Two Worlds on the Fourth of July (revised)
Conceived in liberty, a nation is born.
(Today is July 5. I wanted to get the original version of this post out on the Fourth itself, so hurried it a bit. This revision is, hopefully, a little more polished.)
July 4, 2026, marks 250 years since signing of the Declaration of Independence. Of the liberty in which our nation was conceived. A nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Also that all have rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Rights that cannot be taken away. That proposition has since been extended to all women as well as to men and women of all colors of the rainbow.
That’s the proposition, anyway.
July 4, 1776, was thus the moment of conception, which launched our nation on its gestational journey in the womb of becoming. That journey has seen times of peace and growth as well as times of turbulence and tumult. More than once the fetal nation, so pregnant with promise, faced miscarriage and the boding of abortion. Nevertheless, the pregnancy prevailed until now, 3000 months later, we find ourselves at the moment of birth.
The birth is not at all an easy one, however. Seemingly unbridgeable breaches of national unity threaten a still birth. Those of us who have chosen to be here at this time have the opportunity and solemn responsibility to midwife the process, to breathe life into the newborn, and to nurture it so that it grows into a healthy expression of the promise and ideals bound into its DNA.
We have much work to do – an instance of which I witnessed earlier on this day of celebration.
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I am sitting at a street table by a downtown San Mateo café, sipping cappuccino while sussing out sudoku. I glance up and see two worlds side by side on the sidewalk before me. Each world oblivious to the other, unseen, nonexistent.
Less than 10 feet away, an elderly man is harvesting discarded cans and bottles from a blue recycling bin parked at the curb. Presumably, his aim is to trade them for five cents each from California’s Beverage Recycling Program.
His clothes are dirty and tattered. His face, unshaven, sun-darkened, weather-wrinkled. He walks slowly, methodically, step by step, back bent by the burdens of his years. He’s transporting his bounty from the bin back to his workstation next to a wall across the sidewalk. The workstation consists of three large, white plastic trash bags and one brown paper bag with handles. He stoops and sorts the cans and bottles into the various bags. From time to time – in order, I imagine, to make room in the bags – he removes a few cans and stomps on them with a loud, flattening crunch before replacing them. Always slowly, methodically, with focused purpose.
At last, sorting and packing done, he pulls and ties the draw strings on the plastic bags, picks them up, along with the paper bag, and walks – slowly, methodically, bent – back to the blue recycling bin where he’s parked his black mini-bike. He then begins to heft his haul onto the handlebars. Suddenly, his slow, methodical intention is interrupted by the clatter of bottles falling from the paper bag, wet, weakened, rent by the leakage of its contents. Fortunately, none breaks.
The man witnesses the calamity calmly; nary a curse nor gasp crosses his lips. He just stands there as the bottles bounce and roll around the sidewalk. Slowly and methodically, he gathers the bottles one by one and places them in other bags and the bike’s basket. He crumples the broken paper bag and pushes it into the blue bin. No room now for him on the bike, so he simply walks the bike away from me to the corner and crosses the street. My eyes follow him as he continues into the distance – slowly, methodically, step by step along the street not the sidewalk, a line of parked cars on his right, traffic passing from behind on his left. A couple of blocks later, he vanishes from view.
All the while, through this whole scenario, another world unfolds. People pass on the sidewalk, peering into cell phones. Young lovers hold lattes with one hand and each other with the other. Parents parade along, their children skipping ahead. All skirt the man sorting cans and picking up bottles. None pays him any mind. Nor he them. Both unaware of the presence, even the existence, of the other. Invisible. Two distinct worlds.
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On this day, the Fourth of July, we clearly have our work cut out for us to help this newborn nation fulfill the noble proposition in which it was conceived.