I posted this (partial) quote from John F. Kennedy on my facebook page yesterday:
"Peace and freedom walk together."
I lifted the quote from the wall calendar in my office.
And even as I posted it, I wondered what it means. Not what it meant to President Kennedy, but what it means to me.
Then last night, as I closed the book I was reading, "A Gentleman in Moscow," by Amor Towles, I had a revelation.
One can truly be the luckiest man in Russia, or on earth for that matter, but if he is not free, he will not have peace.
What a gift I have had bestowed upon me. My birthright is freedom!
I can freely shout my opinions and beliefs, and yes, even things I know to be untrue, from the rooftops because I am an American. I am free.
I read and watch and ponder the opinions and beliefs of my neighbors and friends and I don't judge those opinions because they are theirs. (They do send a pang through my heart, sometimes. Consider the upside-down flag that my friend Jeanne is using for her facebook profile picture. I do not like it, but I love Jeanne, and she is free to display our country's flag however she wants.)
If I have freedom, I can have peace. Even though there are horrific things going on in this world, I can be peaceful. I can walk in a women's march and fly my flag upside down. I can protest abortion and call the president of the United States unholy names. I can write facebook posts that tell others exactly how I feel and why they should feel that way, too. I can easily "end" a facebook "friendship" if someone else's freedom is interfering with my peace.
Count Alexander Rostov, from the aforementioned book, achieved peace in the end. But more importantly, he gave peace to someone he loved very much, at great emotional cost.
If you are an American, whether you were born here or are a naturalized citizen, you are free. Be free however you wish! Do what your mind and heart tell you!
But, peace. Let me end as President Kennedy ended the speech in which he said the words, "Peace and freedom walk together."
"...We shall do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on -- not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace."
(To read the entire speech, google "The Peace Speech" Commencement Address at American University, June 10, 1963.) President Kennedy was assassinated five months later.
