Prefer to listen? Click here.
Our Enduring Promise
Today’s Cuppa Joy celebrates birth, transformation, traditions, and tablecloths. I know that’s a lot, but it’s all part of wishing us a collective happy birthday. Our country is 250 years old. I remember celebrating our Bicentennial, 50 years ago. That memory led me to my hall closet and flat white box containing my mom’s 1976 Bicentennial Quaker lace tablecloth—one of a limited edition of 5,000. Woven into it is a motif of the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware. It’s quite beautiful.
I didn’t fully appreciate the tablecloth and its history until writing this essay and thinking about the upcoming celebration. For decades, it was simply our family’s Thanksgiving tablecloth. I pulled the box from the closet so I could check my memory about its origins. I even checked out its market value on Google. Turns out selling it wouldn’t send anyone to college—probably couldn’t even pay for a fun evening out with friends.
The tablecloth has been a special part of our family’s holiday table setting. Its storage box is cracked around the edges from fifty years of moving it from one shelf and one home to another. The lace’s faint gravy and cranberry stains bear witness to fifty years of shared conversations, laughter, meals, and stories from holiday dinners and family gatherings. That is its real value—the memories woven into family life as surely as Washington’s crossing was woven into the lace.
It began its life at my mother’s house and, somewhere along the way, became part of mine. I honestly don’t remember when she entrusted it to me. It was simply one of those handoffs that happen in families along with responsibility for hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Now my time for hosting has come to an end, and I’ve spoken with my niece. She’s ready to cherish the tablecloth along with my recipe for turkey stuffing. Maybe it will have another 50 years of family and friends gathering around it—I hope so.
Every generation inherits something it did not create. As I lifted the lid to look at the tablecloth, I couldn’t help wondering what life must have been like for the ordinary men, women, and children who actually lived through those historic days leading up to the declaration, sacrificing to make independence a reality. What have they passed along to us?
When I picture 1776, my mind jumps to famous names, poems, and dramatic paintings—Washington crossing the Delaware, Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere’s midnight ride to warn that the British are coming. But those iconic moments were only a small part of the story. I recently came across a fascinating New York Times Magazine article about some of the Revolution’s lesser-known heroes. If you’d like to explore that part of the story, I’ve included a link. Click here to learn more.
While the debates and power struggles were going on with the British, most people were simply trying to live their lives. A mother kneaded bread and tended to the chickens and gardens while wondering whether her husband or sons would return from the militia. A farmer still had crops to plant. A blacksmith still needed to shoe horses. Children still chased one another through fields. Merchants worried about supplies. Enslaved families heard soaring words about liberty while knowing those promises did not yet include them. Loyalists feared where rebellion might lead. Patriots wondered whether they had already gone too far.
They had hope and determination, but no certainty. How could they have known they were helping to birth a nation that would still be celebrating its independence 250 years later? The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, but independence was far from assured. Years of growing tension, protest, and disillusion with the British crown finally led to the declaration in 1776, but seven long years of hardship, sacrifice, setbacks, and uncertainty still lay ahead. We often celebrate the Fourth of July as though it marked the finish line. In truth, it was more like the moment labor began in earnest.
I’ve always loved the phrase “messy in the middle.” Anyone who has welcomed a baby into the world understands that birth is messy, bloody, painful, and sometimes dangerous—both to mother and child. Before something new can emerge, something old must give way. Transformation requires massive change.
A caterpillar literally dissolves into something that resembles little more than goop before the cells of the butterfly begin to form. Anyone who has remodeled a kitchen knows you’ll be camping out for a while until the new space is ready.
Whether we are welcoming a child, remodeling a home, watching a butterfly emerge, or even birthing a nation, the middle is rarely comfortable. Yet it is often where hope asks us to trust what we cannot yet see.
Looking backward, we can connect the dots from 1776 to today. But the people living then couldn’t see 250 years into the future any more than we can. They couldn’t imagine railroads, electricity, airplanes, the internet, or grandchildren yet unborn gathering to celebrate a nation they were still struggling to create.
Nations are no different. Those early Americans weren’t celebrating perfection. They were stepping into uncertainty. They were choosing hope without any guarantee that hope would be rewarded.
That thought feels surprisingly relevant today. Like those who broke from British rule 250 years ago, we cannot see very far into the future. We are living our own chapter of history without knowing how the story will unfold. Different opinions compete for our support, just as they always have. I love the vision and ideals put forth in our Declaration of Independence. I want to pay attention to the news and the changes that are afoot while also remembering the things that continue to unite us.
I also find myself appreciating even more the everyday things that steady us—things that don’t change. We have always needed one another. We thrive best in community. We come together in crisis and in celebration. We’ve gathered around campfires and tables, shared food, laughed and caught up with our neighbors, watched children play while teens do their own thing. We’ve shared our hopes and dreams that tomorrow might be a little brighter than yesterday.
Celebrations change with the times. Our music is different, but we always have music. We aren’t dealing with horses and wagons, and instead of barn-raisings, we have block parties and tailgate parties. Women are no longer laced into corsets and thank goodness for indoor plumbing and hot showers. Most of us wouldn’t enjoy much of colonial life. But some things remain constant.
On the 4th, our street of neighbors will celebrate Independence Day together, just as we have for several years now. The road will be closed with city permits. Lawn chairs will appear on front yards. Children will play games organized in the middle of the road. Backyard pools will welcome anyone wanting to cool off. Our favorite Mexican food service will set up yummy dishes. Neighbors will bring more food and beverages to share. As evening falls, conversations will pause while everyone gathers to watch our local fireworks show. Men become little boys again playing with fire—delighted by anything that sparkles, whistles, or explodes. We all watch with childlike wonder, oohing and aahhing and applauding as the bursts of colors fill the sky above our street.
This Fourth of July, as America celebrates 250 years, I find myself grateful—not because our story has been perfect, but because it is still being written. Like every family, every friendship, and every meaningful life, our nation has known triumphs and failures, courage and contradiction, seasons of celebration and seasons of struggle.
That old Bicentennial tablecloth will soon begin a new chapter in my niece’s home. I like to think new conversations, new laughter, and new memories will gather around it, just as they once did around my mother’s table and later around mine.
We inherit, we contribute, and we pass things along. Underneath it all, we trust that some things endure—a foundation of hope, freedom, and community.