Celebrating freedom this Fourth of July

Independence Day, our opportunity to celebrate freedom, is almost here and people are engaging in cookouts, neighborhood parties, parades and fireworks around the country. Most of the celebrations started this past weekend.

And the weather is perfect – hot and humid. Just what you’d expect at the halfway point of the year in the deep South.

What’s it all about?

Guilty as anyone else for enjoying a good party, I also like to at least take a few minutes and explore what’s behind the celebration. Reflection helps me be more appreciative. 

The Fourth of July – Independence Day – being all about freedom excites me.

I’m proud to be in the land of the free, the home of the brave – in a democracy where the people matter. Where tyrannical despots and other oppressors have no power.

Dazzling firework displays cap off a day of celebration

I love watching an American flag flapping in the breeze or seeing miniature flags line a walkway.

The Star-Spangled Banner still brings tears to my eyes – every time. It creates a sense of fullness in me.

I love that we have a written and ratified constitution that governs our free society and has been revised enough to include us all. 

How’d we get here?

I’m proud that our early leaders, outraged and fortified by their convictions, stood up to the iron hand of a far-away ruler and said “ENOUGH!” We were no longer going to live under the unfair, unjust and senseless laws of a monarch who had no regards for us.

And then they fought for a decade to have that Declaration of Independence become the very thing it represented – an independent country. I especially love that sufficiently enlightened people realized the governing Constitution approved in 1787 needed further protections for the citizens of this young nation. They approved the Bill of Rights two years later.

Of course, it took another 81 years to give the right to vote to black men. And a whopping 131 years to grant that same right to women. Yes, it took a while, but we finally got it right.

(Caveat: I regret with deep sadness that the early settlers found it necessary to treat the original occupants of this country so cruelly in the efforts to build a great nation.)

Freedom expressed

I’m delighted that we are free to express ourselves however we see fit as long as it does not hurt another or break any laws. That is, we can stay seated or even kneel during the national anthem. Despite cultural tradition, we do not have to put our hand on our hearts either or sing along unless we want to.

We can practice whatever religion or no religion we choose.

We can express our disagreements publicly.

We can travel wherever we want (with some exceptions) and gather in groups to express ourselves more strongly.

The press is free to investigate and report the facts without hindrance or interference.

We have the right to be treated fairly under the law, and numerous other rights.

Grateful

I am grateful to be an American and all that it has represented over the years. I am grateful for all those who have made it possible to live in a free country.

I am grateful for our freedom.