Of Thee I Sing

The relevance of this young land yet to be found; faced, and fought over.  It’s her birthday and yet we obsessively ignore her needs for ours as though the relevance of the day is to be enjoined coyly, that of a young maiden flowering to perfection.  Her true worth lost under fried bread and corn dogs, a hefty cloak gaudily covering her exquisite bone structure.  The relevance of this ‘To thee I Sing-Day’ drowned out in honky-tonk cacophonies of slide guitar, fife and drum.

Nothing wrong with honky-tonk if it calls us to sing out.  But where are the songs?  What is relevant that calls the singer to rise like the lark on full break of day?  What are we willing to risk to be that vulnerable, to be snatched mid-air by the hawk?  We love that type of drama and cheer it on.  But if we are asking about the true courage of a young country, a maiden, we ask if she can withstand revealing dark edges and hidden agendas?  We ask~ Does she have breath and stamina to sing with the lark, and the honky-tonk band?  Is she willing to be derided by the cognoscenti, spit on by old lovers, have her cankers revealed, her relevance questioned?

If we are wild with youth, crazy with freedom, obsessed in being selfishly relevant, are we equally open to Grace and Spirit?  Who is willing to stand and sing off key, vulnerable and willing to be cut down and left as seed for the coming; dust to dust?