America the Beautiful

           We all get forgotten at some point. Like me, for instance, I was forgotten on a family vacation at a gas station in Mexico. Not really a "Meagan Sure Is Special" moment, but, hey, it happens to everyone and we can all move on.  

            It seems like America has got to be forgetting something. She's been through a lot lately. The financial crisis, the housing market crash, the bail outs, the unemployment, the seemingly constant, and painful shootings and bombings.  

            I feel like asking her, "Beautiful America, with spacious skies, and amber waves of grain, oh, beautiful, beautiful America, with purple mountain majesties above your fruited plain, what are you forgetting?"

            But as poetic and dramatic and fuzzy as that question feels, it's not productive. So I wonder, what are we, as Americans, forgetting? (I don't think it's God, yet. Whether people are for or against God, He gets brought up all the time.)

            As a professional American, I feel confident I can name two things that Americans must be forgetting: Wisdom and Innocence.  The recession, the housing market crash, bail outs, fiscal cliffs, unemployment, "Americans! Where's our wisdom?" Devastating shootings, shocking bombings, "Americans! Where did our innocence go?"

            Maybe the answer to those questions is that we, as Americans, are forgetting our Wise and Innocent.

                                   

                                    Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."

                                    Said the little old man, "I do that too."
                                    The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
                                    "I do that too," laughed the little old man.
                                    Said the little boy, "I often cry."
                                    The old man nodded, "So do I."
                                    "But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
                                    Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
                                    And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
                                    "I know what you mean," said the little old man.
                                                                                        -Shel Silverstein

           

            Are we, American Grown-ups, spending too much time with ourselves and spending too little time, or even forgetting to spend time, with our Wise and Innocent? Are these easy-to-forget people stashed away somewhere "safe," while we go on about our more exciting lives? Because the reality is, American Grown-ups are running the show we call America, and if America is having problems, then it's the Grown-up Americans that need to do some introspect.

            Where's our wisdom? Well, are the Elderly in our lives? Little old men and little old women are our superior in time and experience; wrapped in some loveable nuttiness, they are living wisdom. Are American Grown-ups spending time with them, in order to hear their wiseness, and see their wise, wrinkled faces?

            Where's our innocence? Well, are there children in our lives? Little boys and little girls are the absolute essence of innocence. Are American Grown-ups spending time with children, in order to hear their innocent laughter and see their innocent eyes?

            If America needs more wisdom and innocence, then the ones running America (all Grown-ups, we live in a democracy here) should start paying more attention to the Wise and Innocent of our nation.

            My friend Jan and her family are from Thailand and they have a rich culture that still lives with their family here on American soil. One beautiful aspect about her culture is the respect given to elders. When a younger person walks past an older person, the younger must duck their head to be lower than the elder. When sitting, the younger person's feet must not point in the elder's direction. At the beginning of every conversation there is a word spoken by the younger person to the elder person in order to signify them as their elder. This respect acknowledges to the younger generation that their elder is superior, and the elder deserves it! Their time and experience on this earth gives them knowledge and wisdom a younger person doesn't have.

            Dick Van Dike showed everyone in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang that a society is unbalanced and awful without children, and that there is nothing scarier than a Child Catcher.  Children remind us what a heart is capable of doing. They free and release us  from our self-inflicted complicated world, and remind us what it's supposed to be like.   

            Our little old men and little old women, our little boys and little girls need us, and we-need-them. Remembering each other and learning from each other will improve our individual lives, and then our nation. The good life includes Grown-ups, little old people, and little children. We're all a part of life, and we're all a part of making America beautiful.