I thought I had written my Fourth of July post yesterday. Then I started listening to a program of American music on the radio and thought about all the ways to measure national pride, national spirit.

Think of the vastness of our country. It takes four days to drive across it, and that’s if you push it. I’ve done it as a kid, riding in the backseat of a “woody” station wagon. I’ve done it again several times, as a young adult and young mother, and never lost the wonder of seeing the trees grow scrubby and the plains grow vast, of seeing the first smudge of blue on the horizon: the mountains!

I refuse to believe that we will always be this divided. Two hundred and fifty years is not a long run, when measured against some other nations, but it’s respectable. On this special day, I pray for 250 more.