This week celebrates our national assertion of independence and calls to mind the sacrifice, struggle, debate, and study that produced the experiment in human freedom called the United States of America.
Recognizing the significance of this national holiday is part of the vigilance that secures liberty in our lives. Without an awareness of our history, then the holiday becomes a cheapened spectacle.
The flag becomes mere fabric instead of the symbol of our nation's character, innovation, sacrifice, and pride, which our veterans bled and died to sustain. This is a hallowed symbol, cherished by patriots and immigrants in their long days and nights of hard work, in their proud and reverent trips to voting booths, in the values of rational debate over the descent into power-mongering violence, in the solemn, ineffable gratitude that takes the place of fear.
Without an understanding of our history, fireworks become mere entertainment instead of reminding us of a time when "bombs burst in [the] air" and an American, chest pounding in the night, wondered if the dream of freedom had survived, scanning the horizon to see if "our flag was still there." We are sobered by how terrifying freedom is to those who are enslaved by fear, hatred, and the constant, barbarous pursuit of ease.
We look soberly at one another as we receive the great gift that was given to us by our fathers and mothers in the forging of this great nation. We look at the history of American character and the history of the American lack of character. We grieve the crimes and injustices of our nation, and we celebrate the glories, the advancements, and the virtues.
We know that if it were not for freedom, injustice would never fear its own extinction. Without freedom we would simply continue to bury our crimes in festering graves, shackling our souls with a loathsome shame and an intensifying guilt.
So we remain vigilant in our days and nights. We debate. We struggle. We challenge and decide. We pursue a noble peace, a just society, a nation where our virtues extinguish our addictions, our corruption, and our irresponsibility. We seek to honor our country, our earth, our flag, ourselves, and each other. We do so in the sacred trust of freedom.