What a Broadway show, a beach interview, and a flag taught me about what we are losing
I went to see a Broadway show last night called Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York.
The male lead,Dougal, is from England. He has never been to New York. And when he arrives in this city for the first time, he sings about it. What he sees. What he feels. The energy of it. The scale of it. The sheer aliveness of it. He moves through the streets — through neighborhoods that I walk past without a second thought — and he looks at all of it like he cannot believe it is real.
And sitting in that theater watching him, I felt something I have not felt in a while. I felt what it is like to see this city for the first time.
Then there is Robin. She is a Brooklyn girl. Tough, sharp, seen everything this city has to offer and then some. She has the New York edge that we all develop when we have lived here long enough — that quiet armor that comes from navigating this place every single day until the extraordinary becomes ordinary.
And then Dougal walks into her life with his pure unguarded joy and his absolute wonder at everything around him. And something happens to Robin. His enthusiasm becomes contagious. She starts to see her own city through his eyes. The streets she has walked a thousand times — she sees them again as if for the first time.
I sat in that theater and thought about how many Americans are Robin right now. Not the people reading this — you already know. But the ones around us. The neighbors who walk past the flag without a second thought. The young people on that beach who could not tell you what July 4th cost. The ones who know the holiday but have forgotten what it means. Americans who were born into freedom so completely that they have stopped feeling it. Who assume it will always just be there the way the skyline is always just there. Who have never had a Dougal walk into their life and remind them what they are standing in the middle of.
The Itenaries
I follow a Facebook page called New York City Tips. It is full of people planning trips to this city and I read it because it reminds me of something I tend to forget.
These people map out every hour. Every single hour. They research which subway to take and which corner to stand on and what time the light hits the Brooklyn Bridge just right for a photograph. They plan for months. Some of them have been dreaming about this trip for years. They save for it. They count down to it. And when they finally get here they want to see everything — Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the High Line, a real New York slice of pizza.
Things I could do on any Tuesday afternoon if I felt like it.
I think about the people around the world who will never make it here. Not because they do not want to but because the distance is too far or the cost is too high or circumstances simply will not allow it. People who have seen New York in movies their entire lives and would give anything to stand in the middle of it just once. And I live here. I was born here. I walk these streets every day without a second thought.
That is what it means to take something for granted. Not that you do not love it. But that you have stopped seeing it.
And then I thought about freedom
Because here is the thing. What I just described about New York — the way we stop seeing what is extraordinary because it has always been there — that is exactly what most Americans have done with freedom.
We were born into it. Our parents were born into it. For many of us our grandparents and great grandparents were born into it. It has always just been there, the way the skyline is always just there. We do not think about it. We do not examine it. We do not ask what it cost or what it would mean to lose it. We just assume it will always be there when we need it.
But freedom is not the skyline. It does not hold itself up. It requires people in every generation who understand what it is, where it came from, and what it demands of those who want to keep it.
Ronald Reagan said it better than I ever could: freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not passed down in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for others to do the same.
I believe we are watching that generation arrive. And I am not sure they are ready.
The beach
Jesse Watters sent someone to a beach recently to ask young Americans some basic questions about July 4th. What it is. What it means. What war gave us our independence. Who we were fighting against. How old the United States is.
These were young people with no accents. Born here. Educated here in American schools.
Almost none of them could answer a single question correctly. They guessed the Civil War. They guessed World War One. One person thought July 4th was about something else entirely. They did not know America was 250 years old even though America 250 had been promoted everywhere for months.
Only one person got it right.
I do not think these young people are stupid. I think they were failed. Failed by a school system that has decided that teaching children to be ashamed of this country is more important than teaching them what this country actually is. Failed by a culture that treats patriotism as something embarrassing. Failed by adults who stopped passing down the story.
And if you do not know the story, you cannot fight for it. You do not even know what you are fighting for.
The flag
Sunny Hostin of The View said recently that she does not feel safe in neighborhoods that have a lot of American flags. She implied that as a Black woman, seeing American flags makes her think of white nationalism.
I want to sit with that for a moment because I think it says something important about where we are.
The American flag is the symbol of freedom. It is the flag that was carried into battle by men and women of every race, every background, every faith who believed that what this country stands for is worth dying for. It flew over the coffins of Black soldiers who gave their lives for it. It was raised by men at Iwo Jima who were fighting for the same freedom Sunny Hostin enjoys every day — including the freedom to sit on national television and say exactly what she said without consequence.
The flag does not belong to any race. It does not belong to any party. It belongs to every American who has ever loved this country and been willing to stand for it.
When we reach the point where an American flag in a neighborhood window is treated as a threat instead of a symbol of pride — we have lost something. And most people do not even realize it is gone.
What Dougal understood that we have forgotten
Dougal did not grow up here. He has no history with this city. He owes it nothing and it owes him nothing. And yet he looked at it with more wonder and more gratitude than most of the people who live here every day.
Because he could see it. He had not yet taken it for granted.
And Robin — tough, smart, seen-it-all Brooklyn Robin — let his joy in. She let it change her. She allowed someone else's fresh eyes to remind her of what she already knew but had stopped feeling. That is not weakness. That is wisdom.
I think about the people who visited from around the world for the World Cup — the ones who came here expecting one thing and found something completely different. Who said they were lied to about America. Who said they could not wait to come back. Who saw something in this country that we have stopped seeing in ourselves.
We do not know the value of what we have until it is threatened. Or until someone who never had it shows us what it looks like through their eyes.
Freedom is like that. So is New York. So is America.
Reagan was right. It is one generation away. And the generation that does not know what July 4th means, that was never taught why the flag matters, that flinches at the sight of it in a neighbor's window — that generation is here.
Dougal crossed an ocean and fell in love with this city at first sight.
Robin let him remind her why she loved it too.
Maybe that is the most important thing any of us can do right now. Let someone else's gratitude wake up our own.
What you can do right now
Do not passively let a bureaucrat decide how your child learns about this country.
Go to your local elementary school. Find out what they are teaching about American history. Ask to see the curriculum. Ask your children what they are learning about the founding of this nation, about the flag, about what July 4th actually means. Ask them who we fought and why. Ask them what freedom cost.
If the answers concern you — speak up. Attend a school board meeting. Talk to other parents. Make noise. Because the people who want to rewrite the story of this country are counting on the rest of us staying quiet and trusting that someone else is handling it.
Nobody else is handling it.
That is our job. As parents. As Americans. As people who still believe this country is worth knowing, worth loving and worth passing on.
I started The Lion and The Cross because I believe faith, courage and freedom are worth fighting for. Not with weapons. With our voices. With our presence. With our refusal to stop telling the story even when the culture tells us it is not welcome anymore.
The story is still worth telling. Make sure the next generation hears it.
Featured this week
America 250 — Faith. Courage. Freedom. Tee
For 250 years, America has been shaped by men and women willing to stand for something greater than themselves. Wear what you believe. Available in multiple colors.
With faith and conviction,
— Christine
The Lion & The Cross