Happy fourth of July to everyone! It’s another day to gather with friends and family to celebrate one more year of independence in this country, one more year to pray and support and remember all of those who have sacrificed (and will continue to sacrifice) it all for sake of freedom. With all of this calamity and turmoil in the world nowadays (wildfires, storms and flooding, earthquakes, war, death, destruction) it feels good to forget about all the bad stuff and concentrate on more important things, like which brand of alcohol I’m going to drink in the beer garden at the fair, and how many fingers Uncle Hank with blow off this year because getting lit and “settin’ s**t on fire” is his idea of a good time.
It seems to me that for this one day each year, we put on our red, white, and blue knickers and don our Uncle Sam hats as if that’s what it means to be proud of our country. To me, it’s like we’re putting on a happy face and hoping we come off patriotic enough so our friends and family won’t criticize us. If we just put on one more layer of red, white, and blue…we’ll be just patriotic enough to fit-in with the rest of the crowd.
Every year this holiday gets more and more commercialized, becomes more in fashion to celebrate (don’t even get me started on Christmas), and celebrate a certain way. If we don’t have the $300 bag of fireworks, the special “4th of July” edition of beer, and go shopping on at least one of the days of the three-day sale, we’re suddenly un-American.
Personally, I love Independence Day. I love going to the fair and watching the fireworks, eating all the yummy fair-food, and driving to the beach and playing about the water. It’s just that during my, I guess you can call it my coming of age period, I’ve started to see things more simply and taken a less is more approach to celebrating holidays. I think the best way to celebrate a holiday like this is to meditate on what it truly means to you. It’s one thing to say “without those fighting for our independence and freedom, we would either not be here or be repressed in some way”. It is completely different to realize what that means. Studying the history of those countries who have limited freedoms or aren’t independent is an eye-opening experience. We kind of put ourselves in this bubble (in order to function properly day-to-day we have to) and as long as it’s not happening here, or in front of us, we are oblivious to it…except for those snip-its we see on the five o’clock news. If we could just take a few minutes to open our eyes to understand the condition of the world around us and be grateful for how great we have it here, we can really celebrate our freedom and independence because we will know what it means not to have either.
Our country is not without problems (poverty, homelessness, inadequate healthcare coverage, rising gas prices, pharmaceutical companies charging ridiculous amounts for prescriptions, etc), but today is a day we forget about the troubles in our country and we join hands and be thankful for what we do have (for those of you keeping score at home, the pros definitely outweigh the cons here).
So today, I choose to celebrate our independence by reveling in the freedoms I have. And giving thanks to those who have made it possible. And, not just the troops fighting for us, but I give thanks to my parents, my friends, and family…to those who have helped me along the way. I give thanks to those activists who stand up for what is right, and just, and fair in this country, because they understand freedom is independence and that if one of us is chained, none of us can be free.
