I have never been completely at ease or clear about the idea of patriotism. For me it seems to drive some people to  intolerance and excess as much as freedom and justice. I have lived so freely and openly and safely in America that I have never really had to think about it before.

In my life, the people who shout the loudest about patriotism do not seem to know what it means.

When I think of the word, I tend to think of people who are not me – soldiers, Minutemen rushing through the Concord woods, brave solders rushing into battle, brilliant orators crafting the Bill Of Rights. I am an outsider, I love beyond the tent. Are people like me patriots?

My people were not here in great numbers during the Revolution, or the Civil War, are not much written into the story of the nation, it’s birth or dramatic times. Not too many people wanted them to come here over the years, or welcomed them when they did. My grandmother told of a restaurant in her new country that had a sign on the door that said “No dogs or Jews.” Lots of others were not welcome either, yet my grandmother had a good life here anyway.

The idea of America always burned brightly in her heart and soul. But the fear and hatred never seemed to be the American idea, it was rarely in the mainstream.

For me, one of the great ironies of the American experience is that  the country has always drawn and attracted people who are seen as outsiders and interlopers, then resented them for being here. Patriots are sometimes wary of patriotism, but the outsiders are still mostly given  a chance to live safely in peace. People like Khizr and Ghazala Khan.

That is the promise, and that has been the experience of my family. Patriotism is an emotional attachment for me.  I would not be here today on my farm writing this if not for the idea of America, and I feel quite patriotic about that sometimes, even if I cannot say precisely what the means to me.

When we think of patriotism, we tend to think of sacrifice and bravery, not of self-centered,   bookish or decidedly shy writers holed up in their rooms cranking out their books. This election year, and for the first time I am thinking about how patriotism applies to me, and what love of country means to me, and what the idea of a place really is for me.  I don’t want the politician’s words, I want my own.

I confess that Donald Trump has done that for me.

I woke up early this morning and checked the news, something I have not done regularly for a long time, but am doing now.

I found myself stirred in a very powerful and patriotic way by the story of Khizr  Khan, a Muslim immigration lawyer who spoke at the Democratic National Convention about his 27-year-old son, Humayun Khan, an Army captain who died in a car bombing in 2004 in Iraq as he tried to save some of the soldiers in his command. You can see and hear his speech here.

During his speech, Khan’s wife Ghazala stood silently by her husband’s side. Her sorrow was evident.

Over the weekend, Donald Trump  belittled Khan and suggested Ghazala had remained silent because she was not allowed to speak, am effort to smear her faith. Soon after, she talked to reporters and said she did not speak because she broke down every time she saw a photograph of Humayun and did not trust herself to maintain her control.

The speech by Khan was considered by many to be one of the most powerful speeches in modern political history, it moved me deeply.  Everyone seems to know of it. I believe it will prove to be one of the defining moments of the country’s necessary struggle for its soul.

I felt a great sadness and a good deal of pain when I saw that Trump had ridiculed this stricken couple for speaking against him. How far can we fall, I thought?

It was a shocking thing for me to see that he did that. It seemed so profoundly unpatriotic to me.

In a sense, Khan’s brief but eloquent speech was about the very patriotic idea of sacrifice. He said that Donald Trump had “sacrificed nothing.”  Donald Trump responded by saying “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I’ve worked very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs.” He said he had also sacrificed by working hard to build “great’ structures.

It is not for me to tell you how to feel about this, and I am not writing this to tell you how to vote or think. I have not yet caught the national disease of  needing to tell other people what to do, or endlessly arguing with the growing numbers of people who believe they have a lock on righteousness and the truth. If you support Mr. Trump, good reader, please understand that I am writing about my own reflections on sacrifice and patriotism, we all have to make our own way, anyone can put a blog up.

I believe that everything is a gift, even sad and ugly things, and the gift for me is that I felt closer to the idea of patriotism and me, I am beginning to understand it. I see that you don’t, really, have to wrap yourself in the flag to be a patriot, or tell other people what to think. You don’t have to give up your life. You don’t even have to be the very brave Humayun Khan who died in a way that would almost certainly be far beyond me, my strength or courage.

I shiver when I think of it.

His parents, both immigrants who have built successful lives in America, were patriots to me, speaking their minds in the context of a movement that might have banned them and their son from even being here. I know it is much safer to be quiet than speak out sometimes. I am proud that I speak my mind but well aware my risk and sacrifice is nowhere near theirs.

I will never know, but I doubt that I could have done it what their son did, or even what they did.

I have never had to sacrifice for my country, I cannot imagine challenging or ridiculing parents who lost a son in a war most Americans believe was unjust and unnecessary.  All I can do is try to honor and respect them, and those who do not share all of my views, and do them the courtesy of listening to them.

I am not a warrior, but I am a father. I can’t imagine…

Mr. Khan was showing me what a patriot really is, and what sacrifice really means.  Perhaps only an outsider can see what we take for granted. I wanted to take his wife in my arms – the pain was etched all over her face – and tell her I am sorry for her loss. I did not wish to belittle or diminish  her, and it turned my stomach to see someone else do it.

I could see quite easily how much courage and sacrifice it took for her to be on that state, a giant screen image of her dead son glowing right above her. I am sorry that a person who wants to be President could not see it. Empathy is precious and important.

Perhaps this is the point. I have lived all of my life in a country that has accepted both my idea of patriotism and my idea of sacrifice.I know that is rarely true in other nations.

And I feel, for one of the few times in my life, the necessity of confronting a kind of evil.  Philosophy, wrote the moralist Hannah Arendt, knows the villain only as somebody who is in despair and whose despair confers upon them a certain nobility.  She might have said the same of politics and media. We seem to elevate evil for money, bless it with respectability, and give it voice.

But the greatest evildoers, she wrote, are those those without remembrance, those who don’t remember and cannot empathize because they have never given thought to the matter, and without remembrance, nothing can restrain them, hold them back, or require them to think about what they say and do.

In rootless evil, there is no mercy, no compassion, no empathy. There is no person left whom one could ever forgive or listen to.

The greatest evil,  wrote Arendt, is not radical, it has no roots, and because it has no roots it has no limitations, it can go to unthinkable extremes and sweep over the whole world.

Many times this year, struggling with the angry divisions in our country and so many hateful thoughts, messages and comments, I felt lost in America, disconnected from my idea of the place,  the raging of demagogues echoing in my ears.

This morning, reading about the remarkable journey of Khizr and Ghazala Khan and their fallen son Humayun, I felt that I was beginning to understand the idea of patriotism, and even of sacrifice. I began to feel like a patriot. It was a strange but powerful feeling.

It isn’t that I am strong enough or brave enough to do what Humayun Khan did, or even what his mother and father did. It’s more that Mr. Khan helped me to see what being a patriot really means, and that I can be one. It is, after all, not only about battles and death, patriotism is a very personal and emotional attachment to a place, or at least the idea of a place.

Mr. Khan spoke to the heart of that, and his idea of patriotism is something that I can do, and have done, and will do. You can be patriotic just by seeing the truth of something, by loving the idea of your country, it’s hope and it’s promise, even if it sometimes, and often,  fails many people. There is no perfect system, only better ones.

Mr. Khan and his wife gave their son to this idea of patriotism, and he still loves the idea of America and asks us to be better.

My country does not have to be perfect for me to love it, and I do not have to be a war hero to be a patriot. Mr. Khan confronted a kind of evil when he gave his speech, and simply by writing this, so can I. think that makes me a patriot in my own way, I hope so.

I thank Mr. Khan has helping me to find America again.