I remember starting off every school day by standing, facing the good old Red, White and Blue and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. We would all kind of murmur together, staring at the flag with our hands over our hearts.

From a very young age, we learned that pledge and said it every day until we all graduated high school.

I’m not sure if they still say it in school anymore – I’m not even sure if it would sound the same. After all, I’d be surprised to see any of us Americans stand up and say anything together, let alone in unison.

I love my country more than you’ll ever know, but right now, I can’t discern if it’s the same one I grew up loving or if it’s something entirely different. Right now, it looks bleak and divided.

Everyone and their brother is declaring that a certain person, candidate, initiative or party line is what our country needs – but, friends, I just don’t see it. I haven’t seen such division and unrest in my time here on this earth, and it’s a little unsettling.

I open up my Facebook feed and see negativity, cruelty and malice from both sides. My newsfeed is so chock full of politics I can’t take it anymore. I turn on the television, and it’s all about the debates or the elections or what so-and-so did today.

It’s enough to bring a person to tears.

I don’t like politics. I like people. And we’re a nation built on the idea of “We the People.”

The America of “We the People” isn’t built on cruelty or malice. That America is built on a willingness to look at your fellow man and hold out your hand. To realize that we’re all human beings who deserve to pursue our destiny with certain self-evident truths and certain unbreakable freedoms.

The America of “We the People” isn’t built on “I’m right and you’re wrong,” but instead, it is built on standing up for the right things even if we were once wrong, caring about the person who lives, works and breathes next to you and making sure our unalienable rights remain that way. We were built as a nation who argued passionately, but still respected one another at the end of the day.

Maybe I’m just thinking about the American Dream, or I’m buying into a fairytale. Maybe the America of respectful disagreement, one-hearted hope for a strong and just nation with an innate love for one another never existed.

But friends, even if it didn’t – even if you think it never really existed and it was only a smokescreen – I have to tell you I think we can make it exist today. If I can pull up the latest edition of the New York Times on my cell phone or if I can talk in real time to my best friend in England or if I can ask my phone how to get some place and it can tell me – I think we’ve got enough technology, brainpower and information to build up our fellow Americans rather than tear them down. I believe we can love our neighbor as our self even if we don’t agree with them. I think we can be a nation that shines like a city on a hill, beckoning the world to share in the light.

Ours is a nation with a history like no other. Ours is a nation that has overcome so many obstacles, so many trials and has risen up out of ashes – I believe we can do it again.

I believe that we can be one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all once more.