I wrote a perfectly good year-end column that reviewed the big stories, mostly about our human foibles and follies, e.g., political corruption, homophobia, racism, abortion, and our horrible dehumanizing and demonizing of each other. I found only slight comic relief in George Santos and his incarnation of the lies, frauds, and shamelessness that seem to pervade our society. It was all true and, if I may say so, well expressed with anger, anguish, and some slight seasoning of levity.

However, I’m tearing it up because I fell for the common media trap of only covering the plane crash and not the thousands of safe landings, the insults hurled at innocent victims, and not the outpouring of help given to strangers through charities and private donations. I covered the anger, hate, and incivility that are all true, but I failed to acknowledge the good, the kind, the generous, the loving, and our progress and our enumerable virtues as a nation.

We are in so many ways a better country than the one I was born and grew up in. Yes, we had relative peace following WWII and Korea. Yes, we built massive public works projects—roads, highways, and dams. Inflation was low—but we forget that taxes were high, topping out at 92%! Dads worked, and moms stayed home. Kids said, “Yes, Sir” and “Yes, Mam.” “Bad boys” combed ducktails, and “Bad girls” weren’t acknowledged (though they were pursued by “Bad Boys,” and yes, even “Good Boys.”)

The greatest threat to our way of life was the USSR with its nukes and Elvis with his hips. Happy Days!

Really? They were pretty good if you were White. Not so good if you were African American, Hispanic or Asian. They were pretty good if you were male. You could work and get paid better than women or minorities. You could take out a bank loan and open a credit account—things denied to many women in the 50s. It was a pretty good time if you were not what now is called LGBTQA+. If you were, you had Hobson’s Choice of living in fear in a closet or living in fear of the extreme consequences of losing your job, your freedom, and even your life.

Back then, if you were the “wrong” color, you couldn’t vote, date, marry across the racial divide, or live in any neighborhood you wanted. There were both folkways against race mixing and laws. Back then, a “mixed marriage” meant a Roman Catholic and a Protestant. Sometimes, it even meant a Missouri Synod Lutheran and an American Synod Lutheran attempting to marry. Mixed marriages of both race and religion were rare in number and rarely accepted.

Look how far we have come. Today, a mixed marriage is a male and female. Interracial couples don’t turn heads or provoke hate stares. While we do not have either equal rights in the law or in practice for women, we have indeed come a very long way. More than half the people studying for clergy are women (Except, of course, the Catholic priesthood). Our law schools and law offices and our medical schools have a great representation of women. Parity has not yet been achieved in either wages or numbers, but the glass ceiling is indeed cracked, really shattered.

Look how far we have come in access and mobility for people with physical limitations since the 50s. If you were in a wheelchair, there were no ramps mandated in public facilities, no traffic signals with sound, and no toilets that could accommodate a wheelchair. Schools did not adjust to the visually impaired, and sign language was embarrassingly rare. Neurodiversity was either ignored or persecuted, and bullying and mockery were somehow acceptable. No more!

When I grew up—and even as an adult—my Synagogue looked like me and my immediate family. The Synagogue of our kids and grandchildren looks like America! Both through “mixed” marriages and adoptions, all races, ethnicities, and colors are present. Most families in my circle of friends and acquaintances have family members who are Asian, Hispanic, African American, who are gay, or transgender, and the big story is that this is no longer a big story.

One of the greatest stories never told was about the near decade when our Supreme Court did not have a Protestant on it. It was all Roman Catholic and Jewish. This once impossible idea or fantasy became a reality without us taking notice or pride in its achievement. No, I don’t think it is worse because it now has WASPs. The story was again that it wasn’t a story.

No, we have not reached a Promised Land. There is still racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Every advance begets a counter revolution, and we’re experiencing that now. Yet I believe in our resiliency. We are not a perfect union, but we are a more perfect union. And while, in the words of Oscar Brown Jr’s Work Song, “We still got so terrible long to go,” I have both my faith and Lincoln’s that this great nation of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish—despite the appearances and fears to the contrary.