Today is Flag Day commemorating the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress
In his Flag Day address to the nation in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed with this prayer:
Grant us that simple knowledge
If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed.
If they hunger, we hunger.
If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure.
Grant us a common faith,
That man shall know bread and peace,
That he shall know justice and righteousness,
Freedom and security, an equal opportunity,
And an equal chance to do his best,
Not only in our own lands, but throughout the world.
The prayer’s simplicity belies its profundity. We are a people, and the good or ill of any one of us benefits or befalls the other. It revolves around the simple supplication, “Grant us a common faith….” something we did share for most of our existence until some decided that there was nothing common, nothing shared among us; that we are each the beacon of our own “truth.” Unfortunately, that very statement only underlines how false such a creed is.
But hidden is the basic fact that we all intrinsically know but don’t want to admit: we are each interdependent on something greater than we ourselves.
Let us pray for that wisdom again and again.
Amen.
