4th of July

Seven years ago, our first ward activity was the 4th of July breakfast, just the day after we closed on our house here! It's fitting, I suppose, that our last ward activity here was also the 4th of July breakfast.

This year was much smoother for us than some years have been. Last year we noped out of there because Alexander had a raging ear infection and it was so hot and humid and the pancakes weren't ready and no one had told us there would be swimming so we were just sitting there sick and sweltering. The year before that they started at 8 AM instead of 9 AM and we collectively decided that no one wanted to get out of bed at 7:00 on a Saturday (swim season already has us up early most mornings). We've skipped out on several other years as well... 

This holiday can be a tough one for me. 

Popping on a nauseatingly patriotic playlist ('Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue' played several times yesterday...gross) and proclaiming superiority just isn't my jam. But it is so often what happens at these celebrations and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

To say something like: "We are the strongest and most powerful country on earth. And by the grace of God, the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history... For a quarter of a millennium, liberty, justice, equality, self-government, and unmatched prosperity have flourished here as they have never flourished anywhere before" smacks of hubris at best.

I prefer remarks like this: "as we celebrate this special day this year, we have much to be proud of and much to be thankful for. We are a prosperous and optimistic country. We are a kind and generous society. And we are a compassionate friend and a reliable ally. This is our [country]! A country that is confident on the world stage. A country where people live in freedom. A country where hard work and entrepreneurship mean more than where you come from or the people you know. These are all reasons to be grateful..."

The use of superlative exceptionalism just irks me because I think there are so many wonderful places to be in the world. I don't think that God values one country above another (he is, after all, no respecter of persons). When we create narratives that He does, that's us doing that (and I think it is prideful). 

But I think it's beautiful to love and appreciate the place you live, and to want to contribute positively to the society and community you're a part of. I think it's important to remember the sacrifices of those who came before, who helped make your life as full of ease as it is today—and for me that includes not only those who signed important documents or held the biggest guns, but also those who left behind what they knew and made a new life in an new land, and those whose land and labour was exploited to enrich others. An individual success is a complicated thing to measure...

So, anyway, it's a difficult holiday for me because I simply can't handle all the use of superlative. 

Must we always be superlative? Can we never just be lative?

Superlative comes from the Latin superlatus, meaning "exaggerated" (used as past participle of superferre "carry over or beyond"). Super means "beyond" and lat- comes from tollere, which means "to take away" (related to "extol"). 

I don't think we need to exaggerate the goodness of this nation.

It really is so good. 

It's so good that using superlatives is unbecoming of it. 

Something I often tell my children is that a truly smart or attractive or funny or powerful person doesn't have to tell you that they are smart/attractive/funny/powerful/kind/tall/talented/whatever. You will simply know this about them by witnessing it. If they have to tell you about it...it probably isn't actually all that true...otherwise you'd already know. 

So blustering on and on about being the most free and the most prosperous and the most blessed nation is just...hot air.

I would say it's meaningless, but it's not. I think it borders on...irresponsible...even dangerous...rhetoric.

I simply don't appreciate it.

And because so much of what people say at this time of year is...superlative...in nature...it's a difficult holiday for me.

Can you tell we just had our 4th of July testimony meeting? 

By howdy! That's a tricky Sunday for me.

But! I am grateful for the opportunity our family has found in this land. It's a good place to live (among many other wonderful places to live).

And I'm glad we went to the pancake breakfast yesterday. 

Here's Miriam with the Hailey and Kaitlyn, who are headed to their grandparents' house for a couple of weeks and won't see Miriam before she leaves (they left for their grandparents' just after the breakfast yesterday):

And here's Phoebe enjoying the pool:

And here she is zoning out during "rainbow time" after coming home:

In the afternoon we had a cul-de-sac water balloon fight...

Here are my kids getting all ready for the event (plus Andie, who came over to hang out):

And here we are getting down to business:

I'm so glad that among all the families that live on our street, we are one of them. We're not the best family on the block, but we are a good one. And we're surrounded by other families who are most excellent. And that is pretty awesome!

Because sometimes all the kids are at our house bouncing on the trampoline and eating our snacks. Or sometimes we are the ones planning the Halloween party and making fun Halloween treats.

And sometimes the neighbours buy hundreds of water balloons and sparklers and set out cookies for the 4th of July and all I have to do is show up and join in on the fun. And that's pretty cool.

Being the best family on the block would be exhausting—we'd always have to be defending our title and trying to one-up everyone else. 

But being a good family on a block of other good families is...awesome.

I don't want my family to be better than any one of these families because as much as I love my own family, I love these other families as well. I want them all to be good and happy and prosperous (even if and when their lifestyle and values don't align 100% with mine) and...that is just how I happen to think I about nation states as well.

After cleaning up zillions of pieces of burst water balloons we went on a walk to see what firework displays we could find. Fireworks are a public good that are "non-excludable (impossible to prevent people from using it) and non-rivalrous (one individual's use does not reduce availability to others)."

We aren't big on buying fireworks, but we do go around to see what we can see (because it in no way diminishes the joy of the person who is setting them off). 

Here's Phoebe ready to go for the walk:

We didn't see much but we certainly heard a lot. We stopped at one driveway near Grandpa's old house where a family was setting off a few things (in all honesty, they seemed to like the extra audience). And then on our way home we stumbled into Reed (and Ben) who were setting off some rather big fireworks (under the supervision of Reed's mom).

Phoebe didn't love the big explosions and asked to go home to bed...which meant that she missed out on sparklers. She was rather annoyed when she saw me going through pictures (but Andrew said that we could perhaps go buy some sparklers to do tomorrow for FHE since she missed out). In Phoebe's defense, it was quite late (10:15) by the time we started sparklers.

I love Alexander's face here:

These kids took their sparkler posing quite seriously!

The evening was rounded off with a tremendous thunderstorm. We were sure we were going to lose power, but aside from a few flickers we managed to keep the lights on (allowing the dishwasher and washing machine to finish their cycles, the AC to keep running, etc). 

Phoebe slept through the scariest parts of the storm but woke up when it was still thundering...and then had a rough night. She does not love thunderstorms (and there are thunderstorms on the forecast every day for the next week or so—gotta love a good southern summer).