation? As a professing Christian, what am I called to do as a response to what I am seeing?

If I were only a patriot I think the answer might be clear, but I pray somehow that I am more than that. I am called by Christ to look for the weak and to seek out the marginalized, and to speak for those who are oppressed. I might still be that little boy who wants to swing around in his super hero swing singing about our great nation, but I am also a man, a broken man, who has seen a lot of things in his years. My faith tells me before I can proudly hail my country as the land of the free, I must play some part to make sure that the liberty and tranquility our forefathers spoke of in the preamble of our Constitution are indeed available to everyone in our society.

It is not some abstract idea that freedom and liberty are inherent in our country simply because we say it is so. It is only so when each of us takes action to make it that way to our brothers and sisters. Colin Kaepernick is not some poor child who has been stripped of his liberty. He is a successful professional athlete who enjoys a type of prosperity greater than I will ever know. Kaepernick decided to use his visible status to send a message to a very large audience on behalf of those he represents—those who do not have the power of his voice or status.

He began taking a knee on the advice of Nate Boyer, a fellow NFL player and former Green Beret who understood what Kaepernick was trying to do. Boyer explained that taking a knee would be a more respectful gesture than sitting down, and so it went from there. Starting right here we can either begin the useless argument over first amendment rights, or whether the NFL should require players to stand, or even fire players who do not. Or we can do the right thing and look at why this is all happening.

Whether we (and when I say “we” I mean white people like me) like his methods or not it has created a national conversation. It was meant to bring an awareness of societal and racial issues that are still very much unresolved in this country. It is not for us white folks to try and divine the nuance of black society’s needs. When someone is hurting it is not our place to tell them they can’t hurt, we are obligated by our faith to ask them where the pain is coming from. Consider if someone who is bleeding to death breaks down our door begging for help, do we run them off and chastise them for breaking the door, or do we rush to their medical needs?

As for me, I will not partake in the argument over whether the National Anthem is the right forum to gain our attention for a problem that needs to be desperately addressed. I will rather use my time to work toward healing. Would I choose to take a knee during the National Anthem to get my point across? I think it’s obvious that I would not. But I am a white man who grew up in a Rockwellesque world. I cannot even pretend to know what it was like for my black neighbor who lived along side me in my very white universe.

I will still stand, and always proudly hail that flag that represents the hopes of liberty for us all, but I will not assume the flag will do all the lifting on its own. We are made great by our hands and our hearts. That is the American spirit that made us great in the first place, and it is the only thing that will keep us moving in the right direction. Meanwhile, I will not ask who deserves help and I will not try and determine the legitimacy of another person’s needs. God’s Grace, after all, is not merit based.

There is a way to help those who are kneeling to stand. What way will you choose?

Isaiah 1:17
Proverbs 31:9
Matthew 20:8