Day 8 Photo Challenge; Day 7 Elimination

I am going to modify my challenge today. I'm not going to a photo I took, but a design I created in honor of the holiday. It is July 4th after all. It does deserve proper acknowledgement. So I took images -- one a flag photos I shot the other day and a fireworks image -- and created my expression(s) for Independence Day.

Now before these designs are unveiled, I want to share some background on my thinking. I always meet the Fourth of July with mixed feelings -- hope, despair and excitement. A strange mishegoss of emotions related to my coming birthday, my perceptions of the current state of our country/culture/society, the way the music and words of the Star-Spangled Banner still move my spirit while the Pledge of Allegiance does not, and the still apropos speech Frederick Douglass delivered in 1852 about the meaning of Independence day to the slave/Negro. Each year I look at these feelings and these things and try to reconcile and communicate them. I think these designs present it best, showing the celebration, belief that we should keep trying, and where we fall short.

Not free yet ... working on it!

"a luta continua" is Swahili and means "the struggle continues" and especially in these times, I think we should remember, not only that the struggle does continue, but that it should continue. We are not free, not yet. We are bound to corporate interests and flinch as if jolted with an electric charge as we are jerked about by the whimsy of our government (or lack of action by elected officials).

We are bound by the debt incurred in our pursuit of the American dream of affluence and influence, finding out, too late, that it instead ties us to our circumstance in ways that can often feel like quicksand and inescapable.

It is not too late for this to work out. Despite the country being well on its way to 300 years old, we are still young when compared to the lengths of the Roman or Venetian empires.

I believe we have time to change, learn, and grow into the ideals we espouse, if we don't stop trying.

We're not, but we can still hope!

We are also going to have to find a way to be brave, and to try and recognize that being brave isn't about fighting or making others see it your way. At the top of the list of things testing our bravery is intolerance.

From gay marriage to our African-American president, we continue to show our fear by railing and trying to eliminate or destroy the things we don't understand, that are not like us, or that implode the status quo, even when we can see the status quo isn't working. In general terms, human beings don't like change, even when unhappy with existing circumstances. The unknown brings anxiety ... who likes that?

We spend too much time looking for someone to blame and pointing fingers, and not enough time being brave enough to search for and implement real solutions. We are hesitant to think outside the box or to give radical ideas enough time to make a difference. We still have not learned that change is a long-term investment, and that we make more trouble and confusion if we just keep throwing out solutions each time one doesn't result in an immediate change.

Bravery means looking at a new things and giving them a chance to work, even when it is scary to do so.

So, each 4th of July I celebrate the hope our flag represented in 1776 when Francis Scott Key saw it still blowing in the wind after a night of fierce fighting. It is hope I still feel fully, despite how often it is frustrated, each time I hear our national anthem sung or see an American flag flying free. The struggle to reach those goals continues, because I, and many others, are continuing it.

Have a wonderful Independence Day!

BTW, back into the closet for elimination today -- some pants I will never wear are headed out.