The French celebrate Bastille Day much like
our own Fourth of July with parades and fireworks.
National holidays around the world commemorate
military victory with marching bands, flag waving
and national anthems as a way of remembrance.
Religious holidays thwart with expectations often not met
have lost their meaning. We honor the memory
of heroic people with rituals repetitive with routine
with little understanding of their significance
and ignore certain events that ought to be remembered.

For many Americans, holidays have come to mean
just a day off work or a get-together with food
and drink and, let’s face it, everyone, loves a party.
We celebrate our victory over the Nazis
but not our victory over Native Americans.
We do not remember our shameful acts but maybe
we should so as to not repeat them again.
If “there is something larger than the memory
of a dispossessed people” perhaps it could only
be with grace and forgiveness and the will to
make it never happen again.