On the Common 126

Stars and Stripes

Hello friends,

I pray you all had a nice Fourth of July. We enjoyed our usual Low-Budget, Low-Expectations fireworks display, accompanied by my fireworks playlist. You can help yourself to that right here if you’d like; it’s a bunch of classics for fireworks¹ and then just a bunch of John Williams at the end, because DUH, John Williams!

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The Part Where There’s an Essay: What the Flag Means

Every year on Memorial Day weekend at the end of May, I pull out some red, white, and blue bunting and hang it on the front of the house. Barring high winds (sometimes common in North Carolina thunderstorms), it stays beneath the second-story windows until Labor Day at the beginning of September.

Recently someone asked me about the bunting, and what it meant. I chuckled; I hadn’t really given it that much thought. But as we talked, I realized that local culture had a lot to do with how certain symbols are understood.

By way of example, let me draw you two pictures.

I grew up in central Massachusetts. By some estimates, it might be the most left-leaning state in the Union. It’s blue as blue can be (note to UK readers: our colors here mean the opposite of yours).

Every year in May, as the snow has finally melted and mud season has (mostly) dried up, homeowners unfurl ribbons and bunting all over their homes. By the time the geraniums are blooming in mid-summer, New England is a picture postcard draped in red, white, and blue. The region is the “birthplace of the Revolution” —something we argue about with New York and Philadelphia—so we show off a little bit in the summertime. We’re thankful to live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Summertime in Sterling, Massachusetts

In Charlotte, where I currently live, it seems like displaying a flag runs slightly more political. The Stars and Stripes are frequently displayed alongside other flags, sometimes containing veiled rude messages about the current President. Displaying bunting or flags is akin to having a yard sign for a certain candidate.

If you were to attend a soccer match here in our fair city, you would experience a National Anthem unlike one you’ve ever had at a sporting event. The singer will take the microphone, sing the first few bars, and then suddenly drop out. The crowd will swell and sing the entire rest of the anthem unassisted.

Why does this occur? Because on opening night for our much-anticipated soccer club, there was a microphone problem. The singer’s mic dropped out after a few notes were sung. The crowd picked up the baton and finished it out in fine fashion, and a new tradition was born².

It’s my sincere desire that we could go back to singing the anthem, praying for our leaders, and displaying symbols as an aspiration for our entire nation. These things need not be a venomous jab at the people on the other side of the aisle politically. They could express simple gratitude, humility, and well-governed hope for the country we live in.

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For the Anglophiles

In the crossover event of the…week, Queen Camilla hosted writers, bookshop owners, and other literary enthusiasts at a reception in Edinburgh:

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Reads & Listens of the Week

I found this exploration of attempts at deep learning and reading interesting. In a world where words fly faster and faster, and shallow learning seems to be prioritized, here are some people who are resisting the pull. Remember everyone, science will tell you how to clone a T-rex, but humanities will tell you why that might be a bad idea.

I was incredibly helped by this piece from Samuel James: Completely Unsolicited, Totally Anecdotal, But Perhaps Marginally Helpful Thoughts on Being a Christian Writer. If you or someone in your life is writing in the margins of their life (or even full-time), it can be discouraging and tough. Pass this one on!

Courtney Reissig rightly wonders why the SBC is majoring in the secondaries. “The biblical qualifications matter. I believe it, and I know many of my Southern Baptist friends do too. I just think we need to hold to every verse in the qualifications. And women are not our biggest problem.”

I’ve been making an effort to keep my podcast listening pretty light recently. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed:

• Broomgate: about a controversy in the sport of curling (!)

• Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers: Seth and his brother Josh interview friends and family about family vacations. My favorite episodes are when they interview their parents. Stay for the end, when Josh makes up a song.

• The Rest is History: explorations of various people and events in history. Conversational and funny.

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“America, late the strength, now the foe to Britain, dismembered, torn, I fear forever lost to England, whence she sprung.”

-George Montagu, 4th Duke of Manchester

1. It does not have the 1812 Overture, because a playlist grinds to a halt with a fifteen-minute entry. You gotta run that one independently, and be careful with it.

2. It is this writer’s opinion that the National Anthem ought to be a congregational hymn of sorts, anyway. Let’s do away with the showy solos, please.