The Words Still Burn: A July 4th Reflection from a Mourning Patriot

This isn't about fireworks. It's about fire. And truth. And the ache of liberty not yet realized.

Today is the Fourth of July. I’m at my folks’ house with extended family and some family friends. There’s food. Laughter. Fireworks later, I’m sure. It all used to mean something to me. But this year, I feel something breaking.

I come from a conservative family. I’ve always been the black sheep, not because I don’t care about this country, but because I care too much to lie about it. My politics aren’t some rebellion, they’re born from my faith. From Scripture. From the prophets and from Jesus, who saw the worth of every life and called us to do the same.

Yesterday, Congress passed the OBBBA. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Some researchers say it could be responsible for over 50,000 more American deaths a year. Why? Because it slashes Medicaid, food access, and addiction treatment. Lifelines for the vulnerable. And while those who have the least are asked to bear more, the wealthiest among us are granted permanent tax cuts. Cuts that lock in their distance from the tax rates that once built the middle class in this country; the very structure they now stand on and call self-made.

At the same time, this bill increases the effective tax burden on the poor. They are being asked to pay more while receiving less, so that we can make more billionaires while millions more starve.

And I am sick of it. Sick of living in a nation where people celebrate those who have more than anyone could ever need, as if they earned it alone. Since I was born in 1980, worker productivity has more than doubled (rising by roughly 118%), while inflation-adjusted wages for the average worker have stagnated or declined by nearly 20% over the same time. Meanwhile, CEO pay has exploded, rising by more than 1,200%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. That is not the fruit of merit. That is theft dressed in a tailored suit and called “freedom.”

And yet, I saw Congresspeople standing in prayer and praise when it passed. As if they weren’t standing in the robes of Pharaoh, or in the crown of George III.

And it’s not just this bill. It’s everything. The broken systems. The broken logic. The broken soul of a nation that still cannot admit what it is. Or what it’s done. Or whom it’s hurt. A nation founded, shaped, and sustained by white supremacy—economically, politically, and spiritually. A nation that has built its wealth on stolen labor and stolen land, that writes laws to police Black and brown bodies, and that cloaks itself in innocence while shielding itself from truth.

White supremacy is not just a hateful slur shouted from the fringe; it is the quiet default of systems designed to privilege some and punish others. And if we are ever to confront it, we must do so with humility, with a willingness to be wrong, and with the courage to tell the truth, even when it indicts us.

A nation that builds new camps and calls it freedom. That deports children while speaking of liberty. That legislates cruelty while claiming the name of God. The contradiction isn’t the exception; it’s the habit, the ritual, the carefully choreographed performance. And we cannot heal until we name it.

We’re told we’re a young nation. But under one constitution, we are one of the oldest continuous governments in the world. That doesn’t make us wise. It makes us practiced. Practiced at forgetting. Practiced at myth-making. Practiced at hiding violence under flags.

But here’s the thing: the words still matter. The Declaration of Independence is full of hypocrisy, yes. But the words... the words endure. “All men are created equal.” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—though I’ve always hated that last phrase. As if happiness is something we chase but never catch. Still, those words have echoed across generations because something in them rings true.

They’ve rung out in enslaved people who believed in a freedom they’d never seen. They rang out in the voice of a Japanese-American woman I know, someone I consider family, who was born in a concentration camp on American soil during World War II. Just yesterday, she sent me a note that read:

“Hi Garrett, I just read on a Gloria Gaither BLOG that an African American police officer was taunted and threatened by fellow officers and staff dressed as KKK. They eventually untied him and took off masks but left the young officer broken and in tears. Don’t know where this happened. Do you anything?”

It did happen. In Ohio. A white police chief left a KKK note on a Black officer’s coat. She didn’t send that message to make a political point. She sent it because it broke her heart. Because it still happens. Because it’s still here. And she, born behind barbed wire erected by her own government (barbed wire that she took from the camp in which she was born and now uses as the crown of thorns in her church’s Good Friday service) still believes the words can mean something. Those words, the ones the founders wrote, still ring out in her voice, too.

And they rang out in the voice of Martin Luther King Jr., who saw in America’s founding documents a promissory note. A check that had come back marked insufficient funds.

King didn’t have evidence to believe America could live into its words. But he believed anyway. He believed because the words themselves demanded it. And in that way, he is the greatest American prophet.

Even now, I want to believe.

But this bill. This moment. The silence from pulpits. The prayer breakfasts with no bread for the poor. The Christian flags raised above the crosses. The ICE raids. The new wealth gap. The children in cages. The land and water stolen again. The Supreme Court ruling like a royal court. The legislative branch turned into a megachurch of market worship. The executive power building walls instead of bridges.

And still, I want to believe. Because the words don’t die. Not when they are true. Not when they echo the deepest longing in us: that all people, all people, are created equal. That God has no favorites. That justice and mercy are not partisan positions, but the shape of the kingdom Jesus announced. A kingdom where the poor are blessed, the mourners are comforted, the peacemakers are honored, and the persecuted are not forgotten. Jesus didn’t recite pledges. He broke bread. He didn’t build empires. He healed the broken. And still he whispers, “Come, follow me.”

So no, I don’t pledge allegiance anymore. I can’t. To pledge allegiance to a flag, to a nation, to any symbol made by human hands, is to break the very first commandments. I will not bow to an image or give my loyalty to a name that is not God’s. I will pledge myself to my Creator alone—the One who endowed every human being with unalienable rights. And I will celebrate the words that still echo with sacred possibility. I will mourn how far we are from them. And I will shout them all the louder. Because words of truth, as Jesus said, will outlive heaven and earth.

Today is the Fourth of July. I will not pretend. I will not smile for a country that has stopped listening. But I will celebrate what America could be. What it almost was. What it must still become.

Liberty and justice for all. Not just some. Not just citizens.

For the trans teenager navigating fear and beauty in their body.
For the undocumented worker who picks the food we bless.
For the Indigenous elders whose land we stole and never returned.
For the incarcerated soul locked away and forgotten.
For the Black mother grieving another son taken too soon.
For the queer couple walking hand in hand through a town that won’t look them in the eye.
For the asylum seeker turned away at the gate of a country built by the tired, the poor, the huddled masses.

For all. Because if it’s not for all, then it’s not liberty.
And it’s not justice.
And it’s not worth the words.

And until that day, I will not stop crying out.

Because the words still burn.

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The words will not live unless we carry them. If something here speaks truth to what you’ve been feeling, share it. Speak it. Let others know they are not wrong to mourn, not wrong to hope, not wrong to demand more. Leave a comment. Subscribe if you want to keep walking with this fire. Because the words still burn, and they need more voices to carry the heat.