Today, as we watch the parades and the fireworks, let’s try to remember the men and women who took the first step to tell ol’ George III we were no longer his. Instead, they declared they were free. Owned by no one. They were ready to stand up and live their own lives and make their own choices and express their personal hopes and talents in the ways they decided. No priest, prince, or potentate would be calling those shots for them any more.
In declaring such a radical and subversive idea, they placed their lives and fortunes in the utmost peril.
Those who rely on dominating power, and who are enriched in its exercise, don’t take kindly to such impudent thinking. Control the masses, make them dependent on the hierarchy, and you control their riches. Lose control and allow them independence and, well…princes become paupers and have to make their way through life just like the rest of us. Priests, shamans, imams, and worldly religionists of every stripe lose their grip on what we believe, and how much we owe. (Them, of course).
The stakes of freedom are always high. There will be blood.
Let’s remember that in each generation, and right now, young men and women still bleed on the front lines of freedom, defending our right to live our lives the way we choose. So that we may be free of domination. Free of slavery. Free of coerced religion, for God’s sake! Free to worship whatever, and however, we choose. Free to become everything we were made to be.
Let’s also remember that freedom is a perilous gift. We are free to express our unique gifts and hopes in a life lived to its full potential, or freely to choose to enslave ourselves to whatever idea or thing or drug we end up worshipping–pride, pleasure, power in riches (those are the big three). We are free to be independent. Free to unite with others to become interdependent and yet free still.
Or free to throw away freedom and become dependent slaves again.
What a shame to sleepwalk through this life without seizing our birthright of liberty, bought at so high a price.
That parade today is a celebration of YOUR liberty. Those fireworks explode with the call for YOU to live out a life worthy of the blood sacrifice made for you, and your kids, to live free.
Live free. God bless you and your family. God bless America.
Have a GREAT time!
BUILT TO LEAD 