I stopped in Washington the other day…

while driving through in the early morning. My cousin had never been so as the sun rose over our capital we stopped to gaze at some of the sights and sounds.

Despite my vocal misgivings about my place in the world I truly do love this country and the opportunities it has provided me. Stopping to gaze at the Washington monument from the steps of the Lincoln I took the opportunity to think about our national creation myth and the men (and some women) that we have made our heroes.

My thoughts on heroes and how closely the myth created around them resemble the true stories behind these remarkable men and women who shaped our history are rooted in a couple of things. In the past couple months I have seen to remarkable plays one, ‘The Good Negro’, in which a friend Jonathan Dent played the main character, a character based in large part on MLK Jr., the other “Out of Bounds” a play that looked at the true nature of some groups in the civil rights movements. Both plays asked critical questions of the stories we tell about the heroic figures of our past who fought for civil rights. While both raised questions of less than perfect past they left me even more in awe of the people who navigated truly human dispositions to make ground breaking change in our world.

As I watched these ducks paddling on the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial I thought of how little all the pomp and circumstance of their surrounding meant to them. We as humans assign values to these buildings because of the shared values and historical impact these figures have on our lives. We create and visit these monuments because of their reverberation through history that their lives even now, 150 years later continue to have on our own.

In this temple

As in the hearts of the people

For whom he saved the union

The memory of Abraham Lincoln

Is enshrined forever

President Lincoln stands as a hero in my mind not for the reasons that many hold him dear. Yes his actions during his tumultuous presidency kept the Union that we hold so dear together, yes his Emancipation Proclamation signaled the downfall of Slavery in the United States, but I value him because he was a leader in the truest sense. He led our country through a time of great tumult and got it through in one (albeit damaged) piece. To me his heroism lies in his true acts. He fought tirelessly to make the best of a bad decision. Although his decisions at times were pragmatic instead of fully moral, the Emancipation proclamation did not end slavery, it only freed the slaves in those territories that had rebelled as part of the Confederacy, he nevertheless found a way to recast a war that began as a battle for states rights into a moral war against slavery that would eventually lead to the partial realization of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

Damn that was a long confusing last paragraph…all I meant by it is that President Lincoln found a way in the end to do what was right and I think that is beautiful enough as is. Theres no need to cast him as a perfect hero he is more beautiful and heroic because of the way in which he followed his imperfect human ends to a better more just future for his country and all its inhabitants.

I hope all Americans take the time to learn our true past. To consider the foundations that this country has been built on. We should learn from our past to create a better brighter future.

J