Memorial Day – A Reflection

Memorial Day is a day set aside for reflection, a day meant for us to honor our fallen dead.

The meaning of this day has changed a great deal since it was founded. At its inception, Memorial Day was set aside to honor the African-American soldiers who fought and died in the Civil War, both soldiers who were born-free, as well as those who had been enslaved; men and women, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters who gave everything they had to keep the United States of America whole, and to make it free.

Memorial Day was established to honor those who died for an America which they only dreamed could exist; they died for these United States, our brave soldiers died for a vision of America they could only prayed for, and America that was not yet real. They got something different than they hoped for, they got this reality, an America that is still in a state of becoming, one that is more or less just, depending on where you are born, what color your skin is, what class you belong to…or who is in charge of enforcing the law.

Those men and women died for us, for good or ill, they died for us; they died for promises that went un-realized, they died for a dream deferred, as our poet Langston Hughes wrote of the in his poem Harlem[i]:

What happens to a dream deferred?

 

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

 

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

 

Or does it explode?

 

We have yet to repay those good people, we have yet to fulfill their hopes for the America they dreamt of; America, daughter of liberty, America the true and good, America the arbiter of justice, an America that could be if we only pursued the dream of her and exercise the will to make it so.

Now…we honor our dead on this day; our soldiers and sailors and airmen, our police and firefighters; we honor them.

We are too frequently called upon to honor children, children who stand in the way of gunfire to protect their classmates, who paid for their compassion and bravery with their lives…we honor them and their sacrifice, all of them who died upholding our most cherished values, we honor them in recognition of the fact that we are one people descended from many nationalities and ethnicities, and that we each come into the world with the absolute right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; all other rights are subordinate to these. 

This year we are called upon to honor all citizens who have spent their lives in public service; we honor our teachers and the good works of our ordinary citizens, of our friends and neighbors, we honor the sacrifice of everyone, known and unknown and those yet to come.

On this day of all days, do not make the mistake of thinking that it is our service women and men who keep us free; it has been at least sixty years since America faced an “existential” threat from a foreign power…we are not kept free through armed conflict.

We do not face such an existential threat from beyond our shores and borders right now; not from Iran, not from North Korea, not from Russia, not from China or anywhere. The real threat we face is from ourselves, we face an existential threat brought about by ignorance, short-sightedness and greed…we stand in our own way; we, and we alone can protect us from ourselves. Our apathy and selfishness, our prejudice and hatred, our gluttony and cowardice, these are the most dangerous forces aligned against us, these are the forces that threaten our freedom. They are more deadly than any worldly power, these are the forces which have gone unchecked by our elected representatives, even encouraged by our president and his criminal regime.

It is shameful and terrifying. 

To honor our fallen dead, you must do your part to keep us free. You must participate in our democracy: vote, stay informed, organize, build alliances and collaborate.

Our collective failure as citizens of the Unites States has allowed a criminal, autocratic, demagogue to hold power in the White House, allowed the Supreme Court to state that corporations are to be treated as people, and money regarded as free speech, while those same justices have told ordinary American’s that their right to free speech does not include the right to be heard, and that our right to vote does not include the guarantee that our votes will be counted.

This rank cynicism is more dangerous to our lives and freedom than any rag-tag group of militants half way around the world, more dangerous than immigrants looking for a better life on our side of the border we share, more dangerous than people who are only seeking the same thing as my own forebears did when they came here a little over a hundred years ago….a better life, a chance to lift themselves out of poverty.

Honor our fallen dead. Not with cards and flowers and barbeques (but do those things because they are good), honor them by standing up to racism and bigotry, to religious zealotry and corporate greed, to scientific ignorance and xenophobia, to corruption in our public officials in our highest offices.

Honor them by participating in public discourse. Do not lose heart, and do not give up. Stand up and be counted!

We can rebuild America and reform our institutions, and we must for the sake of all Americans and all future generations humans who may be subject to our power...we must take responsibility for our lives and freedom or we will have nothing to protect.

Honor the fallen, in this way…participate!

Jay P. Botten, Veteran, U.S.N., Hospital Corps, 1990 – 1994

 

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[i] Langston Hughes, "Harlem" from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Copyright © 2002 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.

Observation - May 11th, 2026, Monday

my shoes are wet

black canvass with rubber soles

 

I stood in the gravel watering shrubs

newly planted with thirsty roots

 

the sound of water

hissing from the hose

counting

one to sixty in my head

waving the nozzle over the garden bed

 

Mary Stewart – Author, Hero

I read my first book by Mary Stewart in the summer between fifth and sixth grade, it was the first book in her Merlin trilogy, The Crystal Cave, and it opened my eyes to many things in the realm of mythology, among them was the notion that there were actual historical antecedents for Camelot and King Arthur, subjects that I had fascinated me for a few years by the time I had turned eleven, but which I thought of as figures of myth and legend, like Hercules, Perseus and Theseus whose adventures were fantastical and magical to the point of being unreal.

Mary Stewart wrote her series of Arthurian romance from the perspective of Merlin; she set the time in the fifth century CE, when Roman influence was waning in the British Isles and the Christians among them were in the minority, her books linked the rise of Arthur to a Roman dynasty about one hundred and fifty years before Patrick, left England for Ireland.

She wrote about the Roman Army in which Arthur’s father Uther, and his uncle Vortigern, bore rank. Through her depiction of the Roman army she introduced me to the mystery cult of Mithras, who was known throughout Gaul as Sol Invictus. She wrote about the Celtic people of Gallia and she wrote about the Druids; she wrote about their myths and peeled away the most fantastical elements, she put human beings at the center of the narrative, and left me to wonder if what was left…even the traces of magic…if it might not be true.

The characters in her chronicle: Vortigern and Uther Pendragon, Merlin, Igraine and Arthur were presented with a kind of grittiness that made me believe in them. They were already mythic figures in my imagination, but through her narrative they became real…I was connected to them.

Through her discussion of Mithraism I came to be interested in the real history of Christianity, ultimately to become a theologian, specializing in the history and philosophy of religion. Long before I began my formal studies in those fields I became a researcher and began to question everything that I had been told was true about the origins of the Church.

I cannot thank Mary Stewart enough for this; if my interest in those subjects had not been peaked by her authorship, I would not be the person I am today, and for that she is a hero of mine.

She had an oversized influence on my life, though I did not read much of her work beyond the Merlin Trilogy. I had begun my reading on Arthur a few years before I read her, but after her I was on a path, I read everything I could get my hands on concerning Arthur, including Mallory’s, Le Morte d’Arthur, and all of the variations of that text which flowed from it.

From Mary Stewart I learned about many other things, I discovered the real presence of Arthurian myth in European culture, how it served as a beacon of hope, providing my ancestors with a set or mores and a code of conduct that instigated and promoted the chivalric ideal, supported the notion of the common-wheel, which is the foundation of the legal system that has done more to set people free from the tyranny of monarchs than any other law code in the history of the world. At the same time I learned how the Arthurian lore becoming a vehicle for subverting the hegemonic authority of the Catholic Church in western Europe, with the Albigensian Heresies, and other counter cultural movements such as the around the turn of the tenth century, such as the Cathars and later the Beghards and Beguines.

Mary Stewart died on this day in 2014, at the age of 97 she ascended into heaven.