millions of bloggers are, i imagine, sitting down to their computers right now, in the recent aftermath of michael phelps’s breathtaking eighth-gold medal win, themselves aglow with excitement. and i, certainly no less impressed, no less amazed, and no less filled with a patriotic pride, sit down to write a bit as well.

 

but for this brief note at least, i defer my comments on phelps’s win to give room for some thoughts i had while watching his medal ceremony.

 

one of my favorite parts of the olympics is hearing the national anthem play so many times – the more the better, of course. call it childish, nostalgic patriotism, or just plain cheesiness, but i’m always filled with a fresh appreciation for my citizenship when i hear the song. i am proud to be an american, to be part of a country with freedoms and rights, and the right to contend for the maintenance of those freedoms and rights. i’m proud of the community that americans strive to build despite so many differences. but most of all, i am proud of the bouyant American spirit that persists in believing that a dream is still a possibility.

 

tonight i listened to the national anthem once more, considering the words (because no one sang along), and considering also these tumultous times – wondering if patriotism has a place outside of an athletic arena anymore – i was strangely comforted by one particular line of francis scott key’s treasured lyrics:

 

“gave proof through the night / that the flag was still there”

 

written during the so-called “second war of independence,” these words still encourage me me today. i suppose that a nation founded upon individual rights and independence must always be fighting for that independence – an unending internal battle. in a sense, we are all of us always the founders of this nation – struggling to create a country that is truly free. and my ultimate pride is in the fact that we still believe we can.

 

if you see the flag as a symbol of the government, something at odds with this independence, i suppose it is no comfort to hear that, though the battle around it is raging, the flag is still there.

 

but if you consider, as i do, the flag as a symbol of this country – not it’s government, but it’s people and the dream towards which we strive – then perhaps when you hear these words you feel as i do: that though the “night” seems interminable, there is a flag that “yet waves.”