One nation disunited

T was only when I entered a private Christian high school that I stopped repeating the words "under God."

Before that, I spent my years in the Georgia public school system chanting the pledge of allegiance without a thought and in its entirety -- God included. The most valuable lesson I learned from that pledge during those early years had little to do with God as well -- it's your right hand that goes over your heart. An eight-year-old doesn't take it lightly when the rest of the class has got it right and she has it well, left.

Even Georgia's 1994 state-wide mandate for a 60 second moment of silence failed to conjure up significance for God and the pledge during my middle school education. Now it wasn't a question of the proper hand, but "damnit when will the bell ring so I won't be late to algebra?" Not even my devoutly Catholic friend used the moment -- or whatever it was -- to serve the purpose of reflection. Instead, she and her classmates would time the moment and report back to me with glee that it rarely met the 60 second state quota -- and somehow, we never felt short-changed.

But those same two little words that had meant so very little to me for so long have now been proven capable of inciting so much controversy over the last weeks -- and so much false piety among Washington politicians.

The ninth circuit court had it right when they made their June 26 ruling that the words "under God" constitute the promotion of an establishment and as such, have no place in government funded schools.

The fact is that God really doesn't have a place in any public school, or at least those that I attended. If America found herself conducting a nationwide search for ungodly places, she would succeed in finding the worst in the public school yard.

Why then should we require students to supplicate to a deity when "under God" evokes just about as much significance as "to the" proceeding "flag" in the very same environment? The separation of church and state already couldn't be more complete any place else. America's public schools are plagued by their anonymity, their underpaid and frustrated teachers, their merciless social cliques, and recently, their school shootings. Accountability? God? We might as well be talking about an existentialist novel here.

I finally learned the significance of those

terms and those precious two words in our pledge at a religious private high school, where God was mentioned in every class and morality and prayer were watched with the most vigilant of eyes. So I decided to omit God -- he just didn't fit into that tired old pledge any longer. I felt that it was hypocrisy to make myself -- or other school children -- recite words I now recognized as pious, when secularism and competition pervaded the majority of public schools in all other aspects.

And now in the aftermath of Sept. 11 Americans want God in their pledge more than ever. Two little words that say we are a nation together under a greater power -- united as a nation by an unknown entity. Together we are moral and together we are superior to despotism.

But are we really together in anything, much less morality? Isn't our greatest bond as a nation the ultimate anti-bond, that of individualism? The cheap flags that now adorn nearly every automobile, home, and store-front in sight signify the strength of the American people united about as much as the adhesive material that forms the "United We Stand" bumper stickers which decorate citizen's cars.

In spite of its puritanical roots, today's US of A is a nation disunited by different roots, different morals, different gods, different values, and the same desire to live life on our own terms -- terms sometimes too different to reconcile with ourselves or our families, much less a nation.

So why do we make futile attempts to unite each other with words that have lost their significance long ago? Instead, let us admit that this is not a nation of people together for anything but ourselves. That might just be enough to keep the enemy at bay, because while American selflessness and godliness are weak bonds; individuality, the desire for opportunity and the almighty buck are not. If we are to be a nation united, let's unite for the real reasons, for our freedom -- it may be the nation's best chance without a god to share.

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