Memorial day a time to reflect

Memorial Day is a time to reflect, not just about those that have died, but about why.

The original Memorial Day was born out of a terrible inferno that was fought to resolve that other terrible inferno: slavery. Slavery died, but of course it was replaced with Jim Crow, which yielded yet another national struggle, the Civil Rights Movement.

All of this, every bit of every struggle back through our entire history has been part of America’s endless quest to match the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the realities of our lives.

We sit at a fork in the road here in America, a moment as historic as 1860. One path leads forward toward a just society, a time when all Americans share equally in Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity. The other path leads off to division, chaos, and pain.