I love America, which is a complicated thing to say these days.  So many people have co-opted patriotism and made it into nationalism, a blight on our country.  My husband David once attempted to define Christian patriotism: a love of home and place and neighbor which fulfill the vision of peace and justice articulated by the prophet Micah so many long years ago—“Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.”

Squint at the painting I created for Chapter 14, and you can almost see the American flag - but with much more going on to indicate the complexities of this nation we love so dearly.  Let’s fight for the true, welcoming, beautiful spirit of America.