The Fourth Of July is coming up, and this year I am thinking a lot about my country, and about what it means for me to be an American. I am also thinking about how to resist the pressure of the news, that is, the pressure to be angry, to be hateful, to be divided and divisive.

I wrote on the blog last week that I was happy to be living in the  most generous and secure country in the world, several people wrote to correct me – accurately – and say that this is no longer true. A number of other countries, including our neighbor to the North, are both more generous and far more secure.

They were right, this has happened to gradually and relentlessly, I didn’t really think to adjust my language.

So how to those of us who wish to live in generosity of spirit and tolerance and empathy survive in this time of discord and anger.

The most patriotic I have ever felt in my life was on Thursday when I sat alongside a pond at Pompanuck Farm last week and talked to a young man, a refugee from North Africa who came on the refugee children’s retreat. He asked me why I had proposed the retreat and what was my purpose in helping the other refugees.

It was a good question, and I realized that no one had asked it before. I told him I came from a family of immigrants and refugees, and so many people in my family never made it here, never got to live here. These are the ghosts that sometimes haunt me, I said, and I was determined to show people like him that we are not all the angry and selfish and greedy Americans we see so often on the news.

I said I was doing this work because I love my country, and I want him and the other refugees to know we are a generous and loving people. That is the idea of America I am hoping to celebrate this coming week.

The boy told me he and his parents watch the news together, and sometimes, they ask him to leave the room so he won’t be upset by what they are hearing, which sometimes reminds them, they said, of what they all fled back home. The boy asked me if I watched the news.

I said I did sometimes, more than I used too, I need to know what is happening. I said I wouldn’t have thought of staging a retreat if I didn’t watch the news sometimes and see what was going on.

I said the one lesson I might teach him is to resist the pressure of the news, which is all-encompassing sometimes, and confusing. For one thing, I said, only bad news is considered news. The billions of small acts of good and kindness people in this country commit every day would never be seen on the news. I told him many people contributed to the things the refugee children are getting and using.

For another, much of the news is presented by large corporations who feed off of conflict and division – they see our country as a kind of never-ending soccer game, winners and losers, one side against the other.  The more trouble we are in, the more gloom and doom they report, the more arguments and hatred, the more money they make.

They used bad news to hypnotize people and make money, they claim to be virtuous by promoting argument and hatred.  The boy, who is 13, was puzzled by this and wondered why any patriotic country would do this. They aren’t patriotic, I said, they just like to wave flags around once in awhile, while never quite grasping what the flag stands for.

The big idea of the country, I said, was that we would all respect and defend the right of other people to disagree with us, to be different. In fact, we have always celebrated that right, it is the foundation of what has made the experiment survive for so long. That is still my reality, I said, and I resist the pressure of the news to turn me away from it.

We must have common facts if our experiment in freedom is to survive, I told  him, and there are few, if any, commonly shared facts at the moment. I said I must resist the pressure of the news to argue and hate, and pursue my own reality if I wish to love our country on this holiday, which I very much do.

I reject the pressure of the news, I won’t succumb to it or drown into it. Like nostalgia, it is a trap, a representation of one tiny part of the human experience it is not nearly the whole story.

The imagination is my greatest tool and friend in this.

I imagine the future I want to have, that I want my grandfather to have, that I want you to have.  I look for the good, for love and for the color and the light.

I don’t look to the news for that, I look inward, to myself. In some ways, I said, it was like training a puppy. You imagined your intent, what you wish to happen, and a good dog will do that for you. My reality is not their reality, I live in my own head, not theirs. I believe in love, it is the most powerful force in the world, I believe hatred will fail every time, despite all of the horrible damage it can do.

I believe I must keep doing good as I understand it, that is my America, and I hope yours. You are very welcome here, America is not mine to offer, it belongs to everyone in the world who can dream or hope. That is the light we shine on the world. I think that is the light you will find here.

I felt a shiver down my spine talking to this, I thought it was so important to be sitting in this beautiful place with this beautiful young man and trying to show him what the real America is about.

On this holiday, I imagine a country that is generous, where we care about others and not just ourselves, where we respect Mother Earth and will work to heal her. Where we open our doors to the poor and vulnerable of the world and let them in, as many as we can.

I know that is not the reality you see on the news, I told he boy. But it is the role of the artist to remind people there is always something bright and better. And to always resist the pressure of the news.