Do you remember seeing School House Rock between Saturday morning cartoons as a kid? Those animated short films offered tidbits in three- to five-minute helpings, introducing otherwise sophisticated concepts of civics, economics, grammar, history, and mathematics to young minds in a way kids could easily digest them. One of my favorite episodes was The Preamble (Season 4, Episode 4 - Nov. 1975; see it again at https://youtu.be/RnVmIrAiQB8.) As with many complex aspects of life, sometimes the best way to comprehend them is to get down to the basics. I would like to contemplate these historic words and what they mean to us today.

“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

When reading this historic text, certain words seem to jump off the page at me: we, union, justice, tranquility, defense, welfare, and liberty.

The first thing that resonates with me is the togetherness of the language used. I think I am particularly sensitive to this because I feel we are currently so fractured as a nation. I am sure many of us feel the weight of the turmoil surrounding us. Notice that the first word is We, followed by the defining term “the people.” Not peoples. Not a collection of groups of people gathering under one umbrella, but a new entity. Singular. 233 years later, are we still together? Do you feel that you are part of the People of the United States? Do you feel a kinship with others regardless of our differences, simply because we are all people of this great effort to unite? Our forefathers evidently saw room for improvement because the stated purpose of the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union”. That notion gives us a guiding light to continually strive toward.

Throughout the Preamble, the language signifies the forming of a new community. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary (online), justice means "the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity; freedom from bias or favoritism". Then not just personal tranquility but domestic, meaning “existing or occurring inside a particular country” or for the people. Common defense, again indicating for all of the people, not just select classes. General welfare, again indicating across the board. I feel like a fresh reflection on these words might give us pause to reflect on how we are doing with the posterity that our founders might have imagined for us.

Thomas Jefferson offered this advice to future generations when unity is not easily embraced: "We owe every other sacrifice to ourselves, to our federal brethren, and to the world at large to pursue with temper and perseverance the great experiment which shall prove that man is capable of living in [a] society governing itself by laws self-imposed, and securing to its members the enjoyment of life, liberty, property, and peace; and further, to show that even when the government of its choice shall manifest a tendency to degeneracy, we are not at once to despair, but that the will and the watchfulness of its sounder parts will reform its aberrations, recall it to original and legitimate principles, and restrain it within the rightful limits of self-government."

During this state of national distress, as we face uncertainty due to COVID-19 and widespread civil unrest due to injustices and inequities in our beautiful, if imperfect, union, my hope is that we will hold ourselves, our countrymen, and our elected officials to the high ideals envisioned in this Preamble. Let us not be afraid to aim high!