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OP-ED

To live in an America free of prejudice requires constant work–work that may never be finished.

There are people far better equipped to write poignantly and eloquently about this day’s celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., but I am mindful of the fact that offering up words of encouragement and support and empathy is important.

Today ought to be a day in which we look for unity, to applaud our forward momentum, to carefully reconsider our missteps. That’s what I felt growing up–this was a celebratory day, not a reminder of how far we have to go–and even now I’m troubled by how wide that chasm seems.

The nation’s intensified gaze upon our growing racial divide, sharpened among police brutality, riots, and elections, has emboldened a lot of people harboring racist words and deeds. I always wanted to believe they were the human equivalent of carnival sideshows–Look! A racist! What a creature!–but in truth so many of them live and breathe openly among us.

This Land is Your Land

By James D. Hogan

On May 29, 2016

In writing

We don’t forget whom we mourn on Memorial Day as much as we do why.

Yes, let’s all remind ourselves that this Memorial Day Weekend, while occasion for backyard barbecues and festivities, was wrought to mark the somber occasion of those heroes who charged into battle, who laid down their lives to ensure the light of liberty would endure.

This is the meme that surfaces for a breath every year, filling timelines with lines like “Our day at the beach is thanks to their day at the beach,” over top a photo from Normandy, or a little boy dressed in his father’s Marine uniform, lying prone against brilliant emerald grass, a tombstone in the blurry background.

Yes, people–men, women, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, some little more than children, others career-long servants–these and many more died for our country.

The Opening

By James D. Hogan

On May 27, 2013

In writing

AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN

Memorial Day weekend is the opening to summer that Labor Day closes.

Years ago, I wrote a meditation on the fall that contained some version of the line, “If Fall had an archway, this would be it.” And a similar line would work here, that Summer officially started this past weekend.

All around us, the community sprung into motion, as if the spring season had pent up some untapped reserve of kinetic force. My friends filled their Facebook and Instagram and Twitter feeds with reports and pictures of movement, point A to point B, fun all along the way, pictures of barbecues and lake outings and beaches and camping and Nascar races and parties. The pumps are running at all of the swimming pools, and thousands (or millions!) of us braved the temperatures, this spring more fitting in October than May, and splashed around in glory.

As for me, I left work Friday around lunch and picked up my golf clubs, inspired by a friend who was doing the same thing, and drove straight to the little county course near our house. I bought a pair of hot dogs, and a cold beer, and a bottle of water, and a bucket of range balls, and a round of nine holes. It had been about two years since I’d been out on a golf course. Better to ease into it.

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Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King.