Tomorrow marks the birthday of our country, the day Congress approved the final wording for the Declaration of Independence. Some of us will eat hot dogs and cupcakes and watermelon. Some of us will watch fireworks. Hopefully, some of us will take a moment to think about the freedom that came as a result of the actions taken in Philadelphia during the summer of 1776.
We owe a great deal to those men. They took sparks of freedom burning in the words and actions of their forebears and fanned the flames like never before. It is a messy business, creating a new democracy, a new country from a scattered collection of colonies who perhaps had little in common other than a desire to be independent, which doesn't bode well for union if you think about it. The founders questioned each other; they must have sometimes even questioned themselves, but those men, they didn't let the largeness of the task smother the very flames they sought to ignite. Whatever our political opinions, we owe them respect and gratitude for tackling a task that, quite frankly, I doubt my generation would have the willpower and work ethic to see to conclusion. Because of them, we can air our differences, can speak our minds, can do what we want with really very few exceptions when compared with most people throughout history.
This was not the first independence day; it won't be the last. It is a notable because it is ours, and its story bears repeating as we gather in backyards and public parks, sitting with our families around campfires and picnic tables all over the country.
Tomorrow, my husband and I will tell our children about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams, but they will not be the only great men (and women) we remember. Really, the story starts long before the 18th century. I was not there on July 4, 1776, but
as a Mormon, I believe that all of us attended what I like to think of as the first independence day. In an era before time began, we stood on the Lord's side of the line and chose Christ's offer of free agency over Satan's plan of guaranteed redemption. All of us are, then, in some sense "founders" of our life here on earth, free to now select our own paths and pursuits as a result of our premortal choices.
Free agency is a tricky thing, though. With it we can create success, yes, but it gives us so much room to fail, so many opportunities to choose the wrong path. And to say that we are all independent minimizes our interconnectedness to a laughable extent. We are woven together in too many ways to name, in relationships so complex that their intricacies defy our ability to precisely define or describe them.
Here we are, stirred together in a human soup of love, friendship, duty, obligation, guilt, dislike, hatred sometimes, and every other feeling in between. Free to make our own choices. Free to take paths that hurt others, usually those who love us the most. Free even to infringe their freedom if we so choose. Ask any victim of domestic violence. Nothing feels more like a prison than a home where you are not safe. What a terrible mess.
This dual nature of agency knocks the breath out of me all over again today. Two of my six siblings were adopted out of foster care when my family lived in Houston. Parents are supposed to make choices that sacrifice self to protect their children. Meara and Lucien's first parents instead used their agency to wound the vulnerable spirits entrusted to their care. My parents have spent the past ten years trying to heal those early wrongs, but some wounds knit better than others, and not all patients are compliant.
Many of you know that my little brother was in a residential treatment program until about six months ago. Unfortunately, he has continued to make choices that make it impossible for him to be part of our family at this time. The relevant doctors say they can do nothing to help him. Our modern drugs attempt to control impulse, they say, and his actions are not impulsive. He is choosing the hurt he causes.
Yesterday, he chose not to return to live at home. Today, my parents signed over custody to the state for a 30-day period that will likely be extended before it expires. Oh, how our family wishes he had made a different choice at any one of a thousand crossroads that led to this interchange. How our hearts ache to have the boy we love separated from us as a result of his own actions.
It seems an impossible situation. In many ways it is. How could any God look down on these disasters we create with the freedom He gave us and say it was good?
But all is not lost. Because two millenia ago, the most important independence day took place. A man walked into a garden, then out to a cross, and all of us gained freedom once again. We became free to escape not only the hurt we suffer at the hands others but even the agony brought on by our own poor choices.
"For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent . . . ."
Tomorrow, we celebrate Independence Day. But it is not yet the 4th of July, and today, I do not celebrate my independence. Instead, I gratefully acknowledge my dependence on Jesus Christ, and I remember that we are never without hope because we can always choose to rely on Him.
